Meeting festive demand with jungle bounty
Orang Asli trader braves rough terrain to supply bamboo to lemang sellers in run up to Aidilfitri celebrations
Traversing over 2km of hilly jungles and rivers is part and parcel of Jaminan Alang’s annual routine to source bamboo for lemang sellers in preparation of Aidilfitri celebrations.
Jaminan, 36, an Orang Asli of the Temiar community from Kampung Manggis in Pos Yum, has spent the last four years trekking through jungles seeking out the best types of bamboo.
“I take orders for 4,000 to 10,000 lemang bamboo segments before venturing into the jungle with other workers. Our preparations include calculating how many trips we need to make and how much bamboo we need to collect in a day.”
The bamboo in his village are of high quality and suitable for lemang as they are quite thin, so glutinous rice would be well cooked in a short time, Bernama reported.
“A bamboo cluster can yield 30 to 40 long bamboo trunks that can be cut into segments. The cutting process usually produces 300 segments a day, done in two sessions.
“A segment normally sells for RM1.40 to RM1.50 to wholesalers or traders, depending on size,” he said, adding that he would typically start foraging a fortnight before Hari Raya to fulfil his orders.
Jaminan said he started his bamboo supply business after meeting a lemang seller while working at a factory.
“I asked the seller if he wanted to buy some bamboo for lemang as my village had a lot of it. The idea stayed in my head for more than a year.
“I contacted the seller when Aidilfitri approached and I’m one of his permanent suppliers to this day,” he said, adding that looking for bamboo is hard work but it has become a source of income for his family and for other villagers.
“There are risks when entering the jungle and we know our safety is never guaranteed, so we are thankful nothing bad has happened so far. However, being cut by bamboo is a normal occurrence for us.”
He also said he is keeping up with current trends and has tried to use social media to market his bamboo.
“I’m learning suitable video editing techniques from my friends. I just want to maximise social media usage to boost orders.
“I’ve set up a TikTok account and planned how to market and expand my business, so I’m just waiting for the right time to do it,” he said.