I accompanied my mother and Kak Mie, her right-hand lady, out into the rural kampungs - villages of Terengganu - some months ago. Something I haven’t done in a long, long time.
This was something they did regularly - go out into the villages, more than an hour north of Kuala Terengganu, to find mengkuang supplies for my mother’s handicraft work. The process out in the kampungs is three-fold. First the local ladies would go out into the marshes to find mengkuang leaves - mangrove palms, and process these. The leaves need to be pounded, dried, and softened - hard work. The second step involves this visit by my mother, to get the leaves dyed before the third step - the actual weaving. After all that would come the second phase, the sewing and cutting into final products, most of which takes place in the workshop at the back of our house.
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During this visit by my mother, the ladies will sell their bunches of mengkuang by the grams, and then the colouring process begins. My mother takes sole control over this, because she is very particular about the colour schemes of her products. Leave it to the locals, and what you’d get is loud combinations of screaming blues, greens and reds. The brighter the better, apparently. My mother goes for the more natural, muted and subtle taste. It’s always funny to see how these ladies would scrunch up their noses in disgust at the colours. “Dok comei sungguh weih Che’ Wok. Pucat les’sing.” Not pretty. Too pale. “Pelek sungguh zamang len’ning.” Weird taste, people nowdays. But they’d comply anyway. Of course they’d play along with whatever the buyer wants. And my mother has been a regular of 20 years.
This second stage, the colouring stage - mencelup - is done outdoors, on an open fire. A massive pot of water is boiled, and fibre dye then added, in that intuitive style of my mother’s that I know so well. A dash of this, a pinch of that. Voila. Pretty pink. >> Photos
It was then, while we were sitting around the fire, waiting for the water to boil, that Tok Munah came over.
What a character.
Seeing her for the first time, that moment you lay your eyes on her, will most definitely bring a smile to your face. There is just something about her. A mischievous smile, the unhurried sway of the walk, that glint in the eyes that said ‘tadaah. i’m here.’ This is one feisty young heart. Definitely.
The telling of Tok Munah’s story was gold. It really was a you had to be there moment. She has that gift of the gab in being absolutely hilarious, saying the most outrageous things, all the while keeping a straight face, a look of utter sincerity that simply said, oh yeah well, that’s how it is. Nonchalant.
It all started when I asked Tok Munah her age. She didn’t know for sure, but she thought that she was eighty. I wouldn’t believe it; because I had just witnessed this lady carry eight bundles of mengkuang in one trip, from her house some 500 metres away. Those things are not light.
So she went back to her clearest point of reference.
“Zamang Jepung lalu tang sin’ning, omor kite lime belah. Ye lalu kok kappung ning, kite lari nung, mnus’suk dalang rok, takot kene ambik. Ye ah, omor kite lime belah. Sebak lepah je Jepung lalu, kite nikkoh. Pok kite sughuh, kite takmboh.”
In other words: ‘When the Japanese came through here, I was fifteen. They came through here, and I ran, ran and hid in the bushes, in fear of being taken. Well you know the Japanese. They saw the young ones, and they took them. Yes that’s right. I was fifteen then. Because soon after the Japanese passed, my father married me off. I didn’t want to, though.’
The historical reference made sense. The Japanese occupancy in Malaya started with the landing in Kota Bharu, and the soldiers swept down through rural Terengganu, via Besut and clearly, Tok Munah’s village of Guntung. That would have been 1941-1942. If she was fifteen then, that would make Tok Munah at least 80 now.
Tok Munah went on to talk about her marriage to a man she didn’t want at an age too young. “Kite takmboh sungguh ke die; buak macang-macang nok sughuh ye lari, dok lari-lari jugok.” She did all she could to push him away, but he stayed. She once ran away to Kelantan, but much to her chagrin, the man was still waiting for her when she came back. With a mischievous smile, she recounted the times she would go to the river to bathe, and if she sees random young men sitting nearby, she’d call them to get into the water and bathe with her. Just to make her husband angry. Giving him a reason to leave. But he wouldn’t. “Balik ghumoh, ade cok’koh dok situ. Kohor baik ye ke kite.” I’d go home, and he’d still be there. Nicer than ever.
By this time, Tok Munah had us all in stitches. My Terengganu-Speak is really rusty after so many years away; and Tok Munah speaks in that northern Terengganu dialect, which has a strong mix of Kelantanese. Had to listen really hard to take it all in, but the humour in her story was clear.
Apparently, after two padis - two years - and a child, Tok Munah managed to introduce her husband to another girl and convinced him to divorce her.
Is he still around? I asked.
“Mati lame doh. Kene panah petir.”
He died a long time ago. Got struck by lightning. I know it’s terrible to laugh at the dead, but that was just too funny, especially in the way she told it.
Looking at her, I think she must have been drop dead gorgeous at fifteen. A real beauty. And spirited. It made sense that the husband would hold on to her despite all her efforts to shake him off. I then asked if the reason she didn’t want him was because she had another suitor. She was adamant that it wasn’t so. She was simply not ready to be tied down to a man chosen by her parents at the age of fifteen. She pointed to her cousin who was standing nearby, “Die ning, takmboh gok ke laki die si Isehok nung. Tapi takmboh takmboh, sap’pa ke mati si Isehok nung jugok. Kite tok sanggup weih.” Her cousin was also married off young to a man she didn’t want, but she had stuck with him till the day he died. Tok Munah would have none of that.
When I teased her about how she must have had many suitors, she brushed it off, and told me how she met the man she finally chose to marry.
“Kite gi jabbat agame nge ayoh kite. Gi ambik surak cerai. Hok llaki tu gi nge ayoh die. Ambik surak cerai gok. T’temu situ, pastu kite ajok ye balik makang nasik.”
She had gone to the religious department with her father to collect her divorce papers. The man too was there with his father collecting his divorce papers. She asked them over for lunch.
Not exactly your Cinderella tale, but I thought it was a gem.
These wooden beads once belonged to my hair scrunchie. But the elastic broke, and rather than throw out the whole thing, I decided to recycle the beads into a neck choker. They’re pretty.
