Unusual tale from Sayap

The few years when I was still working in Kuala Lumpur, my father-in-law took care of my son’s transport, ferrying him from Batu Gajah to Anderson School, Ipoh and back. Naturally there was a certain bonding between grandpa and grandson, which seemed special compared with those cousins who lived in KL, or even the one in Ipoh.

Some say, it was evident in his male chauvinism, others say in his recollections of the old man’s tall tales and jokes. Anyhow, my son is closer to my in-laws than my own relatives. With his penchant for things Hakka (also due to his domineering mom), he referred me to a Hakka website and I chose the following story:

Tales of a Hakka town (5)

The Hakkas, living in the area between the two small towns of Pusing and Siputeh, which are about four kilometers apart, were mostly immigrated from Dongguan county in Guangdong province. They were either rubber tappers or tin mine workers. They called their little village Sayap which was a Malay name.

All the babies born in this village were home delivery and none of them was born in a hospital. This custom was common among the Hakkas. Therefore the babies were not registered in the hospital. Although the birth of a baby could be registered in any police station yet none of the Hakkas did so because it required a token fee for the registration. They argued that they never registered their babies with any authority in Tang Shan. So why should they bother themselves? and besides, they could save the little registration fee.

In 1941 the Japanese conquered Malaya and occupied it for three years and eight months. The Japanese surrendered in August 1945 and the British came back to Malaya. All the schools were reopened in 1946. Most of the children in Sayap village went to enroll in either the Pusing or Siputeh Chinese schools.

The enrolment required the birth certificate to prove the identification of the child. This was a new regulation imposed by the British Military Administration. Since in Sayap none of the children possessed a birth certificate the teachers in the Chinese schools told the parents of these kids to go and register them in either the Pusing or the Siputeh police stations.

The policemen were surprised to find out that the children wanted to register their births after seven or eights or even over ten years late.

What the policemen did was to enter in their registration books all the names of the children with the same hour, the same day, same month but seven years before. In order words, according to their birth certificates those children were all born at the same hour, same day, same month, same year and in the same village. Worst still, some of the parents wanted to save the few cents took up only one birth certificate for their children.

It was not unusual to see a brother and a sister or two or three brothers sharing only one birth certificate. This created a hell lot of problems when they grew up. This was the major problem for that generation in this small town.

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan