By C C Pung – Justice of Peace
WALKING away from the 40-year-old Yee Fung Laksa in my ‘old part of town’ that is Gaya Street (the Brit colonialists used to call it Bond Street in the old days), I stumbled into one of those proliferating souvenir shops selling local produce.
I can’t remember the last time I was in such a place.
What is there that can possibly of interest to a local, you might ask?
Plenty.
My browsing revealed how far I’ve been left behind insofar as the changes in my City of Kota Kinabalu.
Aside from the musang King flavour condom (photo) there was chili chocolate (by no less than Tech Guan Group, the archetype Sabah plantation company), the olong tea by the ubiquitous Sabah Tea Plantations, Highland Arabica coffee, stingless bee honey and a whole bunch of freeze dry musang King chips.
Because the entire shop was filled with tourists, I had a wicked time pretending to be one, listening to a bunch of half truths and outright crap spilt out by the promoters.
One thing was for sure, the products, their design and packaging showed the amount of ingenuity and investments that have gone into getting the products on the shelves. I hope that Sabah entrepreneurs are genuinely involved in the supply chain.
I have a nagging feeling that outside money (specifically China) is taking advantage with Sabah’s increasing popularity with China tourists (about 700k in 2024) and the attractiveness of durians especially the musang King variety.
Already Sabah is facing an invasion of Korean business people negotiating loopholes in local laws and robbing local tourism companies of earnings from the substantial tourist numbers from South Korea.
I guess the phooenomenon isn’t exclusive here.
I remember visiting Angkor Wat.some years ago and hearing, at every corner, mandarin-speaking guides in jovial interaction with tourist groups from China.
By the way, Gaya Street reminded me the fading old side of the town.
My short walk was especially nostalgic in this Chinese New Year season as I recalled the days I took my parents to the concentration of half dozen shops specialising in selling CNY- taoism-related paraphernalia, and some food materials you get only for a short time once a year.
The shops are gone. My parents too. What remains is a single row of two-storey shops which survived WW2 bombing.
Look closely and you’ll find a marker plaque there.
‘Old side of town’ is a lovely sentimental song.
The version I heard and hummed for years was a cover by Teddy Robin, a Hong Kong artist of the 60-70s.
The original is by some orang puteh whom I don’t recognise.
Gong xo fa cai, folks.
