Reviews & Press : : Kinta Valley

New Sunday Times
10 April 2005

Kinta treasures
by Marina Emmanuel

The story of Kinta Valley makes great reading, and it’s not quite over yet too, MARINA EMMANUEL writes. IT is not for nothing that the Kinta Valley, rich in history as well as natural resources and people, is referred to as the "Heart of Perak".

From the early sixth century trading days of the Orang Asli to the development of the tin industry in the 19th century, there are still interesting tales to be told of Perak.

The Orang Asli trade is all history now and tin mining is past the sunset stage, say the authors of Kinta Valley: Preserving Malaysia’s Modern Development, Khoo Salma Nasution and Abdur-Razaq Lubis, but Perak has still much to offer.

Khoo, a heritage advocate and writer, and her husband, Abdur-Razaq, an independent reseacher-scholar, were commissioned by the Perak Academy to write the book.

"Perak," says Abdur-Razaq, "has many natural and cultural resources which can be tapped and developed."

Kinta Valley: Pioneering Malaysia’s Modern Development is a well-researched effort to present the early days of Kinta and how the area’s tin mining evolved, its social and economic development, along with the growth and establishment of the city of Ipoh and nearby towns.

The 384-page coffee table book cleverly interlocks the physical growth and environmental conditions with features of people of various ethnic origins.

Khoo and Abdur-Razaq have taken the trouble to unearth subjects not normally found in historical narratives, such as the Kinta Valley’s limestone massifs, its flora and fauna, along with its indigenous inhabitants, the Orang Asli.

And what a mix of people that Perak has.

The authors write about how the Malay, Mandailing, Minangkabau, Acehnese, Rawa and Javanese communities worked alongside the Hakka, Cantonese and Hokkien, together with the Tamil, Pathan, Sikh, British, Eurasian, French, Dutch and Germans in making Kinta a "mining frontier".

Kinta’s cultural heritage attributes are presented as an eye-opener both in narrative and pictorial form of a time when the area served as a centre of an ancient Buddhist kingdom and was visited by Indian traders.

Malaysian history need not have necessarily started with the Malacca Sultanate, says Khoo.

She tells of artefact finds in the tin mines of Kinta that tell of a time when Indian traders coming through the Kinta Valley were already trading with the Orang Asli in the sixth century.

"In the early 1990s, a bronze statue was discovered 18 metres deep in a tin mine at Tanjung Rambutan.

"The image is similar to a bronze Buddha discovered in Kedah’s Bujang Valley, dated no later than the sixth century."

The Perak tin mining industry, which was once a major contributor to the Malaysian economy, can be traced to the 1820s when Chinese immigrants settled in Perak and started the mines.

The hard-working miners, who were mainly Hakka and Cantonese, contributed to the much-needed labour of the mines.

These miners were, in essence, the catalyst to the growth of the country’s tin mining industry in Perak and Selangor.

Tin was present chiefly as alluvial deposits in the foothills of Peninsular Malaysia, with the Kinta Valley — encompassing Ipoh, Gopeng, Kampar and Batu Gajah — being the most important area.

History points to the expansion of tin mining which began in the 1870s, with the commencement of pit working of tin-laden sands in valleys all the way down the west coast of the Peninsula.

Growing industrial demand for tin, coupled with the discovery of large and rich tin deposits in Larut and Kinta in Perak in the early 19th century, are said to have led to the disputes among the Malay rulers.

It also led to large-scale immigration of Chinese labour which in turn gave rise to Chinese investment, British intervention and domination and finally, injection of foreign, mainly British, capital and technology into the Peninsula.

Although tin is no longer a major contributor to the country’s gross domestic product, there still remains reason to celebrate Kinta’s natural and historical legacy, say the Penang-based writers.

Apart from the beauty of the limestone hills which can be showcased to domestic and foreign visitors, Abdur-Razaq says the potential in highlighting the fact that the Orang Asli community is very much an integral part of Malaysian culture is one which has not been tapped.

"This can be easily done, but not by turning the Orang Asli — who have contributed in the development of Kinta — and their homes into human zoos."

Most of the mining towns of the Kinta Valley appear to be caught in a "time warp" and are relatively intact, Khoo notes.

The Kinta Valley, she says, would be ideal for Malaysia to showcase as a tourist attraction, similar to Burra in South Australia and the tin mines of Cornwall in Britain.

"It is not only the authors’ sense of time and place that makes the book so readable," notes East Asian Institute’s Professor Wang Gunwu in his preface to the book.

"Their perspective takes in the natural environment as well, and it ends appropriately with a return to the beginning where they first traced the original inhabitants of Kinta before the other communities moved in.

"To end their story with the Orang Asli of Kinta is a keen reminder to us all that if we lose our hold of the land that we have, it would be like losing our soul.

"That seems to be the best kind of message that a deeply felt local history like this one should leave with us."

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