Once disused tin-mining land, Lake Gardens was refashioned by the British in the mid-1880s to become one of the most beautiful public gardens in the country. Today, it remains a place of recreation and solace for local folks and visitors. (All photos: Liew Suet Fun)
The rain falls, almost like clockwork. After the intense heat of the morning, when startling azure skies summon you from sleep. After the playful cirrus clouds form a gentle carpet along the line of the hills. After the sweat on your brow forms a film, leaving behind skin sticky as melted nougat. You finally sit and the air begins to move, to shift. Your skin feels cool. And inexplicably, the sun finds refuge behind an extremely large nimbus cloud. A fine drizzle descends.
Since time immemorial, the rain must have fallen. When the granitic mountains rose 200 million years ago from the sea and formed the Bintang range. In their rocks was embedded the precious cassiterite ore, the mineral we call tin. The rain, falling copiously and every day, washed the massive boulders, wearing down their hardness. Like a giant sluice, bit by bit over time, the tin travelled to the lowlands and made massive belts first around the foothills and then, beyond.
After a long time, around 1854, an elephant escaped from his mahout and waded into a muddy pool full of silver-coloured mineral. Upon its return, his master, a Malay aristocrat named Che Long Jaafar, discovered the precious metal and soon brought workers who came from a distant land, an unknown place called China. Within a few decades, tens of thousands of their people poured into this land. They worked very hard. They also fought furiously amongst themselves, their loyalties split between two secret societies — Hai San and Ghee Hin. Nursing old animosities, their anger festered like a wound that would not heal.
The wars continued from 1861 till 1873 and caused more fear, bringing death, destruction and losses to the masters of the land. Eventually even the masters fought for power. Years went by and the landscape, once so full of promise for so many, became a scarred battlefield, filled with ghosts. And how the rain must have fallen even then.
Over time, new heroes emerged. They were not those who were filled with virtue, rather heroes who could mediate and negotiate a difficult passage to find peace. And that was how this land, once called Larut, became Taiping, which means “The Land of Great Peace”.
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That was in 1874, when the Pangkor Treaty was signed. A man named Captain Tristam Speedy, who was made the British Assistant Resident, chose the name for this town. It was a canny choice, both for the many Chinese who still inhabited the land and the new masters. “Taiping” was central to early Taoist beliefs as a state of perfection and also echoed the Taiping Rebellion, which sought to overrun the hated Manchu Qing dynasty, one of many reasons that caused them to leave kith and kin to come to Malaya.
Taiping was, for the British, their own promised land. It was a first step away from their non-intervention stance into the promise of wealth from tin, eventually rubber, and a desire to grow their influence beyond the Straits Settlement into the Malay Peninsula. An adroit move that placed them in possession of their most lucrative of colonies.
It did not take long for Taiping to prosper and grow. In a while, this thriving settlement became a jewel in their crown. The British administrators ensured it was a model of how a town under their watch could become a place of pride amongst its society. They developed good infrastructure, raised a hill station, built a proper township with amenities. To this day, the people of Taiping list the 33 firsts in the Malay Peninsula with great pride. The first railway line, the first golf course, the first telegraph office, the first museum, the first prison; the list is impressive. There were visionary projects such as the Lake Gardens which, refashioned from scarred mining land and sterile lakes, still stand as testimony to regeneration, and the 40,466ha Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve which till today is acknowledged as one of the world’s best sustainably managed wetlands.
Despite such impressive achievements, the British in the late 1930s began turning their attention to the Kinta Valley, where huge tin deposits were discovered, and even discussed the possibility of moving the state capital from Taiping to Ipoh. The relocation eventually took effect, although Taiping remained a favourite of the British. And for good reason. It was a pretty town, set against forest-clad highlands and boasting the country’s most beautiful public gardens. It possessed well-placed public amenities, a planned township with quality schools and tree-lined avenues creating a salubrious setting where life could be very comfortable. And the rain that fell on cue every day meant the weather was more tolerable than in the other lowland towns in the tropics.
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During WW II, Taiping was overrun by the Japanese military forces. In its early phase, massacres known as sook ching were carried out routinely. To this day, it is still not known how many people, especially the Chinese, were beheaded or executed, often in an area known as the circus ground. These years, called “The Silent Years” by historians, were eventually relegated into the recesses of memory as those who had witnessed and survived the atrocities were so traumatised they no longer wanted to revisit their experiences.
Between January 1944 and the end of the war in August 1945, the Japanese relocated their military headquarters from Singapore to Taiping. It was in early August during this period that the famous meeting between Ibrahim Yaakob (president of Kesatuan Melayu Muda and an opponent of the British colonial government) and Indonesia’s President Sukarno and his entourage, comprising Mohammad Hatta and Dr Radjiman Wedyodiningrat, took place, with the leaders landing in Taiping’s Tekah Aerodrome to discuss merging Malaya with Indonesia to create “Greater Indonesia”. The plan never materialised as the war ended not long afterward.
In the years that followed, Taiping lived true to her name. As the nation achieved independence, moving towards her own development and progress, Taiping, already replete with such hallmarks of human civilisation, moved sedately along. The planned township, public amenities, fine schools and gifts of a beauteous natural landscape nurtured a peaceful society where one could live well, often inspiring her people to appreciate a fine balance in their existence.
As Taiping marks her 150th year with parades, public events and other celebratory occasions, I hope we will look back before we look ahead. But I hope in looking back, we will stay faithful to what is authentic and true, understanding that while we are made of a peculiar chain of events, we are also shaped by a unique landscape and a human story that reveals who we are as a people. For in being human and indeed a citizen of this world, understanding our place in this shared universe relies entirely on knowing who we are and where we come from. History and heritage are thus to be guarded jealously, not merely for ourselves but every generation that comes after us.
In Taiping, our Bandar Warisan, we hope in the next 150 years ahead, such values will persist, as the rain has persisted. In its perennial falling are also the rhythms of our past and present. If we heed them, they may help us forge a forward path of enduring peace.
Liew Suet Fun is president of the Taiping Heritage Society and author of more than 20 books of non-fiction and poetry. Among them are 'After long rainy afternoons: Of Taiping and her people', 'Beguiled: On Larut Hills' and 'Musings from The Nest'.
This article first appeared on July 1, 2024 in The Edge Malaysia.
