月度归档： 2021年12月

Gold fish brings good luck to the villagers

By Foong Pek Yee
14 Dec, 2021
ORNAMENTAL FISH is a symbol of all things good;- from abundance, prosperity , good luck  to success.
In  Gopeng – an ex mining town-  it has given it  a new lease of life.

The world tin market crash in the mid 1980s saw many mine workers turned to  gold fish rearing – turning ex mining ponds into fish farms.

Gopeng, about 18 km from Ipoh city centre,  gradually rose to become one of the top exporters of gold fish .
The rest is history.
Watching their graceful movements  is simply therapeutic, says Roy Lee of how ornamental fish can be a de-stressor.
On top of things: Roy is hands on in the business.
Keeping ornamental fish is a way to de-stress, says Roy who
rears ornamental fish in  Gopeng.
He also imports and exports the fish to countries like  India, Vietnam, Thailand and  Philippines.
Chalking up 20 years in the industry, a
 typical working day for him starts at 8.00 am and he only calls it a day 12 hours later.
 Remarkable:  Villagers turned ex mining ponds into fish farms in Gopeng.
Perseverance: Ornamental fish rearing is labour intensive.
At 51, Wong Choon Ming has chalked up 30 plus years as a fish farmer, and is still counting.
He says he started off with gold fish and has switched to Arowana some time ago.
Choon Ming says Arowana, also known as dragon fish (long yu in Chinese ), is a symbol of good luck and prosperity, and majority of the Arowana from Gopeng  go to the China market,
Fish farmer Chin Kean Wei, 56, says it is a tough business and he is glad that farmers in Gopeng are close and help each other to stay competitive in the market.
Kean Wei says he also counts himself lucky as his wife Aw Chen Chen, 48,  helps him in the fish farm .
Caring  touch : Chen Chen learned  to look after ornamental fish when she and Kean Wei started dating.
Kean Wei says the demand for ornamental fish peaks  during winter and ahead of the Lunar New Year.
It may be end of year and holiday season but work comes first, says Kean Wei.
A typical working day for Kean Wei is between 7am and 9.00pm.
 Law Tong Hai says his  passion for ornamental fish brings joy in the business.
This is  important as the line between work and personal time is blur in the life of a fish farmer.
“We must be hands on though we have workers to do the job,” says Tong Hai.
Apart from experience, he says continuing research  to upgrade fish rearing methods is also important.
Using  pandan plants to filter the excretion from the fish is  a result of research, he says, drawing my attention to the fresh aroma of the plant during my visit to his farm.
 While large scale fish rearing using concrete ponds is inevitable, Tong Hai believes there are  ways to create an environment that is as close to nature as possible for the fish.

Once a place for the elite

By Foong Pek Yee

13 Dec, 2021

IT is a landing place for helicopters and small planes.

It is also a place for polo – horseback ball game.

Located next to Gopeng town, this is a scene in then Malaya in the colonial era.

Watching the high society lifestyle, the locals called the place  “Fi Gi Chang”  or airport  in Hakka dialect and Lawan Kuda (horse fighting) in Bahasa Malaysia.

In a twist of fate, the place  was turned into a settlement during the Emergency (1948-1960) -Lawan Kuda New Village.

Fast track to the present, many elderly folk in Gopeng, a predominantly Hakka community, continue to call the village  Fi Gi Chang, says Gopeng Museum curator Phang See Kong, 82.

Phang also describes the villagers as an enterprising lot and he attributes it to the good feng shui in the village.

Pulse of the village: The wet market in Lawan Kuda New Village.

The main road  is flanked by restaurants, coffee shops, pharmacies, mobile phone shops, Chinese medicine shops, sundry shops, hardware stores and a yoga studio.

There is also a wet market and a hawker centre.

The latest addition is a 7-Eleven outlet and a courier service shop.

Peaceful and relaxing: Great way to start the day.

The villagers are also resilient and hardworking.

Many elderly, some in their 80s, continue to work.

It  was 6.30am on a recent Sunday where I stumbled upon a group of elderly women  gathering at a roadside near the village entrance.

They were waiting for their contractor  to assign them  part- time jobs

A woman by the surname  Wu told me that they got paid RM40 to work from 7.00am to 12 noon.

The do  farm jobs, like harvesting fruits and vegetables and  grass cutting

At 78, Wu says she has been doing part-time jobs since she lost her job in the tin mines in the 1980s.

She says there are many  part- time farm jobs  in and around Gopeng.

“We cycle or go on a motorcycle to farms nearby. The contractor will provide transport for faraway places like Tanjung Tualang,” says Wu.

It was hardly 7.ooam and many villagers were out and about – doing marketing, enjoying  breakfast, sipping tea, chatting and reading newspapers.

Cruising around: A routine enjoys by the villagers.

Ren He coffeeshop opens around 4.30 am and patrons are already waiting, says a worker selling dim sum there.

She says workers have to be at the coffeeshop by 3.00am to start preparing the food.

In the olden days , villagers  made their way to work at the rubber estates, tin mines and vegetable farms as early as 2.00am.

Many continue with the habit of rising early though they no longer have to go to the fields or mines.

To keep themselves economically active, some elderly continue to grow vegetables and fruit trees in their house compound and sell their harvest in the wet market.

As one villager put it: People in Lawan Kuda can survive as long as they are willing to work.