HE introduced himself in a way that would be hard to forget.

“I’m Thomas Lim Eng Guan, not Lim Guan Eng,” he said, laughing.

Lim is a humble retiree from the Rajang Valley – specifically, Rantau Dilang.

You might wonder how a Chinese man could come from the Iban heartland of the Rajang Valley. Yes, there are tales to be told by this Iban-English-Hokkien speaking Chinese man of mixed ancestry.

Although he has written a book with friends’ help about his life’s work in Kanowit, Julau, Pakan, and other places in the ulu, his unwritten stories are even more interesting and impressive.

He is a filial son of Sarawak, a talented man, a good friend, and a helpful health assistant at a government clinic before he retired.

If you happen to run into him in the ulu, he would ask “uda makai” (have you eaten already) even before he knew your name.

Lim’s Chinese great grandfather sailed from mainland China to Melaka, then Kuching.

The grand patriarch, then 25, married an Iban, Rando, from Bawan Assan. The couple had five children. One of the daughters Tay An Tan was Lim’s grandmother. Tay’s daughter, Freda Tang Ah Suan, was Lim’s mother.

Hard years

Lim was born in 1941 and grew up in the Rajang Valley where he lived through the terrible days of the Japanese Occupation.

Those were hard years. He saw his maternal uncles dodging the onslaught of the Japanese by pretending to be Ibans and living among them in the Kanowit area.

Growing up in the ulu among the Ibans, he had seen bloodshed and experienced hunger and war-time fears like many people during those uncertain times.

He was encultured and assimilated into Iban adat and norms. If you listen to him closely, you could detect a trace of Kanowit accent in his spoken English.

 

Flair for languages

Lim attended only one year of Chinese primary education in a school three hours by boat from his parents’ hut. He always arrived in school at noon or thereabouts – some three hours after lessons had started.

He attended Primary 1 in 1950. As he was an excellent student, he studied in that class for only six months before being double-promoted to Primary 3 in the second half of the year.

However, after a year, he had to stop schooling when his mother fell seriously ill.

Another year later in 1952, he went back to school and was taught by an English nun at St Francis Xavier Primary School in Kanowit. He was always top of his class. Later, he became a Roman Catholic and was baptised by Rev Father Bruggeman.

Lim’s hopes of entering secondary school in 1958 were dashed as he was considered overage according to the colonial education policy at the time.

Though he passed the Primary 6 Common Entrance Examination, he was too old at 17 – one year above the permissible age – to attend Form 1.

He had to quit school as his parents could not afford to send him to a private secondary school in Kuching.

 

Helpful health assistant

He got the job as a hospital assistant in a rather unique way. One day, he met Simon Chen, the hospital assistant, managing the Kanowit government clinic.

Chen asked whether Lim wanted a job at the clinic. Although one of the duties was cleaning dirty toilets, he did not hesitate to accept. He wasn’t afraid of the sight of blood and stool.

He started working as a government clinic assistant or attendant on Jan 1, 1960, at age 20, earning a monthly pay of $90.

He was happy he got the job despite having to work seven days a week.

One of his job experiences was operating a mobile clinic. He escorted patients to Lau King Howe Hospital in Sibu, treated patients from longhouses and spent a lot of time travelling along the Rajang.

Lim has a good command of the Iban language.

“There’re lots of words, both English and Iban, which we use and from that, we know where we come from.

“This is how we identify our roots – from the special vocabularies we use. Some words are very rare and only those from specific areas can recognise them.

“It’s like a kind of linguistic DNA. If you use a certain term and I recognise its origin, we become friends.”

His flair for language has endeared him to many of his ulu patients as well as his superiors and friends in the areas where he worked.

For instance, Dr Whitlam, the Sibu Divisional medical officer, brought him along whenever he visited the Iban areas.

When Dr Whitlam asked Lim to repair the rundown Pakan clinic before reopening it in 1970, the latter did a commendable job.

Lim was subsequently transferred to Pakan and promoted to an ulu dresser and officially qualified to examine patients and prescribe medicine.

He told thesundaypost, “You could imagine what a great honour that was for a Primary 6 graduate.”

Woodcarving

In 1995, Lim took up woodcarving as a hobby, being a long-time admirer of carved wood furniture from Indonesia. He bought a set of tools and started delving into woodcarving and even taught a few students the artisan art.

He said he loved carving the figure of Jesus, the Saviour, on wood. His works were featured in The Borneo Post, attracting a lot of buyers.

Today, he only has a few pieces left, which he will keep as heirlooms.

One of his favourite carvings is of the Last Supper, which he said he must have sold half a dozen of.

His faith has inspired him to develop a strong base for his art and a strict religious outlook on life.

 

Firm but kind

According to a friend in Miri, Lim was in charge of the TB and Leprosy section at the Miri Polyclinic. He was both firm and kind-hearted in his work.

Although he advised TB patients to take their medication regularly, some were stubborn and did not follow instructions.

Lim spent a lot of time, explaining the various treatments and medications to his patients. Most of the time, he managed to convince his patients to take their medication regularly.

He felt sad when he lost a patient. One died because he refused to take his medicine as advised.

The patient stopped his medication after a month, claiming western medicine did not help him. So the patient went to a witch doctor who told him his spirit was possessed. The shaman performed many exorcism rituals but the patient got worse and died.

His relatives came to see Lim to relay the sad news, saying how they wished the patient had listened to Lim instead.

That was how close he was with his patients and their families whom he calls his friends.

Lim said he always tried his best to explain medical terms to the patients in Iban.

 

Skin problem

On his work at Polyclinic Miri, he said regularly examined and diagnosed patients, adding that his heart always went out to those diagnosed with leprosy.

“When a patient came to me and complained about skin problem such as panau (tinea versicolor), I would be very suspicious because that’s first signs of leprosy.

“When the patient’s tissue was sent to the lab for further testing, the result would usually be leprosy. I was often right on this.

“I would encourage our doctors to know about tropical diseases related especially to the skin.

“The leprosy stigma stays with patients. I have been to the Brooke Memorial Hospital in Kuching and seen so many graves of the patients. Many were even buried with their family members. Their children married the children of other leprosy patients.”

Lim left a large part of his heart with the leprosy patients when he retired. He was never afraid to work among them. And he knows modern medication offers cures.

After retiring, he was employed by an oil palm company to head its plantation clinic. He got to make more new friends from industry and the business world.

 

Helping out

Now living in Miri and into his 80s, Lim has many friends to call on whenever he wants to chat over a cup of kopi-o.

He is always happy to advise his friends on health. As the plantation company still needs his assistance, he still travels to the ulu every now and then.

A good friend commented, “People still call him whenever they have medical questions. He is one of the old-timers who learned throughout his working life and became extremely knowledgeable.

“His life experiences are so rich that he is enriching the lives of others by sharing the experiences with them.

“This is rare for someone who only had less than four years of formal education. It’s indeed admirable that he has dedicated his life to helping others to have good health.”