Tarap and an Untold Story

Early this week, our neighbour gave us two not-yet-fully-ripened tarap fruits. The moment I saw them, I instantly recalled our last “hunt” for this fruit in March 2024, when Sam’s family was in Kota Kinabalu for a holiday. Rachel, my daughter-in-law, was particularly keen to taste tarap again after having eaten it a couple of years earlier. Unfortunately, we didn't find any tarap on sale because it was not the season (Read here). Their first taste of tarap was in September 2019, when they had their first trial of this unusual fruit. My granddaughter, Livvie in particular, really loved it (Read here).

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For me, eating tarap always evokes memories of childhood. Perhaps that is because tarap trees grew in my grandmother’s farm in Kampong Pulutan, as well as in the vicinity of my childhood home near what is now Jalan Istana.

But there is another memory connected to tarap trees - one that has remained with me for more than sixty years and is still difficult for me to talk about. It was an incident that could have changed the course of our family and my life had it turned out differently.

The Tarap Trees and the Fall

In the 1950s and 1960s, village houses had neither electricity nor a piped water supply. Our very first form of “entertainment” came when my father finally bought a battery-powered radio. I believe this was around 1963.

To obtain better reception, a long copper wire was strung high above the ground and connected to the radio set as an aerial. In our case, my father chose two huge, tall tarap trees to support the wire.

On one fateful weekend morning, my father, with the help of his two young sons - my second brother, Elvis and I - set about putting up the aerial. To climb the first tarap tree, my dad used a long bamboo pole, leaning it against the tarap tree at an angle and then climbing up.

He had climbed more than three-quarters of the way up the sloping pole when, suddenly, the pole dislodged from the tree. My father fell together with the bamboo pole. Because the tree stood on a hillside, the actual height of the fall was about fifteen feet. He landed on the ground and lay motionless.

We immediately cried out for help. My mother came rushing out of the house below and ran up the slope. Seeing my father lying motionless, she gently tapped him and then instructed me to go back to the house and get a cup. At that moment, I was completely bewildered. In the middle of such a frightening accident, why on earth did she need a cup? 

I ran back and brought one. By then, my father was slowly regaining consciousness. My mother's next instruction was for my second brother to urinate into the cup. Once the cup was almost full, she placed it against my father's mouth and helped him drink it. Slowly, he seemed to improve, and with our help, we managed to get him back into the house.

By God's grace, my father recovered remarkably well. There appeared to be no lasting injury from what had been a potentially devastating fall.

At the time, my brother and I had absolutely no idea why my mother had done what she did. It was only much later that she explained to us the traditional belief behind her actions - particularly the supposed “benefit” of drinking the urine of a young boy.

The Traditional Belief

During the 1950s and earlier, Chinese immigrants to North Borneo (now Sabah), many of whom originated from Guangdong, brought with them deeply rooted folk customs, traditional remedies and beliefs influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

In rural communities, these practices often became intertwined with local beliefs, superstition and practical remedies developed out of necessity. One such traditional belief concerned the use of human urine, particularly the urine of young boys, known in Chinese as 童子尿. In traditional Chinese folklore and historical medical practice, urine was sometimes believed to possess therapeutic properties. In certain circumstances, including after a serious fall or injury, it might have been regarded as a desperate remedy for someone who appeared weak, semi-conscious or seriously affected by trauma.

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Yet, more than sixty years later, I still remember that morning vividly. For a young boy, it was a frightening experience. For our family, it was a moment that could have changed everything.

Looking back, I can fully understand why my mother took that course of action. There was no instant communication or easy way to seek emergency medical assistance in those days. Faced with my father lying unconscious after a serious fall, she had to act immediately, using whatever knowledge and remedies were available to her. The only “instant remedy” she knew was one that had been passed down to her since childhood - and, in that moment of desperation, she naturally turned to what she had been taught to believe might help. My father’s quick recovery, together with the absence of any obvious physical injury, was more than sufficient to convince my mother that the remedy she instantly chose had worked.

And today, whenever I eat a tarap, I am reminded not only of its distinctive taste and the happy memories of childhood, but also of those two enormous tarap trees, the bamboo pole, my father's fall, my mother's desperate response, and, above all, God's grace in preserving my father's life.

Some memories are attached to places. Others are attached to people. And some, unexpectedly, are attached to a fruit.