{"id":2870,"date":"2022-05-21T09:39:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-21T09:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/?p=2870"},"modified":"2022-05-21T12:28:51","modified_gmt":"2022-05-21T12:28:51","slug":"a-struggle-to-keep-family-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/a-struggle-to-keep-family-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"A struggle to keep family tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Destiny: Ah Thim and his world<\/strong><\/div>\n
By Foong Pek Yee<\/div>\n
foongpekyee@gmail.com<\/a><\/div>\n
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IT is a scorching hot afternoon.<\/div>\n
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But it is also any other day for Ah Thim.<\/div>\n
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From afar, he cuts a lonely figure in the vegetable farm.<\/div>\n
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At 54,\u00a0 he has been a farmer since a teenager; with his life revolving\u00a0 around his family, farm and Kanthan Baru New Village in Chemor, Perak,\u00a0 where they stay.<\/div>\n
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As fate has it, Ah Thim was inducted into farming after his eldest brother’s death.<\/div>\n
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Recalling the tragedy losing his 20-year-old brother, Ah Thim who is second among four sons became the de facto head of his family – by Chinese tradition- in a then conservative society.<\/div>\n
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He has another five sisters.<\/div>\n
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As the de facto head,\u00a0 Ah Thim was expected, if not duty bound,\u00a0 to become a farmer, taking after his father and grandfather who were farmers and keeping the family together.<\/div>\n
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He became head of the family after his father passed away.<\/div>\n
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Fast track to the present, Ah Thim, as head of the family, stays with his 80-year-old plus mother and a younger sister who is single in their ancestral home.<\/div>\n
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He says the sister and a younger brother helps out in the farm.<\/div>\n
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Toiling on about an acre of land, planting turnips and spring onions, Ah Thim says that is their source of income.<\/div>\n
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He spends most of his waking hours in the farm.<\/div>\n
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“I am here by sunrise and work till late evening. In between I go home for lunch,” he says.<\/div>\n
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Vegetable farming can be\u00a0 a back breaking job but Ah Thim is not complaining.<\/div>\n
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“I will continue to do my best. I am used to this way of life.”\"\"<\/div>\n
Quiet and peaceful: A man fishing at a lake nearby\u00a0 Ah Thim’s farm<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
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According to some elderly villagers, farming was their lifeline since their forefathers set foot in Chemor in the 1920s .<\/div>\n
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The lack of formal education, exposure and job opportunities saw many villagers continue to depend on\u00a0 farming for a living despite all odds stacked against them these days.<\/div>\n
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Topping their list of woes is\u00a0 land issues which surfaced about 17 years ago.<\/div>\n
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Farmers who have no legal documents on their farmland would have to make way once the land is earmarked for development.<\/div>\n
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In the case of Ah Thim, he is now left with about an acre of farmland only.<\/div>\n
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While he is worried over losing his last acre to development, he says he has to depend on the Persatuan Petani\u00a0 Moden Chemor (Chemor Modern Farmers Association) for help on land issues.<\/div>\n
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“The matter is too complicated for me to understand,” he adds.<\/div>\n
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Amidst all the uncertainties, he is visibly happy when he spoke on his only\u00a0 child- a son-\u00a0 who is working in Singapore.<\/div>\n
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No matter what,\u00a0 Ah Thim says he is always grateful waking up to a new day. .<\/div>\n
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Destiny: Ah Thim and his world By Foong Pek Yee foongpekyee@gmail.com IT is a scorching hot afternoon. But it is also any other day for Ah Thim. From afar, he cuts a lonely figure in the vegetable farm. At 54,\u00a0 he has been a farmer since a teenager; with his life revolving\u00a0 around his family, … Continue reading “A struggle to keep family tradition”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[192,193,190,189,191,172,177],"class_list":["post-2870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","tag-chemor","tag-destiny","tag-family-tradition","tag-farmer","tag-land","tag-new-village","tag-vegetables"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2870"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevillagemyhome.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}