Tag: clean and beautification campaign

The tree-lined road and lush greenery from the entrance to  Merbau New Village is a sight to  behold.

Located along Jalan Pantai Remis in Manjung, Perak, its 700 meter long “Great Wall ”  gives it a distinctive look from afar.

It was just like any other village until the early 1990s when it took part  in a clean and beautification campaign organised by the Housing and Local Government Ministry.

The village is among  a few villages in Manjung which emerged champion.

Adding to the joy of the Merbau villagers is that the Minister who initiated the campaign, Tan Sri Dr Ting Chew Peh, also grew up in the village.

And the village today is testimony to the campaign’ s success.

 Finishing touch : The little pagoda and children’s playground enhanced the landscaped garden.

Going all out  to spruce up their village some 30 years ago, what is most remarkable is that the villagers are able to maintain it well all these years.

Merbau New Village was once a barbed wire settlement under curfew during the Emergency (1948-1960)

Set up by the then colonial government, there are 452 such  settlements which were named new villages.

Fast track to the present,  the villagers are mostly second, third and fourth generation in the village.

Majority of some 200 attap shacks in the village in the early years have since been rebuilt into modern concrete houses.

There are  six coffeeshops in the village which serve as the meeting point for villagers rain or shine.

Fitness first: Exercise equipment for the villagers.

 Top priority: The villagers have education at heart, and this Chinese primary school in the village is more than 70 years old

Ayer Tawar town, about nine kilometers away,  is where villagers run their errands.

The village is a predominantly agricultural community.

In the very early days, each household was given a plot of land for them to build their house and plant vegetables, fruit trees and rear chickens and pigs.

Villagers sold the animals for money to pay for essentials like rice and education for their children.

In the old days, a  grand feast means having one chicken for the entire family during  Chinese New Year.

“We ate the entire chicken except the feathers,” recalls a former villager who is eldest among 10 siblings.

Life was hard but improved substantially  when the colonial government gave them land to plant rubber.

Many including Dr Ting grew up tapping rubber in the early hours of the morning before going to school.

There was no electricity supply in the old days.

The rubber tapper carbide lamp also double up as study lamp at night.

It was some 20 years ago when many of the rubber smallholdings were turned into oil palm smallholdings,  in favor for the less labour intensive  and more lucrative commodity .

From the 1970s , some villagers started venturing  out of the village in search for economic opportunities in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

A villager who introduced himself as  Soh Kow  says he went to work in Kuala Lumpur in the late 1970s, taking up different types of jobs, from construction worker to plain clothes security guard.

In his 60s now, he had returned to the village for good – bought some land and doing oil palm cultivation nearby.

He  says his children who have better formal education have more options in life.

“Unlike myself  in my era then, the  younger generation are in a position to chart their own future and they have my blessings,” says Soh.

For some, the village remains their only shelter during tough times.

A villager in his 40s, says he returned to the village shortly after the start of the Covid 19 pandemic.

“I was staying in Johor Baru and working in Singapore before the pandemic.

” I cannot afford staying in Johor Baru  when I don’t have a job.”

 And if there is anything that has remained unchanged over time, it is  their roots  in the village.