December 20, 2009

Yan & Kuching


It has been a long time since my last visit to Kuching, a beautiful, clean city with friendly people. The last time I visited Kuching was during the 6th PESAYA Games way back in 2003. I remember well the price of a particular souvenir cost me about RM5 then just only to understand that the price is one time higher now. I guest that’s why we can see lot lesser tourist especially from Semenanjung at the Main Bazaar. But on cleanliness, Kuching is the best.

That night, we had our dinner at the kiosk near the Sarawak river at the Kuching Waterfront. If only Rajah Brooke could see how beautiful Kuching were turn to be now, he would have all the military strength to ensure a continuous legacy of the Brooke.

On the other side of the river, we could see another Kuching’s signature building; it’s State Legislative Assembly Building which I believe is newly built (see pic above). What a beautiful building, at first I thought it was another masjid…


THE WHITE RAJAH

The history of Sarawak begins since 1830s. A peaceful place to live in until big demonstration against the Brunei Empire broke down in 1936 -1939. That was when James Brooke, an English adventurer came to the picture and volunteered to quell the revolt. He made it and has been appointed into Governorship. Soon after he managed to chased out the Brunei Sultanate entirely from Sarawak with the help of British Navy and one way or another forced the Sultanate to enter into agreement to take over Sarawak entirely. That was how ‘The White Rajah’ whom they called him became the first Rajah of Sarawak in 1841.

The legacy continues to Charles Brooke and Charles Vyner Brooke (the third Rajah) before it ended with the occupation of the Japanese in WWII. The Rajah fled to Sarawak but left Kuching especially with lots of colonial administrative building and also the famous Ford Margherita.

Sarawak gained its independence thru Malaysia in 16th Sept. 1963.


YAN

Of all the good things about Kuching, there’s one thing that spark my day. It can be in any place but it was in Kuching I bumped into Yan, nephew of mine who were relocating to Kuching with her husband, a doctor attached to Kuching’s general hospital. Yan and I grew up together, but she encountered more hard time with her life I guess, living with a drug addicted parent ……. Arwah mak sympathize lot with her trouble and once did ask me to take her hand in marriage, right after she finished her SPM (she was an ex-Setara). Kalau mak masih ada, I’d say to her..look mak, Yan now is happily married to a good man with 4 lovely kids. And mak would smile…

Earlier, morning Monday I received a call asking me to come back early to the office for an ‘important’ discussion on some VIPs’ visit :( At first I thought I could skip everything and go straight to Malacca for the family year end vacation…..mmmm!!

P/s – I interviewed a Sarawakian candidate by the name of Nurul Nabila which I believe a reflection of Ipoh Mom when she was at that age :o

1 comment:

ipohmom said...

Fadil... Masa muda I kurus tau! Hehe... Thanks for thinking of me!

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