By : Justin Sunam Wong, NBHE Founder
The cat is out of the bag! New Sabah Times has published our press release. In a way, this is kind of a soft launch of the event itself. It all started with a walk in Gaya Street in October 2011. A few of us enthusiasts decided to meet up and explore Gaya Street.
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| Some of our members in Gaya Street |
Most of us take Gaya Street for granted. I personally, only think about Gaya Street when I have a craving for Bak Kut Teh in the evening. Incidentally, my West Malaysian friend was amused when I revealed to him that we have Bak Kut Teh in the evening. He told me with great authority that Bak Kut Teh should be taken in the morning as breakfast. Well, he might be right, Bak Kut Teh was a concoction conjured up by the coolies of old days, to give them nourishment and energy within their limited resources; Necessity is the mother of invention they say. Before long, they perfected their recipe and Bak Kut Teh evolved into the mouth watering fare of present day but I have digress.
Why do we want to celebrate Gaya Street in the upcoming 12th Kota Kinabalu (KK) City day celebration? Did you know that Gaya Street was practically the springboard to KK's present day status as a City? This spot is where it all started. The commerce and banking sectors were all concentrated in Gaya Street in the old days. Did you know that Gaya Street was once known as Bond Street? Well, I shall not reveal too much here less I spoil everyone's fun but come February 2012, come down to Gaya Street on 11th and 12th February 2012.
What on earth possessed us to want to do this event? During our walkabout, we stumbled upon this bronze plaque. I am sure you have walked past it many times but did you stop and read what is inscribed on it?
During World War II, Jesselton (what Kota Kinabalu was known then) was inundated by Allied bombings. All the shops in Gaya Street were decimated. After the war ended, naturally the first order of things were to rebuild Jesselton and overall, North Borneo. The principle 'rebuilder' was of course Britain, the British North Borneo Chartered Company (BNBCC) had surrendered their prized possession to their government because they could not afford to rebuild their colony. So now North Borneo was a Crown Colony. Must be mentioned here that the Australians helped out a lot in the rebuilding also. Anyway, on 10th September 1951, the government started building the first block of shops in Gaya Street to replace the decimated ones. Out of the ashes, Gaya Street rose like a Phoenix. So you do the numbers, the "new" first block of Gaya Street 'celebrated' its 60th year birthday last September 2011! Gaya Street is course older than that, perhaps 113 years old. Well, I cannot be certain about this, we are enthusiasts and not experts :P. But we are enthusiasts who actively sought out information.
We felt bad for Gaya Street, her birthday celebration was a mute one. Hence, started our quest to dig up as much historical information about Gaya Street as we humanly possible to do so. To our pleasant surprise, we encountered some 'Towkays' in Gaya Street who were eager to share their knowledge about the street. They were just waiting for eager ears to listen to them.
Before long, we have gathered a rather respectable materials and we asked ourselves, what are we going to do with these materials? Hey! What is NBHE all about? To discover, preserve and propagate Sabah's history of course! So we put our game face on and started knocking on DBKK's door(a member pointed out that KK will be celebrating its 12th year anniversary since getting her City Status), it was a long shot! Who have heard of NBHE? It was only formed in May 2011. Again to our pleasant surprise, DBKK opened its door to us.
We have since then met a lot of people from other government agencies, I will not bore you with the details. But I leave these tasty morsels to whet your curiosity, we will launched a Coffeetable Book, our inaugural publication, which chronicle the collective memories of Gaya Street community on 11 February 2012. Our publication is quite special if I may say so, for it is unpretentious and it is unadulterated. They are thoughts and memories of people who had experience live in Gaya Street. We don't claim them to be authoritative but we hope, these stories will drive our readers to search answers on their own. A catalyst of sort, we hope we can engage our audience and turn all Sabahans young and old, to become Sabah's "detectives"! Reclaim our history and identity.
In connection to this, we invite the public to contribute any stories of their own or people they know to NBHE. We may publish this on the event itself or in our future publication. If you are interested, you may email us at bergaya2012@gmail.com. This is of course on voluntary basis, we are non-profit after all. Any funds we get from the sale of our work will go towards funding future programs towards the community of Sabah!
To get further updates on our event, click LIKE on our Facebook page. We will post updates along the way. Stay tuned!
What on earth possessed us to want to do this event? During our walkabout, we stumbled upon this bronze plaque. I am sure you have walked past it many times but did you stop and read what is inscribed on it?
During World War II, Jesselton (what Kota Kinabalu was known then) was inundated by Allied bombings. All the shops in Gaya Street were decimated. After the war ended, naturally the first order of things were to rebuild Jesselton and overall, North Borneo. The principle 'rebuilder' was of course Britain, the British North Borneo Chartered Company (BNBCC) had surrendered their prized possession to their government because they could not afford to rebuild their colony. So now North Borneo was a Crown Colony. Must be mentioned here that the Australians helped out a lot in the rebuilding also. Anyway, on 10th September 1951, the government started building the first block of shops in Gaya Street to replace the decimated ones. Out of the ashes, Gaya Street rose like a Phoenix. So you do the numbers, the "new" first block of Gaya Street 'celebrated' its 60th year birthday last September 2011! Gaya Street is course older than that, perhaps 113 years old. Well, I cannot be certain about this, we are enthusiasts and not experts :P. But we are enthusiasts who actively sought out information.
We felt bad for Gaya Street, her birthday celebration was a mute one. Hence, started our quest to dig up as much historical information about Gaya Street as we humanly possible to do so. To our pleasant surprise, we encountered some 'Towkays' in Gaya Street who were eager to share their knowledge about the street. They were just waiting for eager ears to listen to them.
Before long, we have gathered a rather respectable materials and we asked ourselves, what are we going to do with these materials? Hey! What is NBHE all about? To discover, preserve and propagate Sabah's history of course! So we put our game face on and started knocking on DBKK's door(a member pointed out that KK will be celebrating its 12th year anniversary since getting her City Status), it was a long shot! Who have heard of NBHE? It was only formed in May 2011. Again to our pleasant surprise, DBKK opened its door to us.
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| Datin Fazar Datuk Arif and Mr Paul Lajumin, selling our event to Mayor Datuk Abidin Madingkir |
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| Idea sold! Datin presenting Ms Tina Kisil's (standing right to the Mayor) book Footprints in the Paddy Fields to the Mayor. |
In connection to this, we invite the public to contribute any stories of their own or people they know to NBHE. We may publish this on the event itself or in our future publication. If you are interested, you may email us at bergaya2012@gmail.com. This is of course on voluntary basis, we are non-profit after all. Any funds we get from the sale of our work will go towards funding future programs towards the community of Sabah!
To get further updates on our event, click LIKE on our Facebook page. We will post updates along the way. Stay tuned!
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