6. Searching for Tin in Chemor

Chemor is about 60 kilometers south east of Taiping. Back then, it was a small village where many Chinese were working in tin mines. Several clansmen from Qing Yuan had already settled there. In 1988, father Chung Chow, mother Lee Mooi, and I traveled to the Chinese new village just outside Chemor town, and we managed to locate an old emigrant and clansman called Wong Kow who was in his 90s.

In Chemor, life was hard and a constant struggle for grandfather Chan as he searched for that illusive dream of striking rich tin ore deposits. During the old days, the Chinese had difficulty in acquiring land for mining and most of them would obtain subleases from the Europeans, Malays or other rich Chinese miners. They would pay some form of taxes called 'chabut' or tribute. The mining leases ranged from two roods (half an acre) to twenty-eight acres. Our grandfather Chan could have been working on one of these subleases. After working the land for about three years, he had exhausted almost all his resources. He could not find any tin ore and he was almost broke. He then decided to return to China. Even up to this day, many local people still believed that lying beneath Chemor town is a very large deposit of tin ore.