Coconut Tales

This was told to me by my father, and i shall use his first party narration .

“I grew up in tanjung karang, a small town near kuala selangor. My father used to loan small coconut plantation from some farmers, and arranged for workers to harvest, peel off and carry out the coconuts.

The collection workers will come early in the morning, and by 10am, they will be back with the first lot of peeled coconuts.
To peel off the coconuts, they will first poke a spike into the ground. Then, they will wrap a thick guni sack around their waist, like a cowboy jeans.
After that, they will poke the coconut onto the spike, and twist and turn the coconut to remove its husk. They will also use their waist (protected by the guni sack), to stop the spike from turning.
An expert can remove the husk in 5 seconds, but it is hard job. The pay is 2 dollars per 100 peeled coconuts.

Carting out the coconuts is hard work. They will pile up the coconuts, sometimes 200 to 300 of it, on their bicycles. Then push the bicycle out from the plantation to our house. When the path is muddy, they will help each other to push the bicycle thru the hard spots. But they have to be careful, as once they lost balance, all the coconuts will come crashing down, and they have to repile it again.
Rainy season is the best for me, as the irrigation canals between the coconut trees will be filled with shallow water, and the workers will use my father's sampan to bring out the coconuts.
My elder brother and i will wait for the workers to come out, pulling their sampan, and then both of us will jump into the sampan, and the workers will tow us along, and we get to enjoy our free ride.

The collected coconuts need to be processed, and it is done on a big barbeque stove in front of our house. The stove is divided into 3 sections.
The first section is used to dry the collected coconuts, which had been cut into halves. My brother and i will stack the coconuts, flesh side facing down. We must make sure we don't stack simply, and stack in such a way that the heat will be able to go into the flesh, to dry up the coconuts. This is done every evening after the day's collection is done.
The next morning, the workers will come around 5am, and they will start to remove the flesh from the coconuts in section 1. It will take them 1 to 2 hours to remove the flesh. After that, they will go off to the plantation.
My brother and i will then stack the coconuts again in section 2, as some of the flesh are still stuck in the shell.
We will also arrange the flesh in section 3, to be dried. Dried flesh are called “salai”, and sold by the guni sacks to middlemen, who will in turn sell it to factories.
“salai” are used to make coconut oil and other products. “

there, that's all i can remember, from what dad told me. Hope it is correct mostly, and feel free to correct me :-)

back

wow..back again since nov....
actually i forgot how to log in, and hence no post...
but actually was too lazy to write anything also, haha...

tonite got the inspiration from tomato, as she also posted her blog recently, haha..

well, nuff air talking ...will think of more meaningful stuff to write next time, cheers :)

Oldies

Listened to some oldies, and love Over the Rainbow, elvis – are you lonesome tonight and it’s now or never, If by bread(played for mom on her bday once, and promised to play for someone…), To sir with love by lulu(according to mom, it’s a story about a group of white kids headed by Lulu who hated their black teacher, but their black teacher finally won them over, and they sang this song out of gratitude), red river valley( one of the earliest guitar song I learned)..and lots more…its like a trip down memory lane…

Deepavali

Went to Indian temple with colleague for his deepavali prayers. This year, there’s a lot more people. The temple is painted with a variety of colors, and the ladies also wore a myriad of colorful saris, with purple, yellow, blue, red, green…it really is a festival of colors. Then we had a simple lunch of putu mayam (something like mee hoon) and dhal curry, with a vegetarian curry puff. All in, a fun time : )

Bishan

Met a secondary school friend online, and she’s working in bishan, Singapore.

I asked whether its beside ang mo kio, and she remarked I’m familiar in sg. To which I replied no lar, just that I have a frenster friend who’s staying at ang mo kio (I call her tomato, cos and mo kio means tomato in hokkien), and mentioned bishan to me a few times.

Realized that I’m having quite a number of frens in sg, and can save hotel bill by squatting at their place next time I visit sg :P

Jelly Ice cream

Had jelly ice cream, and thought about my primary school days ( I had a tendency to think a lot about the past, I think it’s a form of depression…heehee…). During school report day, my mum will treat me to jelly ice cream, if my result is good (average of 80 and above), else she will treat me rotan…

I like jelly cos it’s a bit hard, yet it melts in your mouth, especially if you force it between your teeth, that way, you get to savior the full taste of it…imho…

Lee Bing’s (李冰 ) dam

Lee Bing lived 2,500 years ago, in China.

He was the governor of the district of Shu (蜀), present day Sze Chuan(四川). At that time, the place was plague by flood and drought. He studied the river and terrain , and came out with the following solutions :

1. Construct a divider to divide the flow of water in to 2 parts, with part A flowing into the sea and part B use for irrigation. The divider(bamboo cage) is built using local materials, and stones to weigh down the bamboo cage.
2. Blast open a nearby mountain to divert the flow of part B. To do that, he built a dam to block the water around the water, and use a lot of firewood to heat up the mountain face. Then, using manpower relay, he organized villagers to splash water on the hot mountain face. This will force the stones to crack due to expansion and cooling, and the villages can chip away the stones more easily.
3. Sand carried by the river will get stuck between the stones in the bamboo cage, and the divider will be submerged under water. In order to wash away the sand, he made use of back flow(water flowing in opposite direction) of a narby river. Again, another mountain has to be chipped off to make a new water way.

The whole process took him 17 years. And the system is still in use today. The locals there said the Great Wall survived but is for show only, whereas Lee Bing’s dam survived and is still being used !

I admired and respect people, who do projects without worrying about how long it takes, as long as it is for the long term benefit of the majority.

“Kings and generals come and go, war and peace interchanges, and only the dam sees thru all this” – adapted from the local proverb in Shu.

Title change(?)

Sigh..with so many of my ramblings, maybe I should change my title to “Stories by brother Hau” (豪哥讲故)…. we’ll see how it goes…

Grandma’s cooking

Cooking reminds me of my grandma’s cooking…when I was a kid, whenever my grandma cooks, I will run up to her and shout “grandma! Grandma! What are you cooking?” and she will kindly say”be patient, my dear, I’m cooking something nice and delicious for you…” and whatever she cooks will be just plain delicious.

As I grow up, I will help her to chop onions, smash up ginger or garlic, peel prawns, peel onions(sniff), and be her assistant.

I tried experimenting a few times on my own, but I couldn’t get the same taste grandma did, the “childhood” taste. Once I asked her the secret of her cooking, and she chuckled and answered “my dear, I am your grandma, and you eat whatever I cook and nothing else, that’s why you will always remember my cooking. But you should always try to use fresh and natural ingredients, so that your food will always smell nice and taste good…:

Times had changed, as sifu taught me to eat for the sustenance of this body, and not for enjoyment, and I’m reminding myself before each meal. But there’ll always be the time where I will be reminded of grandma and her cooking, and the long gone days where I’m always her favourite baby….

Dinner @ home

Prepared a simple dinner for dad and myself. It’s simple, actually. Just throw in some baby shrimps(hea bi) into a pot of water. Throw in the maggi mee. Peel some cabbage in, chop some carrot in. Wanted to cut some tomatoes, but decided against it. Beat some eggs, and pour into the steaming soup. Stir the eggs till cooked. Couple with a piece of fried fish or a can of tuna/salmon/sardine, and you get a simple meal. Easy !

With all the copping, cutting and beating, I can even called it Kung Fu Mee, hahaha…Bon appetite !