Ipoh World

The picture shows Phoong Ze Nam when he lived in Kampung Simee New Village with his family around 1951.

His story starts in 1862 where his grandmother, father (Phoong Jiun Ching) and two uncles are fleeing from their home in central China to Kai Ying County (Guandong) in the South. China is in turmoil as the Taiping Rebellion (1851 – 1864) said to be the bloodiest civil war in history is underway. Father, Phoong Jiun Ching was 12 years old and he and his mother headed towards the forest of Ping Yuan and soon became separated from his brothers (the uncles) who had taken a more southerly direction. This was a tough assignment for a 12 year old and his mother, with little or no food and water and the constant fear of being discovered by the rebels. Eventually, deep in the forest his mother could take no more and simply laid down and died leaving young Jiung Ying penniless, alone, lost and very frightened.

There was only one option left for the young man and that was to find his way out of the forest as quickly as he could and beg for food whenever he had the opportunity. Thus he found his way to the county of Jiao Liang and the village of Siao Lok. Here he found many other refugees from the fighting, who had been recruited by a Catholic priest and missionary, to build a church. Jiun Ching, at 12 years old, was employed as a concrete brick builder and carpenter. Soon he converted to the Catholic faith.

In 1880, at age 30, Jiun Ching married a local lady, Chiah, but within two years she had passed away and left him alone again. Some years later he married once more, but he and his second wife, Chan, (subsequently buried in the Catholic cemetery in Batu Gajah, Perak) failed to produce children. Around this time, contact was re-established with one of the two Uncles, Phoong Wen Ching, who had lost touch with his mother and younger brother Jiun Ching, when fleeing from the rebels back in 1862. He had got as far as Annam (now part of Vietnam) married a local minority, had four sons and subsequently returned to Moi Yen, not far from Jiao Liang, where he had set up a small farm. On their first reunion for more than 20 years, Wen Ching discovered that his younger brother (Jiun Ching) had no children and in the spirit of brotherly love, promptly gave his youngest son, the three year-old Phoong Ze Nam (pictured above) to him as his adopted son. This young man was destined to come to Malaya, although of course he did not know it, but when he arrived, many years later, he changed his name to Phoong Bing.

After a brief stay in Jiao Liang, Wen Ching returned to Moi Yen and his farm, leaving not only his youngest son, but also the other three, temporarily in the care of Jiun Ching. He never returned to collect them and passed away some two years later, leaving the unexpected responsibility of bringing up the boys entirely to Jiun Ching and his wife Chan. This they did, to the best of their ability in a country that was chaotic, continually in turmoil, politically unstable and suffering from a succession of wars over Opium and then the Boxer Rebellion. It was no surprise therefore that one by one, like thousands of other Chinese young men, the boys decided to leave for Nanyang, the Southern Seas, and all four eventually ended up in Malaya.

The first to leave the family home was the eldest son of Wen Ching, who, at 18, took passage to Singapore and settled in Kuala Lumpur. Some three years later, when he was 20, second son followed his brother’s footsteps, but settled in Singapore. Wen Ching’s third son married in China and brought his wife to Ipoh on borrowed money, leaving the debt in the name of his adoptive father, Jiun Ching. It took the poor old man ten years to pay it off. He passed away in 1905 leaving his wife and the youngest son, Phoong Ze Nam, who had married a local girl, Lim Ching Lian. The couple were living with his adoptive parents.

In 1906, aged 24, Ze Nam borrowed two dollars and lost it gambling. At that time in China such a sum was equivalent to a prosperous shopkeeper’s whole month’s salary. He was terrified of what his wife and mother would say and rather than going home to confess he sought out an agent for migrant labourers and signed on for immediate passage to Indonesia to work as a “Piglet” in the mines. He left behind his mother and pregnant wife (who was carrying Tet Ching, pioneer of Sam Tet School also featured in this archive). For Ze Nam, who was a timid man by nature, Indonesia was more than he could stand and after four months of incredible hardship, he ran away in desperation from his contracted employer and escaped to Singapore. Here he found his second brother who helped him to get to Ipoh and contact his third brother. In Ipoh he found work as a tin mine coolie in Papan.

Meanwhile, his wife, Ching Liam tried desperately to find out his whereabouts. Eventually, a cousin, (Lim Yi Teng) who often traveled to Malaya as an agent for migrant workers located Ze Nam in Papan and in no uncertain terms made it quite clear that he must save up his miserable wages until he had enough money to bring his wife to Ipoh. The news of Ze Nam’s whereabouts, brought great joy to the Jiao Liang household although when the practicalities were discussed there was great concern for Ze Nam’s mother, for if wife, Chiang Lam and son, Tet Ching were to leave for Nanyang, who would care for the old lady? And so the decision was made. Only Chiang Lam would leave China and young Tet Ching would stay with his grandmother, Chan until his father could afford to travel back to Jiao Liang to bring the two of them to Ipoh as well. Eventually, Ze Nam scraped together enough money together to pay for his wife’s passage and she arrived in Papan to find they were to live in a small wood and atap house in a coconut plantation between Papan and Pusing.

With his wife safely installed in Malaya, Ze Nam turned his back on the Papan mines and over the next 16 years or so they reared pigs in a pen alongside the house, made Taufu for sale in the market and tended the coconut plantation. They also had another 7 children. Life in the atap house was far from easy. First of all more than 20 people lived in the house at any one time. Most of these were children and as there were 7 young sons in the family, there were also five taken-in young ‘daughters-in-law’ (see Yoong Choon Moy archive). However not all of these actually followed through and married their selected husbands in the end for the third son born died as a child and sixth and seventh sons died during the Japanese occupation, which destroyed the neat plans made by the parents. In the family there had also been one birth daughter, Poon Kim Chin, (also featured in this archive) but she had already been given away in 1919 at three years old and taken back to China as a ‘daughter-in-law’, destined to marry an 11 year old boy.

Besides harvesting the coconuts, the family ran their own Taufu factory in the house and used the waste soya bean husks to feed the pigs in their pens close by. At one time there was more than 100 pigs in the plantation and the family were considered quite ‘well–to-do’, being able to feed so many mouths. It was therefore not long before eldest son Tet Ching and grandmother Chan, arrived from China and joined the already bulging household. But the days were hard as the Taufu had to be ready for Ze Nam to take it to the early morning market using his coolie pole and baskets and while he was there a second batch had to be produced ready for his return. The pigs had to be fed and the coconuts harvested and taken to market as well. Everybody had to play their part and there was no room for laziness. The family continued to run their businesses and sent their fourth and sixth children (both boys) to China to be educated in the traditional way. While they were there they managed to meet their sister Kim Chin (fifth child) who had been given away in 1919. Once they completed their schooling they returned to Ipoh. Then, as schools improved in Malaya seventh, eighth and ninth brothers attended Yuk Choy School, Ipoh, catching the early morning train from Pusing and returning on the 4.00pm train from Ipoh.

In 1939, while Ipoh and the world were facing recession, tin was found on the family’s plantation and Ze Nam was persuaded to sell their land for 800 dollars. They moved to an area now known as Wah Keong Park (close to today’s Kampong Simee) where they built a wooden house on a slope near the river. The land was leasehold and shared by eight owners, both Chinese and Malay. As the elder Malays passed away their share was split between their complete family and so if anything needed to be done legally the ever increasing number of shareholders had to be found to sign. A great problem! Here however there was no need to make Taufu as several of the family were working and money was not so tight. Consequently Ze Nam tended a rubber plantation and reared pigs, while others of the family grew vegetables. In late 1941, because of the Japanese invasion, the family moved again to Kampong Kepayang (behind Fair Park) in another wooden house, where Ze Nam’s wife, Choon Moy passed away at age 54 having suffered many hardships. Then in 1951, due to ‘The Malayan Emergency’ (the confrontation with the Communists) the family was compulsorily moved to Kampong Simee under the New Village Resettlement Plan of the British Administration. This time ‘moving house’ meant just that as the old home was taken to pieces plank by plank and carried to the new ‘two plot’ site that had been allocated. Here the house was reassembled on two plots, numbers 441 and 442. Ze Nam passed away in 1953 and is buried in St Michael’s Catholic Church, Ipoh.

To read more about Lim Ching Lian, click here.

To read more about Phoong Tet Ching, the second son of Phoong Ze Nam, click here.

To read more about Poon Kim Chin, click here.

To read more about The Briggs Plan / New Villages, click here.

To read more about Yuk Choy Primary and Secondary Schools, Ipoh, click here.