Sabah government mulls state-wide handicraft fairs

Sabah handicrafts are popular with tourists who throng the handicraft market in Sinsuran in Kota Kinabalu every day in search of souvenirs. Many pay (with dollars) hundreds of ringgit for necklaces and bangles made from cultured pearls. Sellers do a brisk business. Yet there were little interests in the recent maiden Sabah Handicraft Tamu at the Penampang Cultural Centre.

Wences Angang, chairman of the Sabah Cultural Board which organised the 3-day fair from March 12 to 14, noted that public response to it wasn’t encouraging. He blamed it on poor publicity. But the Sabah government might hold the fairs all over the state to promote local arts and crafts, he said.

“The handicraft trade can give villagers a good income,” Mr Angang said. “We must encourage young people to go into handicraft making.”

Already there are about 2,000 people, mostly native villagers, making or selling handicrafts for a living.

Visitors to the fair saw 14 of them displaying their handiwork. Besides the display of Kadazandusun baskets made of wood and bamboo for sale, there were demonstrations of how bamboo was strip for its veneer to make baskets and other utensils.

Rembini Suanti, 33, of Kampung Bongol in Tamparuli, about 30 km from Kota Kinabalu, supplements her family income by selling the Vakid (bamboo basket) that she makes. She learnt the art from her mother when she was a teenager. She makes about 500 ringgit ($150) a month selling the Vakid for between 6 and 50 ringgit.

She gets the bamboo from the forests, sometimes with the help of her three children, aged four to 12, and her farmer husband.

Marrylyn Grace, 16, is a form four science pupil from Kampung Tempasuk in Kota Belud, about 60 km from Kota Kinabalu. She is skilful at making colourful wristbands by stringing plastic beads together. She has been doing this since she was 12. Her mother, a descendant of the native Rungus from whom the art comes, taught her the craft.

Her mother has a stall selling these wristbands at the Wawasan Plaza shopping complex in Kota Kinabalu. Marrylyn spends three hours to make one of them which is sold for 3.50 ringgit. Making these wristbands is her family occupation. But Marrylyn wants to be a doctor.

Siniang Awai, 35, a native Murut of kampong Ulu Tomani in Tenom, about 95 km from Kota Kinabalu, is occupied with making Takinan, a native basket used as dowry in Murut marriages.

The 30-cm tall basket made from bamboo veneer sells for 20 ringgit.

“The most difficult task is to strip the veneer from the bamboo,” Siniang says. She makes 500 ringgit a month from selling these baskets. “That’s enough for me to live in my village,” she says. – Insight Sabah

– Reported by Jenney Juanis.