Our grandfather Chan was then about 24 years old, and the eldest of five siblings. He had three brothers - Pak Lam, Thin Yang and Say San - and a younger sister named Sai Mooi who was only two when the brothers left China for Malaya.
Grandfather Chan's first wife, surnamed Chor, had earlier passed away. He married again, this time to Wong Sui Cheng who was one of his distant cousins. She was only 19 when she followed her husband to Malaya.
The leader of the group was our great-granduncle Chan Kau Seng who was probably in his late 40s or early 50s. Being the most senior and the most experienced, he led his six young charges to Malaya. Amongst them would be his own son, Ying Kau and his four nephews - Ah Kee, Pak Lam, Thin Yang and Say San - and Ah Kee's wife Wong Sui Cheng.
Following the normal path of sojourners then, they left their ancestral village in Qing Yuan and went to Quangzhou (Canton) - the capital of Guangdong. There, they took a ferry to Hong Kong or "Fragrant Harbour".
At that time, Hong Kong was, and still is, a very busy entreport and had overtaken Guangzhou as the gateway to the west. Hong Kong was ceded to the British after the Opium War in 1842 and had became over-crowded with high population influxes from mainland China.
Using Hong Kong as the port of embarkation, the Chan clan members began their voyage by goods freighter, also known as cargo ship, to Malaya with Penang as their disembarkation point. There were no restrictions or documents required then until the Immigration Restriction Ordinance (1929) and the Aliens Ordinance (1933) were carried out. These ordinances controlled the flow of male immigrants but allowed unrestricted entry of females and children.
In the old days, no one knows how long the journey would take as sailing boats were used and they rely on wind power. At the turn of the 20th century, goods freighter or cargo ships became the preferred mode of transport as they were powered by steam and the journey became more predictable.
Father Chung Chow recalled that the voyage from Hong Kong to Penang would take about 5 to 6 days. During this long and often dangerous journey across the storm-raged South China Sea, the passengers were crammed into tight living quarters located side by side to the cargo. Here, they would eat, sleep and play, and do almost everything in the confined spaces of the crowded ship.
When they reached Singapore, the ship dropped anchor to unload some of the goods and passengers and then continued on its journey to Penang. Disembarking at the Penang port, the Chan clan members took a boat which ferried them across the Penang Straits to Butterworth on the mainland. There, they took the train to Taiping.
Many of the early emigrants who ventured overseas mortgaged their freedom to labour brokers who would pay for their passage and other expenses. These bonded emigrants had to work a number of years before they could redeem themselves and they were popularly known as "piglet labourers".
The British referred to them as "indentured labourers". The contract was for 360 days' work, and the coolie received hardly any wages at all, though his passage from China was paid ; he was fed and clothed, occasionally received small sums of money for himself, and about twenty shillings to send to his friends in China. indentured labour gradually became less popular as the country developed, and partly because men who had returned to China came back with their friends, and a system of co-operative working grew up and to a large extent took its place. By the co-operative system the owner of a likely piece of mining land looks out for and engages a mine manager, who has full control over the coolies, and works the mine under the occasional inspection and direction of the owner (usually called the " advancer ") or his agent. (Source - Page 232 BRITISH MALAYA An account of the origin and progress of British influence in Malaya by Sir Frank Swettenham, K.C.M.G. that documents the history of British Malaya up to 1907.)
I believed that our ancestors came to Malaya under this co-operative system. Our ancestors probably had toiled and saved enough for their trip to Malaya because on arrival they were free to move about and seek employment.
Next: 4.First Time In Taiping
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