I was born in a very small town but for the past 35 years, I have called Miri my home. The small-town boy in me never truly goes away. Time and again, I am caught up in nostalgia whenever I recall my childhood days in Binatang (now known as Bintangor). The recent sale of my dad’s shophouse in Bintangor has ...

I lost my Mum to lung cancer on August 30, 2016 and that has made me realise how transient life is. She was still in reasonably good shape albeit feeling tired and a bit breathless when I went to Kuching on August 14. I never expected her to leave us so soon. She was first diagnosed with terminal lung cancer ...

Small and laid back, Conjuring images of the outback, Along the lower reaches of the mighty Rejang it sits, Capital of Meradong District it is.   Inhabitants predominantly Foochows, Industrious like hardworking cows, Binatang is its old name, Green tangerines bring it fame.   Vibrant and lively in the old days, The town deteriorated in many ways, Riverine life quietened, ...

It was on October 27 that I brought my wife for a visit to Miri Crocodile Farm. It was her birthday and it was a unique way to celebrate her birthday. For me, it was a trip down memory lane as my late dad used to rear quite a lot of crocodiles during our days in Bintangor. My dad was ...

I stopped by a little stream near Lutong Beach this morning intending to photograph egrets that seem to hang out in that area. Luck was against me for as soon as I got down from my car, the egrets took flight. Since photographing egrets was out of the question, I just looked around. Standing on the small bridge, I diverted ...

I am a lucky guy! Lucky to have been born in Sarawak, the Land of the Hornbills where there had never been a need for 1Malaysia to instill racial harmony among the people. Laidback, peaceful and beautiful. Lucky to have spent the first seventeen years of my life in Binatang (now Bintangor). Yes, the Animal Town where everybody seemed to ...

June 6, 2015 After taking our complimentary breakfast at Bamboo House in Premier Hotel, my wife and I waited for my mother-in-law and our niece Wan Ying who were staying with my wife’s cousin. We left Sibu by taxi at about 8.40 am and arrived in Bintangor at 9.30 am. Before this trip, I had googled to see if there ...

It was 1970.  Thirty seven students from St Augustine’s Primary School and Council Town School were placed in Form One B at Kai Chung Middle School with Ms Constance Yii Mei Ho as the form teacher. The class was as a mirthful bunch, earning the dubious reputation as the noisiest class in the school that year. There were of course ...

During the sixties and early seventies, I was a kid living in Binatang. Life then seemed to move at a snail’s pace, compared to life now. There was definitely much less stress then. Traffic jam was totally unheard of in Binatang as there were so few cars.  If a modern day teenager who grew up with the internet, smartphones, iPad, ...

Like Regina Brett in her book “God Never Blinks”, I sometimes felt that at the moment I was born, God must have blinked and thus missed the occasion, unaware of my birth at all. I felt like the poet who wrote that he was born on a day God called in sick. Shortly after my birth almost 55 years ago ...