My Longkang

Todays’s guest piece is from a comment written by Sarawakiana She is one of my favorite writers and knowledgeable about a lot of stuff. She is what my late dad would have described as eaten more salt than I have eaten rice I write posts. She writes beautiful compositions. Sometimes a little lengthy but like a good boy I would read until the very end.

She describes herself as a journeywoman traveling paths in Sarawak and other parts of the world to write and to photograph scenes which may be too common and forgettable to some but are treasures to her children and her.

Ladies and gentlemen ( drum roll ) I present ; Sarawakiana

Ladies and gentlemen ( drum roll ) I present ( catcalls, wolf whistles ) ; Sarawakiana

From Durian festival

I come from an era where durians were judged by the tree (from Kampong Nangka or Sg. Bidut) and we would even know which tree in the Kampong…We based our purchses on trust. And this was honored.

From Durian festival

The durians were never wrong.

From Durian festival

Our durians belonged to the sallers or middlemen and sometimes we were told that one particular tree had been total “ta pao” by a tycoon. So no chance to eat that.

From Durian festival

Later when timber money came in no one could eat and buy durians in this way any more. All the good durian trees were booked.

From Durian festival

Then development came in and the durian trees of Kampong Nangka made way for housing…..Population explosded and durians came from all over the place now…

I always felt good when my dad took us to the kampong to buy durians freshly fallen from the trees…

From Durian festival

those were the days when you get real value for money…like I said…you even could thank the trees for giving you the durians…

I have been cheated in Kuching …at 40 ringgit per fruit….I should have been wiser…and asked about the tree and the kampong…hahahaha.

Note : pics taken from durian eating competition at Nirvana Memorial Park, King of Durians Festival.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Guest blogger. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.