A Dinosaur Park hidden inside a village

More than meets the eye.

By Foong Pek Yee

A Dinosaur Park inside a Chinese village comes across an intriguing mystery.
This is a common reaction when people first heard about the park.
The park with colourful replicas of dinosaurs and animals among lush greenery is certainly more than meets the eye.
It was champion in the Clean and Beautification Campaign by the housing and local  government  ministry in the early 1990s.
Datuk Ooi Jing Ting, an ex village chief,  says the villagers had decided to build the park to take part in the campaign.
“We formed a committee to raise money to come up with the park and continue to maintain it after the campaign,” says the visibly proud 66-year-old Ooi.
The well-maintained park and surroundings  says a lot about the villagers’ love for their village.
Jering Village is one of the 452 barb wire settlements called Chinese new villages set up by the then colonial government in Malaya during Emergency (1948-1960).
Today, most of the villagers are the second, third and fourth generation from the day their families settled down in the village.
In their 80s , Yu Kwong Tieng, Choi Sau Fong, Loi Heng See and Seow Kok Toh are the second generation.
Old friends : (from left) -Datuk Ooi Jing Ting,66,  Choi Sau Fong, 81, Loi Heng See, 80 and Yu Kwong Tieng 82.
Their fathers who were the  first generation came from China.
Seow, 86, remembers the shacks – literally a roof over their heads- was all they had when they first arrived at the village.
It was a type of temporary common housing for the early settlers before each family was given a plot of land and 100 Malayan dollars to build their house, he adds.
Good old days: Seow Kok Toh, a great grandfather, continues to cherish the days when he first arrived at the village as a  young man.
The villagers are mostly Foochows  and the dialect is widely used even among those from other clans.
Ooi who is a Foochow, was born and bred in the village.
According to him, there are more than 400 houses in the village.
Meeting place: The shops and coffeeshops are located in this part of the village.
Many of the villagers have moved to cities like Kuala Lumpur to seek a living over the years, and the village is a greying community these days.
The village’s  Chinese primary school, SJKC  Kampung Jering, has about 150 pupils now.
About 90% of the villagers are oil palm small holders, using the land given to them to plant rubber in the old days.
According to Ooi,  each house was given six acres of land to plant rubber; four acres given in 1957 and another two acres in the 1960s.
Nowadays, a typical day for the villagers is spend in the house, coffeeshop and oil palm holding.
Ooi says there are four coffeeshops in the village which open around 6.00am.
Villagers are early risers in this predominantly agricultural community.
The villagers find company in each other and coffeeshops is their favourite meeting place.
If there is anything that remains unchanged, Ooi says it is the villagers who remain close- knitted in good and  challenging times alike.
Filial piety also remains intact.
Ooi says many return to the village to pay respect to their ancestors during the annual Ching Ming festival.
But he says the number returning for major festivals like Chinese New Year is dwindling over the years  as some of them no longer have any family members living in the village.
About 20% of some 400 houses in the village are abandoned units these days.

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