JEWELLE TAN

This is the ninth year that I missed celebrating Kaamatan, the harvest festival for the Kadazandusuns of Sabah.

Sadly, I don’t really missed this much because for as long as I can remember - even from the times when my paternal grandparents still run a paddy field, Kaamatan has always been just a festival of merry-making - involving a lot of partying and drinking.

I have never witnessed any ceremony and the only bobolian (high priestess cum medicine woman) I knew only administered me when as a baby or little girl, I was spooked by something. Perhaps the villages of both my parents did not observe the rituals of this festival as some other villages do - or perhaps we, being town kids, were spared of these ceremonies by our parents as they would definitely bored us out of our young minds then.

Worse, as Eu told me indignantly today “How can you be a Kadazan yet you cannot speak Kadazan!”

But it is true - we have escaped from learning the language from the very convenient excuse of  having parents from different races - although, my mother to her credit, understood the language well, manipulated this ability to get discounts when she shopped (one of the few occasions when she’d speak Dusun) and no one in my father’s village speak to her in anything but Dusun.

It is a pity that as I kept increasing my knowledge of the Chinese culture (not the language though) and many other cultures, I realised that I do not know much about my own.

So in the spirit of the Kaamatan which had just passed, I made sure I get some doses of Sabahan cultures daily.

I was thrilled to catch this Kadazandusun telenovela (with excellent cinematography) titled Bambazon on TV last Friday, perfectly coincided with the Kaamatan weekend. And although I had to read the subtitles during the Kadazandusun dialogs, it made me homesick to hear them speak.

Then I started to find all those Kadazandusuns song which I grew up listening to - from the mouth of my father (who’d hummed them every so often) to family members who would belt various Kadazandusun songs during parties (and you would be surprised to know that our local music industry is thriving one).

I thought this “Proton Saga Kelabu” is one of the most famous Kadazandusun song - even though there are a lot of Malay lines. And you are not a proper Sabahan if you have never heard the never-recorded but much sang “Proton Saga Colour Grey”, the English version of this song.

Of course, most of us Sabahans are very easy going with a big sense of humour. And this is a video (Sabahan Malay) of what typical Sabahans  find hilarious. You might think that it’s incomprehensible or even silly. But a Sabahan like me could laugh like mad listening to lines such as this “...Kanapa? Kanapa kunun?…“.

I might be far from home but thanks to technology, my culture is never something I need to be at home to experience.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Not only did I missed the first ever night time GrandPrix Formula 1 race in Singapore this weekend, I also missed another family event back in Sabah.

One of my cousin had his engagement ceremony this afternoon.

As I looked through the picture collection at my sister’s site, I noticed two predominant theme : batik and lilac!

Being fully attired in batik was expected since it’s their family business. And since lilac is one of my favorite colour in my mellow mood, I can only imagine that it must have been a beautiful affair.

Full report here : Congrats To Octivian & Elly!

In the meantime, my sister and her fiance just passed their first year of engagement and it sure did not feel so. My husband and I was engaged for 3 years before we got married. But to me, there was no obvious difference to our relationship - except that it made visiting each other much “easier”.

I know that some folks do not believe in getting engaged and in all honesty, I don’t really see much point to it either except in certain situations such as mine since we had a long distance relationship and there is the matter of family face to be considered.

So married folks out there, why did you get engaged and how long were you engaged before you tied the knots?

And to my cousin and his fiance, congratulations and we look forward to the big day!

Popularity: 6% [?]

My husband adored the cool climate in Tambunan, my father’s hometown, being on a highland and still surrounded by thick forests.

Perhaps it’s also because Kota Kinabalu, being a congested city, can be extremely hot for us who are used to cooler Lumut - my kids can play outside comfortably until 9 am at home while in Kota Kinabalu, 8 am is already scorching hot.

So after asking for nearly every trip that we made back to Sabah, I finally gave in to my husband and on our recent June trip, we made a one night stay in Tambunan.

From Penampang onwards (the last town before it started going uphill), the road is very windy and it’s good that my kids sleep easily in the car.

I was also happy to note that there were less logging trucks that used to be a bane to cars as it’s hard to overtake what with being uphill and very tight corners.

Mu husband was excited with having to drive through thick fog and I was thrilled to see our thermometer registered a cold 19°C as we reached the summit of Gunung Alab, where we stopped for lunch and where I found very delicious soto.

My father’s village in along the Tambunan-Ranau road and I was informed that Brunei-registered vehicles have been spotted along the road, perhaps on their journey to and fro the east coast towns (Ranau, Sandakan & Tawau).

On the evening that we arrived, brought the kids to Tambunan Village Recreational Centre (TVRC) for their fish pond. My kids had a taste of walking along the suspension bridge and I was impressed that both of them had no problems with this.

Like the rest of Tambunan, TVRC was also quiet but the kids had fun feeding the seriously huge fish that filled the pond and we even saw one that was probably about one metre long!

We spent the rest of the evening and morning at home, enjoying the lush scenery as we had open fields in front of our balcony, the cool breeze and peace. This is another village whose youths have mostly migrated to the urban areas and on ordinary days, there are probably less than 200 people around.

Averaging at only 28°-22°C throughout our stay here, it had ceased to be as cold as it used to be decades ago when it was practically freezing for our young bodies and my grandparents then-bamboo house guaranteed constant flow of cold breeze day and night.

20 years ago, there were no electricity and food was cooked on wooden stoves and even now, whenever I smell any wood burning, it would instantly brought me back to the days when we visit my grandparents.

Like my husband, my father adored the peace and cooler temperature that his kampung afforded and it’s no surprise that the1.5 hour drive from our Kota Kinabalu home is not on obstacle for him and although he has settled out of Tambunan for decades, his heart is still here and there is little that he does not know about his hometown - even the rarely climbed Gunung Trusmadi which my parents scaled last year.

We did not manage to introduce the kids to the fun of bathing in the river and we missed the opportunity to visit Mahua waterfall, which is a mere 5 km from our house.

But we enjoyed the short trip and perhaps next time, we will stay longer.

Popularity: 10% [?]

A few days ago I read one statement from the Brunei Tourism Development Department Director from the local paper.

“Mass tourism is not our target”

I could not give you the link to this news as for some reason, I could not find it anywhere online. The strangest thing is, while you could google the phrase, none of the search result will give you the actual article. It’s as if it has been deleted - try it and let me know if you found the article.

But this statement struck me as even common sense would tell anyone that those establishments which have had to spent tons of money to keep themselves afloat - with hotels occupancy rates averaging at only 50% in 2007 - could not be very happy to be told that having too many tourists are not in the country’s interest.

It’s also not helping when only B$1 mil is allocated to tourism development!

To give you some idea of how much (or how little) that is, last year some B$50 mil were allocated to re-surface roads which could not be more than 50km in distance. In short, B$1 mil = re-surface 1km of road.

What hope does our tourism industry have then?

On a lighter note, ONE of the result of having a bigger tourism budget (Sabah allocated RM12 mils for 2008) is that we get spectacular cultural showcase which impresses not only foreign travellers who are lucky to be in Sabah right now.

But which pleases even Sabahan such as myself who wish that I could be home to witness the myriad of sounds and colours that Sabah Fest always brings.

One of the performance at the Sabah Fest Cultural Show (Image by Caneeliea)

Courtesy of my sister who attended the Sabah Fest Cultural Show at the Magellan Sutera Hotel, here are more pictures of the colourful extravaganza - Part 2 & Part 3.

The only thing missing is the music and having attended such shows before, I can assure you that these are the kind of shows which you cannot miss if you are in Sabah.

Popularity: 7% [?]