Author: CHUNG Yoon-Ngan
Date: 04-02-03 10:00
The Hakka Chinese in Sabah, Malaysia (3)
(3) The third theory:
Sir Walter Medhurst recruiting Hakka workers.
All the mountains are full of trees like pine,
I can only see miscellaneous trees with luxuriant foliage;
I have not seen anyone building a house to live,
Other than the Hakkas put up thatched cottages.
A Malaysian Hakka folk song
In 1882AD, the North Borneo Company sent Sir Walter Medhurst to Hong Kong
to see Rev. Roldold Lechler, who was a priest. They had a meeting in the hall of Ying Pan Ba Se Hakka Association (營盤巴色客家公會的禮堂). The end result of the meeting was that they went to Long Chuan county (龍川縣) in Guangdong province (廣東省) to solicit labour force to develop North Borneo. Long Chuan county was a Hakka county. The North Borneo Company only wanted Hakka workers because
they knew the Hakkas were hard working, diligent and industrious.
The first batch of 96 Hakka workers from Long Chuan county, sponsored by
the Company and under the leadership of Luo Tai Feng (羅泰豐), arrived in
Kudat (古達) on the 4th of April, 1883AD. They cleared the land and
planted vegetables, fruit trees, coffee trees, coconut trees, rubber trees, etc.
The second batch of about 300 Hakka workers under the sponsorship of the
North Borneo Company arrived in Kudat in 1886AD. The third batch of about
700 Hakka workers sponsored by the Company arrived in Kudat in March 1913.
In addition to these three batches, sponsored by the North Borneo Company, there were many other Hakkas who migrated to Kudat. From Kudat these Hakkas
relocated themselves to other parts of North Borneo, especially the capital Jesselton (present day Kota Kinabalu, the Hakkas called it Api or City of Fire) and Sandakan, where there were many ex-Taiping revolutionists. They opened up wasteland and jungles and developed their newly adopted homes into small towns and big towns.
Most of the Hakkas in North Borneo were originally from Long Chuan (龍川),
Wu Hua (五華), Zi Jin (紫金), He Liu (河流), Dong Guan (東莞), Qing Yuan (清遠), Hua Xian (花縣), etc.
In 1897, the famous pirate of North Borneo Mat (Mohammed) Salleh burned down the whole settlement in Pulai Gaya Island (葫蘆加耶島). The natives did not rebuild their houses on the island, instead they moved inland and established their new settlement which they named it Api (亞庇). Api means =Fire in Malay. The Hakka Chinese followed the natives in calling the settlement Api. However, the British preferred the English name of Jesselton, naming it after Sir Charles Jessel, the vice-chairman of the Board of Directors of the Borneo Company. Hakkas in Api
were mostly relocated from Kudat after the new settlement was established.
The Hakkas established their homes in the areas near Inanam (下南南) and MacArthur? (孟加達) roads. They built their houses on stilts over still water. Later
it became a little village called Kampong Ayer or Water Village.
According to the British the development of North Borneo was too slow. The shortage of labour was acute. In 1920, the British Authority changed the immigration policy and they encouraged Chinese, especially the Hakkas living in the coastal province of Guangdong in China, to come and settle in North Borneo. Thousands of Hakkas took this opportunity to escape the poverty in China. The British Authoruty also gave subsidies to the new settlers. This policy continued until the invasion of the Japanese in 1942. Within these 22 years more than 50,000 new settlers, most of them Hakkas.,
arrived in North Borneo and settled for good. Many of the new arrivals settled in Api and Sandakan.They opened up wasteland and jungles and developed their newly adopted homes into small towns and big towns.
According to the story told by a very old Hakka man, Li Tan Qiu (李譚秋), there were a few Hakkas first arrived in Tenom (丹南) in 1890s. After they had established themselves well in Tenom they sent for their families from Tang Shan (唐山 China). The first Hakka to settle in Tenom was Dai Fa (戴發) who was a worker in the employment of the North Borneo Company building the railway from Api to Tenom. Dai Fa saw the rich and fertile soil in Tenom very suitable for cultivation. So he deicided to settle down in Tenom.
After the completion of the railway, a British company, 文拉納, began to clear the land and started planting rubber trees. The company required labour and more Hakkas and Chinese of other dialects relocated to Tenom. (I possess three photos, in black and white. One was showing the Hakka Chinese driving the cows to pull a huge stone roller to construct a road. One was showing a Hakka woman wearing
the traditional Hakka dress consists of an all-black loose-fitting shirt
and pants "pajamas" (Sumfu), with a distinctive bamboo wide-brimmed hat 涼帽
(Liang Mao), about 2 feet in diameter. The lady was bare-footed carriyng two baskets, one with the provisions and the other with a baby, that swung from the two ends of a shoulder-pole. The third photo was showing the Hakkas selling fruit and vegetables to the train passengers. The women were wearing the "Liang Mao"
and the men the straw big hats (笠帽). They were all wearing straw sandals (草鞋).
In 1912 a Ba Se (巴色) Catholic Church Association was established in Tenom. Chinese classes were conducted by the Association. As there were more and more Chinese settled in Tenom, a Chinese school, "華僑學校 or The Overseas Chinese School" was built. The student population was only about thirty. In 1935 another Chinese school , Zhong Wen Xue Xiao (中文學校) was built near the railway station. The medium instruction of the schools was Guo Yu (國語) or Mandarin. During the Japanese occupation the two schools were closed.
After the war, the Chinese in Tenom decided that the two schools should be merged into one school called Zhong Hua Xue Xiao (中華學校). A Hakka by the name of Wang Liu Jiao (王留嬌) donated a large block of land for a new building for the merged schools. Shortly, the new building was completed. The educational standard of the school was only up to the 6th grade. In 1950 the school extended to the high school level. Before that, student who wanted to study high students had to go to West Malaysia to study. Now they studied at Zhong Hua Xue Xiao.
In 1963 North Borneo became part of the Federation of Malaysia. The Malaysian Government renamed it Sabah and the state capital Jesselton was renamed Kota Kinabula, but to the Chinese it is still Api, the fire city.
According to the 1991 census the total popuation in Sabah was about 1.86 million and the Chinese population was about 218,000 that was 11.7% of the state population. There were about 113,000 Hakkas in Sabah that was 57% of the Chinese population and there were about 28,000 Cantonese which was in second position. Almost all the Chinese in Sabah speak Hakka. You just go nowhere in the Chinese community if you do not speak Hakka.
The followings are the ten Hakka Associations in Sabah.
(1) 亞庇客屬公會 (Api Hakka Association)
(2) 山打根客屬公會 (Sandakan Hakka Association)
(3) 古達客屬公會 (Kudat Hakka Association)
(4) 斗亞蘭客屬公會 (Tuaran Hakka Association)
(5) 吧巴客屬公會 (Papar Hakka Association)
(6) 保佛客屬公會( Beaufort Hakka Association)
(7) 根地咬客屬公會 (Keningau Hakka Association)
(8) 丹南客屬公會 (Tenom Hakka Association)
(9) 斗湖客屬公會 (Tawau Hakka Assopciation)
(10) 那篤客屬公會 (Lahad Datu Hakka Association)
(1) A book on Hakka Chinese in Malaysia
and many magazines
by the Federation of Hakka Associations of Malaysia
(2) History of Malaysia
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
All rights reserved 2003