WHEN I was younger, my father did not teach me and my siblings by example in the way that teachers in school did, with blackboards and lectures and chalk dust in the air. A semi-literate man, he moved through life silently like a current under the surface, doing whatever needed to be done: planting paddy and other crops, building a bamboo bridge or raft, threading or knotting a fishing line, patching the ‘atap’ roof after a night of heavy rain. He seldom told us to follow and never insisted that we imitate him. But we observed and learned.
Our village, Kampung Ta-ee in Serian District, was as it is today, surrounded by dense jungle at the foot of Mount Sadung, from which a stony stream has been flowing for aeons. Up till the late 1960s, the houses were perched on stilts, raised above the soggy earth. The air was heavy with the scent of damp leaves and wood smoke. During the fruit season when the durians fell, the whole forest smelled sweet and wild.
My earliest memories are of crouching on a couple of planks that served as both a walkway and verandah that ran the length of our house, watching my father’s strong hands at work, cutting grass or trees, tying knots or shaping wood. He rarely spoke, except to remind us – gently, but firmly – when something was dangerous.
Once, when I reached for a ‘parang’ (machete) lying unsheathed on the ground, he caught my wrist and demonstrated how to pick it up, blade angled away from the body, fingers wrapped securely around the hilt.
“Never with your hand here,” he said, tapping the sharp edge. His voice was low, but his eyes held mine until the lesson settled.
The Bamboo Raft
One particular afternoon rises in my memory. I was ten, maybe eleven. The rains had swollen the river that flowed the length of our farmland several miles from our village, turning its clear waters brown and swift. Some older boys had dared each other to ride a driftwood log down to the big bend, where the current slowed before turning right. I watched, longing to join, while my father was at the water’s edge, checking the lashings on a bamboo raft he had built to cross the river for lack of a bridge.
He did not call me over, just worked silently. I edged closer, mimicking his movements: tightening knots, prodding the bamboo poles, studying how he balanced his weight when he stepped onto the raft. He looked up once, meeting my gaze, and then handed me a coil of rattan. “Try,” was all he said.
My hands fumbled at first, but I watched how his fingers moved – deft, sure, never wasting effort. When I tangled the cord, he did not scold. Instead, he undid the knots and showed me again, slower this time. We worked side by side, the air thick with mist and the shrill song of cicadas. In those moments, the world narrowed to the rhythm of work, the smell of sweat and wet earth, and the river’s gurgling voice.
It was only when we finished that he spoke again, pointing to the far side of the stream. “When you want to cross, do it here,” he said, indicating a shallow, sheltered spot. “Not there.” His hand swept toward the rapids, where the current could drag a child under in seconds. I nodded, my heart thumping as if I had narrowly escaped disaster. This lesson was crucial because we had a vegetable garden across the river to which we crossed at least once a day.
A Village in Shadow
In the 1950s and 1960s, our village was a cluster of perhaps two hundred or so families bound together by kinship and necessity. The jungle pressed close, its secrets older than the oldest among us. Sometimes, in the blue hour before dawn, you could hear the calls of monkeys echoing from the slopes of Mount Sadung, the mountain that watched over us.
My mother tended a garden in the compound of our house between the village and the edge of the jungle. She taught me how to plant vegetables, but it was my father who taught me patience and persistence – not with words, but with the slow, deliberate way he moved through the world.
One weekend, my father woke me before sunrise and handed me a woven basket. “Come,” he said, and I followed, rubbing sleep from my eyes.
We walked in silence, his machete clearing the path. When we reached a muddy clearing, he knelt and showed me the tracks – sharp imprints in the earth, dew still fresh.
He explained how to read the signs: the direction of travel, the freshness of the prints. Again, he let me try, correcting my guesses with gentle patience. It was not just hunting he was teaching me, but how to read the language of the land.
The Lost Puppy
Around this time, a small dog wandered into our farm, ribs showing through its matted fur. It whimpered, too frightened to approach but too hungry to leave. We tried to lure it with scraps, but it darted away and hid at the bush.
My father watched me watching the dog, and one evening, as we cooked ‘lemang’ by a bonfire in front of our farmhouse, he said, “You cannot force trust”. He placed a bit of rice leftovers and some bones on a leaf on the ground and waited. The puppy crept closer, drawn by the scent.
For days, we repeated this ritual. Gradually, the puppy inched closer, until one morning it dared to lick my outstretched hand. The joy I felt was strangely deep, as if I had won a prize only I understood.
My father smiled, saying nothing. In that moment, I realised he had been teaching me patience all along – not just with knots and traps, but with living creatures, and with my own restless heart.
The Storm in the Night
One night, a storm broke over the farmland. The wind raged, rain drummed on the roof, and lightning split the sky. Soaking wet in the dark, my father emerged at the doorway, saying that one of the irrigation bunds in the farm was leaking badly. He feared that the rising water might damage it further. In addition, some of the water gates had to be opened so that excess water could escape.
I was a little boy, but I knew the drill because it had happened before. Without a word, I lit a reflector lamp – there were no flashlights those days – and followed my father while protecting the lamp from the rain with a wide-brimmed bamboo hat. My part was to make sure that my father could clearly see what he was doing.
He was calm, unhurried, and not once did he raise his voice. I don’t remember how long we were outside, but by the time Father was satisfied that he had done everything possible to protect the paddy fields, the storm had stopped.
The Stranger’s Arrival
A stranger came to the farmland one day, surprising us greatly because outside visitors were rare those days. He carried a battered backpack and two big gunny sacks balanced on a bamboo shoulder yoke. He spoke Malay with an accent none of us recognised. He said his name was Atan, and he was collecting specimens for a university. From his sacks he took out gifts of salt and sugar, and several of us children flocked around him, fascinated by a strange contraption in his backpack. He explained that it was a camera.
My father was wary, watching from a distance as Atan set up his tent near the river. Some of the neighbours debated whether to allow the stranger to enter the forest. Some worried he might anger the spirits; others didn’t want him to get lost; while still others hoped he had news from outside.
Curiosity got the better of me. One afternoon, I followed Atan as he photographed an orchid blooming on the riverbank. He crouched in the mud, lens focused, oblivious to the buzzing mosquitoes. Lest he got lost, I guided him along the jungle paths in the area that only we boys knew.
That evening, my father asked where I had been. I told him, expecting anger, but he only nodded. “Be careful,” he said. “The jungle is not just trees and animals. There are things you do not see.”
When Atan left, he gave me a notebook and a pencil, urging me to write down the stories of the farms and village. I began, hesitantly and in broken sentences at first, then with growing confidence. In both English and Bidayuh, I wrote about the mountain, the stream, the wild pigs, and the puppy at my feet. I wrote about my father, his silent lessons woven through every memory.
It took me years to understand that learning by example is not always obvious. It is the accumulation of small moments: a hand on your wrist, a knot retied, a word spoken in the quiet after a storm. My father’s way was not the way of books or classrooms, but it shaped me more profoundly than any formal lesson.
More than six decades have passed. Now, as I walk the paths of my childhood in memory, I see how much I owe to those silent teachings.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at www.hayhenlin@gmail.com
