KOTA KINABALU: A chest brought back to Sandakan from China in 1931 by the grandmother of Sabah’s prominent naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun was left unopened for 90 years.
When it was finally opened, her family found two well-wrapped pieces of Chinese attire still in pristine condition that were placed with pepper seeds to keep them dry and a packet of firecrackers to keep insects away.
The family’s matriarch had gone to China a year earlier (in 1930) to find a bride for her son.
For some unknown reason, she never opened it and it became a family heirloom till her grandchildren decided to open it a few years ago after she had passed.
These were among many personal stories weaved together by Chan, as he traced the clan’s family over eight generations.
They include the clan’s origins in China, migration to Sandakan and the present day.
His massive work comprises three volumes totalling 1,420 pages with over 4,000 photographs and is sold at RM700.
Titled Family Ties, the book written in Chinese includes historical events that shaped their lives.
They include World War II when at least two immediate family members were killed during the Japanese occupation of Sabah (1941-45).
The Borneo Times English newspaper, which was owned by a member of the family, was also forced to close, during the formation of Malaysia in 1963.
This was due to their editorial policy to support multiracial parties for Sabah which ran afoul of the wishes of the powers that be in those days.
“It took me 13 years to put the story together. I visited cemeteries, the Sabah archives and my ancestral village in JiuJiung in southern China four times over the years.
“I gave up once. It was so difficult to regain momentum,” said Chan, who is popularly known as CL Chan and an expert on Bornean insects and orchids.
The Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 and 2021 was a blessing in disguise for Chan who managed to get his pet book project back on track, completing it earlier this year.
“I did not have a clear direction when I started, but I was just accumulating information (over the years) about my family and sorting out an impressive collection of photographs taken by my father.
“We are very lucky that our father was a keen photographer and he loved taking photographs of his family,” he said, explaining that the photo collection motivated him to write the book.
University Malaya historian Prof Datuk Danny Wong Tze Ken, who was at the launch of the book, said the history of the Chan family was also the history of the Chinese community in Sabah and the country.
Chan said the book was dedicated to his late parents Chang Kwong Choi and Yee Wai Chin.
Chan’s eldest sister, Chang Yeen Hing, was given the honour to launch the Chan family clan book recently during a family gathering.