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I remember Uncle John boiling coffee in a tin pot on a rusty kerosene stove at midnight. It was odd and amazing how he always seemed to be cooking or frying something at such strange hours whenever I spent the night at his house in the southern end of our village.
That night, I was too sleepy to return home after listening to a country music programme on his battered old radio, so I decided to stay over, knowing my parents wouldn’t worry. They trusted Uncle John completely; he was dependable and caring.
Most midnight culinary sessions found Uncle John shuffling around the kitchen, simmering onions, dried anchovies, and vegetables in an old cast-iron wok. Even when I was already asleep, the heavenly smell wafting through the air never failed to wake me up. I was sure the neighbours smelled it too.
Uncle John preferred the quiet of the night and was naturally more introverted. He would mumble and curse as he tended to a cat and two constantly barking mongrel dogs. Although he longed for children, he chose solitude and the bottle over relationships. Yet, with every visit, he would remind me, “Family is most important.”
When I was a tiny boy in the late 1950s, I sometimes rode on his shoulders, especially on our way to the paddy fields several miles from our village. His farm was downstream from ours, and he loved to stop by our farmhouse for lunch. Those lunches weren’t free, though. Despite often being intoxicated, Uncle John was proud. Free meals weren’t his thing. He never failed to bring vegetables from his garden for my mother to cook, always more than enough to ensure plenty of leftovers.
As we walked to the farm or back to the village, he would curse the mosquitoes, the hot sun, or the rain — his mood shifting with the seasons.
Uncle John was an odd man. While his peers struggled with reading and writing, he was proud of his literacy. Yet, he had never set foot in a classroom. Why? He hated sitting in class all day long. He admitted as much.
So, how did he learn? According to him, he picked up the skills wherever he could. I believed him, knowing that he was an inquisitive man who was always eager to investigate what puzzled or interested him.
One day in 1960, when I was seven years old and in primary one at our village mission school, I asked him about it.
“It was to impress the ladies!” he laughed.
To which my mother chimed in from outside, “Don’t mention adult matters to the boy, John!”
Still chuckling, Uncle John said, “Listen, boy. I did it because it’s important.”
“If it’s important, how come you didn’t go to school?” I asked.
“Well, it’s a long story. Anyway, one day, I went to town and couldn’t read most of the signs on the buildings,” he replied.
“Only because of that?” I probed.
“I was annoyed with myself. Because I couldn’t read, I almost took the wrong bus!” He laughed again. “That was scary and very embarrassing!”
“Any other reasons?” I pressed.
“Tell him about the girl, John!” my mother called out as she hung clothes on a bamboo pole to take advantage of the hot weather.
“Ah, yes, the girl!” he said, smiling.
“What girl?” I asked, intrigued.
“Your uncle didn’t know how to write a letter to her,” Mother said.
“The story goes like this,” Uncle John began.
He recounted how he met a pretty girl in another village during a Gawai Dayak visit with some drinking buddies. She liked him and said she would be happy if he could write to her. Too ashamed to admit his illiteracy, he said nothing. His pride was wounded, and his self-esteem took a hit.
He never wrote to the girl, losing interest as he began to drink more frequently. He recognised it was a problem but couldn’t help himself. In the end, he chose the bottle over any woman, finding it simpler; when he was drunk, he didn’t have to explain himself.
One day, upon returning from Serian Town, where he had watched a Malay movie, Bujang Lapok, starring the inimitable P. Ramlee, he handed me a tattered old storybook with missing covers. Its dog-eared corners and age-yellowed edges showed signs of frequent handling.
“Ah, ‘The Jungle Book’ by Rudyard Kipling!” I exclaimed, intrigued. “But what happened to the covers?”
“Who cares about the covers?” he retorted. “The pages are what matter. I checked; they’re all there.”
He had found the book among the rubbish in front of a shop. Remembering my love for reading, he wrapped it in old newspapers, hoping all the pages were intact.
Another time, he arrived at our house during dinner with a pot of cooked rice and a whole chicken. My parents were perplexed by his unusual gesture, and they told him so.
He laughed, saying, “I caught my last chicken and barbequed it. I won’t be able to finish it alone, so here it is.”
After days of eating only vegetables, my siblings and I relished the unexpected feast. As the evening wore on, Uncle John revealed he wanted to have dinner with us before heading to Kuching, about 40 miles away, to see a famous Hollywood movie.
After asking my parents to keep an eye on his house and pets, he set off the next day, navigating a long and winding jungle path that connected our village to the old Kuching-Serian Road (now the Pan Borneo Highway). When he didn’t return after several days, we began to wonder what had happened. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and eventually, a year passed. Then, a month before the following Gawai Dayak, he returned quietly. We didn’t even realise he was back until he joined us one evening during dinner.
He emptied his bag as we watched, revealing tobacco for my father, sugar, salted fish, salty biscuits, and Susu Chap Junjong, a popular sweet condensed milk made by Nestlé. That was the first time I tasted the milk. Years later, I would fall out of love with it, but that night, it tasted like nectar from heaven.
I thought that was all he had brought, but then he produced a brown cardboard box.
“This is your Gawai Dayak present,” he said, placing the box on my lap.
In the flickering yellow light of our kerosene lamp, I opened the box to find a neat stack of newspaper and magazine cuttings — cartoon strips, comic strips, crossword puzzles, and captioned pictures. He spent a year collecting them. What a thoughtful gift! Uncle John truly understood me.
Three years later, in 1968, I found myself in a glum mood, moping around in my secondary school boarding house in Serian Town. I was broke, having spent my last dollar, and my father wouldn’t be sending more money until the end of the month, which felt like a year away. I considered borrowing a dollar or two from friends, but we were all in the same boat.
Just when I had given up hope, who appeared like a saviour but Uncle John? He had asked permission from the teacher-in-charge to take me to town, which was about half a kilometre from the school.
On the way, he told me he had just sold some raw rubber sheets and a sack of black pepper. He handed me twenty dollars, calling it my “share”, even though I had nothing to do with it. Suddenly, I felt rich. In a time when a plate of my favourite fried kway tiaw cost only 30 cents, twenty dollars was a fortune, especially coming from someone as poor as Uncle John.
Uncle John would have made a wonderful father if he had married and had children. Not long after my grandmother passed away, he finally lost his battle with the bottle and left this world.
I often wished I had told him how much he meant to me. Had I made my love clear to him? Then I remembered something.
I used to call him “beloved uncle” or “favourite uncle.” During those times when I couldn’t return to the village on weekends or school holidays, I wrote him letters. In those letters, I shared the mundane details of my life but always signed off by telling him he was my beloved uncle. So, I did tell him! He knew. I’m so glad he knew.
quote photo: Michael J Fox
quote: ‘Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.’ — Michael J. Fox (1961-Present); a Canadian-American actor, author, and advocate, best known for his roles in the television series Family Ties and Spin City, as well as the Back to the Future film trilogy. Fox is also well-known for his advocacy work related to Parkinson’s disease, which he was diagnosed with in 1991.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Sarawak Tribune.
