Of avocados, smoked mackerel and a ‘Son of Sarawak’

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Joshua’s locally-grown giant avocados weigh about half a kilogramme each.

IT’S been a very busy week; I started by meeting up with one of my oldest friends, Joshua Voon Boon Hoe, whom I had gone to St Thomas’ School with since 1957, and has now ended up with some of the best-tasting giant locally-grown avocado from his farm in upcountry Kampong Landeh.

After school, Joshua had gone on to Universiti Malaya and graduated with a Degree in Agricultural Research; he then joined the Sarawak Department of Agriculture and had become both a colleague and a good friend of my dad, Ong Kee Bian, who was then-officer in the Inland Fisheries.

They both had a great interest in the cultivation of various tropical fruits and their common love for avocados had bonded their friendship. Indeed, I remember it was as early as in the 1970s when they were already into avocados, long before the current craze for it among the health-conscious Gen-X and Millennials.

Today, Joshua has a thriving farm filled with a large variety of plants, fruits and other growing greens, browns and yellows. He probably has the most varieties of avocados in a single farm in the state!

He is famous for his dabai, nangka, mangoes and durians as well.

It was fortuitous that we had found ourselves (and families) worshipping at the same church (St Faith’s in Kenyalang Park) in the 1990s, and now at its offshoot Tabuan Jaya Anglican Church, popularly referred to as TJAC.

Joshua and his wife Rosalind are both very active in church work, besides being almost fully occupied with their work at their farm and other enterprising endeavours.

I always look forward to Joshua’s gigantic avocados – usually weighing about half a kilogramme each, and has very tasty, creamy and fragrant flesh inside – he can’t harvest them fast enough for his long list of regular friends and customers!

Joshua and I had spent our primary and secondary school years together till the final two years, when he had gone to the Science stream, and myself into Arts. Our fellow classmates had included well-known figures like Philip Yong, Philip Chang, Vashdev Khialani, Datuk James Chan, Edward Chai, Abang Affandi Anuar, Dr Akbar Ibrahim, Douglas Telajan, Datuk Abang Wahap Abang Julaihi, Yeo Kee Liang, Yusup Sobeng, David Ting, Andrew Wong Chee Kong, George Pang, Datu Winsel Ahtos, Tan Sri Datuk Aamr Wilson Baya Dandot, and briefly too, Datuk Goh Leng Chua, and of course our new ‘Premier’, Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg.

Mid-week, I had met up with a couple whom I have known for over 20 years, a Dutchman Jacobus Witte (‘Co’ for short) and his lovely wife Mina Trang, who resides in a beautiful homestay tucked away among the pristine padi-fields and hilly jungle scapes of Kampong Pelaman Payang near Beratok, on the way to Serian.

Co had worked for the Fokker Friendship aircraft company and had met Mina, who’s from the Bario Highlands, in Kuching many years ago.

Good fortune smiled at us when we were introduced to the very friendly couple by Lillian and Ib Larsen, a Danish couple from Copenhagen who, at the time, was renting my house.

Co had, by then, retired and was an expert craftsman working on carpentry works, and he specialised in old antique Dutch clocks.

He was also producing something that I had, for the very first time, eaten at his farm at Mile 29 – smoked Norwegian-imported mackerels that he smoked himself in his backyard, and they were absolutely delicious!

Co’s smoked Norwegian mackerels are simply superb tasting!

They go extremely well-accompanied with a well-chilled beer, or a glass of crisp dry white wine.

We’ve always ensured to have ourselves a constant supply – his prices are so reasonable (RM15 for medium size, RM18 for large), you’d be pleasantly shocked!

Together with two other very good friends, Glen MacNair and Peter Ting, we’d spend our weekends up at the Wittes, having a great time with wonderful food, grand company and very pleasant chit-chats, reminiscing about the past.

Mina herself is an excellent chef and she works wonders with what she’d call her private garden patch of wild plants, ferns, leaves, shoots and shrubs to be found around her backyard.

We once had a splendid and astonishingly delicious and most amazing meal that she had concocted out of just what she had found and plucked from her garden of earthly delights.

I actually had my first taste of the wonderful leaves of the cucumber, sweet potato and other ferns at Mina’s versatile kitchen.

Towards the end of the week, I had met a new friend: his name is Edward Lakin Mansel, a Eurasian of Japanese-Bidayuh and English descent. At the legendary age of 80, he has just launched his book ‘Son of Sarawak’ – a 136-page self-published autobiography in 11 chapters, with scores of archival historical photographs for just RM30! (Contact the author personally for a copy – his number is +6013-8097747).

Award-winning tourist guide Edward Lakin Mansel, has just launched his book, ‘Son of Sarawak’.

Edward was educated at St Thomas’ School and had served for 35 years in the research branch of Sarawak’s Department of Agriculture.

After retirement, he had become a freelance certified tourist guide and won the ‘Best Tourist Guide Award’ at national-level (2001/2002) and at state-level (2003). He was awarded ‘Outstanding Park Guide’ in 2011/2012.

An illustrious career indeed!

Edward writes as though he’s speaking directly to you; he’s the guide and you’re the tourist, listener, or reader. His English is down-to-earth and easy to understand, and he doesn’t embellish his descriptions.

His tales are mostly anecdotal and you know that it’s all from his own personal first-hand experience of what he’s seen and done and heard or read about.

There’s very little or no embellishments at all.

His choices of photographs, which are included in the book, come from many sources – from the Sarawak Museum Archives, his personal friends, the Internet and Google, and from his own family collections. Many are shown for the first time and amazingly, the quality of most of the pictures are pretty good and they all serve some historical value.

Edward’s story starts with his own early origins and his parentage; then quickly ventures into the Brooke era, the Pacific War period of 1941 to 1945; to Sarawak’s liberation and how it became a Crown Colony.

I enjoyed the parts of his own personal life – of his early school days and living with the Brandah family (also friends of my family), of his brief spell in Brunei and also eventual return to Kuching.

Photo shows Mansel’s just-launched book, ‘Son of Sarawak’.

Most interesting too were his working life in the Agriculture Department, the turbulent years of the Brunei Revolt in 1962, and his later life as he ventured into the field of tourism.

For those of the younger generation who’d like a short but comprehensive history of Sarawak since the days of the British Colony, you can’t go wrong with reading Edward’s fine historical perspective – I’d recommend it wholeheartedly!

Tucked away at the end of the book are 13 pages of archival photos that he has shared with us – and also a small announcement that he is working on a series of three other books at this moment in time: ‘A Walk with Nature’ series, the ‘Agriculture Crops’ series, and ‘A Pictorial Guide to the Sarawak Cultural Village (A Compilation)’.

I do look forward to these books when they are published – don’t be like George RR Martin and make us wait forever, eh Edward…?

Thank you Joshua, Co and Mina, and Edward for giving me such a very interesting and fulfilling week!

May God Bless you all!