Under the Weather

Looking out of the window now in these northern climes, to fallen autumn leaves on wet ground and the day in haze through rain-smeared window panes; spray-filled air under a massive, dull dome of clouds, I am reminded of the season of jo'ong.

Jo'ong made no burdens on our idle minds if there was the right food for thought. Normally it was ubi kayu in a pot of water with a dollop of salt, left to boil until the starch in the tapioca softened and its centre core took the cooked tapioca sheen of pearl and its thin spindle in the centre could be pulled or spat out. From the steaming pot it is taken out and laid onto a plate, beside a heap of sugar or coconut shavings mixed with salt. Mother sometimes threw a cooking banana (raja embong or bakaran) into the fire that was boiling some other noon-time dish in the belanga earthen pot. From out of our market-facing window we could see the upstream people (li. orang darat) running in the thin threads of rain that broke into splatters on their samir, a stiff cape made from dried leaves of the pandan, but for comfort in the weather they carried with them teh tarik piping-hot, in thuribles made from emptied condensed milk cans that had a ring of raffia attached as finger handle to their tops. Jo'ong was sad as it sounds, it was the monsoon, darkened sky, gusts of wind, and rain for weeks on end.

Rain came from everywhere, but in monsoon days the sea beat lashes of waves that foamed in the mouth, like mad dogs roaring and rolling on the sand. Bits of our Tanjong would be eaten by the sea, houses sometimes fell off the edge, water was our life and death, bloated cows washed down the river by mighty floods upstream, sometimes dead people came to rest in our Teluk, grey from days of being soaked in the flood. There were tree trunks and broken boats, and roots and waterlogged grass and tendrils and the buah gomok, a dark flat seed the size of a baby's palm, fallen from mighty trees somewhere in the interior, deep and hidden, parts that we only dreamt about on still, dark nights.

Kuala Trengganu had more people during on a monsoon day than when it was bright. The fishermen were snuggled in their bright sarongs on their veranda at home, kerepok makers were loitering about in search of work, sailors came ashore for fear from being thrashed about en route to Senggora, and Wang Kamang, our perahu besar man was among us, grounded by the winds and rain, ambling about in the kampung, this man who was seasoned by years on the ocean waves, his life showing in his rolling gait.

Sometimes the sun peeked out and the fresh brightness in the air cheered us a lot. Umbrellas of green waxed green paper were kept aside, trishaw pullers pulled back their rain-sheltering hoods, even the puddles were glittering and merry along the road side. Beneath our tall house were lines of damp washing that had hung there for days; Mother looked out of the window to the market to see if there was fish to be had to break the monotony of green leaves and blanched banana spadix (jantung pisang) dipped in belacan, or the occasional chicken that we occasionally culled from the cackling gok (coop) among the tall stilts beneath our house. Father came home from work in a thin plastic raincoat that came with a peaked cap, and then he folded them — hat and coat — into a rectangular plastic bag once shelter is reached. On the way to school, in the covered teksi (trishaw) of Pöaut;k Mat I heard the croaking of frogs as we passed the rain-lashed view of the marshland along Jalan Paya Bunga oppoiste the padi field now barren in the rain, on the edge of the village under the trees.

Our headmaster Mr Wee Biau Leng used a referee's whistle to attract attention, but in this rain-soaked weather it sounded dull and damp. We walked into class, socks drenched and hair dripping with rain and Brylcreem.

GUiT News If you are in London, Growing Up in Trengganu is now available from Stanford's, the travel bookshop in Long Acre, Covent Garden. In Malaysia, it is available at Kinokuniya KLCC, Times bookshops, and MPH. In Kuala Terengganu, at the Popular Bookshop and maybe even at the Pok Loh Yunang bookshop in Kedai Payang. "A beautiful book, very well written and with its vignettes of life it tells so much about the Malays - far more than one can get from academic studies." — Frederick Lees, author, Fool's Gold; The Arthuriad; The Rape of Rye; etc.