Catch ‘em, girl!

It was a perfect night to catch ‘Tin Kai’ (a frog-like Chinese delicacy). The rain has just stopped and the sky was dark. The moon was no where to be found. To the Ibans in the long house, ‘Tin Kai’ is very expensive. One of the few ways they get to eat it is to catch them on their own in paddy fields.

When a ‘Mak Cik’ told me this, I said “Let’s Go!” immediately without any hesitations. But, just 3 seconds after that, as I looked at the paddy field, which laid in complete darkness in front of the long house, I realized I was out of my mind. I asked them if there were snakes in the paddy field; if there were any leeches, rats, any other creatures other than paddy. They assured me that there weren’t any. And so, I went.

They have a suit for catching ‘Tin Kai’. A pair of Phuah-Chu-Kang boots to protect my legs from mud which was 5 inches deep, a plastic bag to protect my hands from any direct contact with the ‘Tin Kai’, a jacket to protect me from mosquitoes and the cold wind, a torch light…what else?

When we were almost done, we accidentally came across a 5 feet long snake, it has thick black and white bands on it, and it was about 2 meters away from us! It freaked me out and before I could take any photo of it, I had already run back to the long house! All my life, I’m a ‘snake-o-phobia’. I can’t even stand watching the reptile on TV!

Anyway, we had a fruitful catch. Here they are… BUT, when my foster parents cooked them the next day, only the one circled was ‘Tin Kai’, the rest were all ‘Tin Kai wanna-bies’. Meaning, only one was edible!

Hmm… (Nothing to ‘hmm…’ about, but just la…)