How to trap sea fish (Singapore)

This is a method of night sea fishing using a kelong -- a Malay word for a fishing platform sitting out at sea on stilts.

(from googling)

Quote

A kelong is a traditional offshore wooden fishing platform or stilts-based structure commonly found in the waters of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, used for fishing, fish farming, and sometimes as a dwelling. These structures are typically built using timber, nibong palm, and rattan, and are often used to catch fish by, for example, lowering large nets at night.

Unquote

    It works, in principle, like how the wine bottle traps fruit flies -- see blog https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/03/how-to-trap-fruit-flies.html.

    As bait, a lamp is suspended over the submerged net (like the residual wine at the bottom of the bottle), which the fish all around can see in the dark sea.  The fish will swim towards the light, but once there, they can't see their way out.  The fisherman just has to raise the net at regular intervals.

    Back in 1973 or 1974, one of my maternal cousins owned a kelong, so my eldest sister, who was always coming up with novel ways for her group of friends to spend their weekends, approached him about letting her and her friends spend Saturday evening there.  I tagged along with a friend (Cheok Ah Hua from secretarial school).

    We arrived just after dark (which is 6.30/7pm in Singapore, one degree north of the equator).

    My cousin's kelong had raised walkways (on stilts) around the rectangular area where the net sat in the water.

    On the side of one walkway was an extension which housed the fisherman's sleeping quarters.

    On the side of another walkway was an extension which housed the kitchen and a room next to it, where my sister and her friends set up a table for mahjong and one for poker, for them to party through the night.

    Ah Hua and I went to another walkway where we lay down to watch the starry sky and listen to the lapping of the sea water against the stilts -- and dozed off within no time at all, as it was nice and cool in the tropical setting.

    Every two hours or so, the fisherman would get up from his nap and raise the net.  My sister and her friends would pick what they liked from the catch, e.g., prawns, squid.  The sea food was so fresh that it was tasty as it was -- without much cooking needed (with help from sauces and extras like garlic, onion and ginger).  We could just rub the prawns between our palms to partly cook them (and eat straightaway), or dip the squid briefly into boiling water, then into our mouths.

    The next morning, a Malay man in a sarong and a sampan boat approached the kelong. 

    It turned out that he had a long-standing arrangement with the kelong.  Every x months, he'd come along and scrape off the mussels growing on the kelong stilts in return for a sampan-load of mussels which he'd take back to shore, to shell and dry in the sun -- either for his own consumption or to sell somewhere.  What timing!  What a treat it was for us to be present to watch this cleaning process, as (according to AI) it takes something like "6–12 months for mussels to grow to marketable size" for tropical waters.

    Ah Hua and I lay on our tummies on the floor of the fisherman's sleeping quarters, stuck our heads out of an opening in the wall that came down to the bottom of the floor, and watched the proceedings right below us.

    The man removed his sarong, and dived into the water.  No goggles/mask, snorkel or a swimming cap.  Very simple mode of operation, which is enough in tropical waters.

    Within a few minutes, he surfaced with a cluster of mussels (yes, they grow in clusters, primarily for stability against waves, among other things), which he tossed into his sampan.  This was repeated until he'd filled the first sampan, which the kelong man then emptied (for the kelong).

    Something like another three or four loads later, the Malay man went back to shore with the last load for himself.

    Such a simplistic life style.

    Googling kelong tells me that:  Quote Many are now tourist destinations offering rustic, off-grid fishing stays.  Unquote

    I must've been one of the last to have experienced the kelong as a real-life work concept.  Maybe my eldest sister was to blame for having used it for a novel Saturday night party experience, with everyone following suit...

(Singapore, 1973 or 1974)

sampan:  [from googling] traditional, flat-bottomed Asian wooden boats (8–30 ft) with optional shelters, often used for coastal transport or as homes

Some Chinese practices: 10 (Table manners.3: Leave some food for other people)

My family upbringing also taught us to check the size of each dish on the table, to make sure that there's enough for everyone else when you dive in.  Go for seconds if there's still some left after everyone's had a share.  It's not so much about food, but pure respect and consideration for other people, even if they're your own family, not a guest.

I was the last to arrive at the Chinese restaurant for the teacher-student Xmas meal, so the only seat left at the round table right in the corner was the first one the waitress would get to when she brought the food up.

Instead of taking my share and passing the dish round the table, I chose, as per my family upbringing, to turn the lazy Susan so that the person on my left got the first share, with me being, therefore, the last.

The boyfriend from the previous meal with the other lot of students was there again, but it was a different teacher-student meal this time (with his girlfriend being the teacher instead of the student, me trying to help her meet her bills by giving her some teaching hours).  So, on both occasions, he had nothing to do with the group, but had obviously just tagged along for the food (and the shared bill).  No one else had brought their partners.

He was three seats away from me, which is less than halfway round the table of ten.

When each dish got to him, he'd pile his rice bowl up high, then the side plate as well, with as much of the food as he could, before turning the lazy Susan to move it on to the next person.  There was so much food in his bowl and on his side plate that it looked like he was hoarding for a famine on the horizon.

This was the second meal where he repeated the poking around, with his own chopsticks, in the seafood noodle dish, yet again "looking for the squid" when I asked him what he was doing.  I then heard him telling the people beside him that I'd told him off the previous time for doing the same thing.

When I next saw the class, after Xmas, two of the chaps (who are very caring and considerate men) complained at the pub session after the lesson that they got hardly any food out of the whole evening, because so much of it had been siphoned off by diner No.4 that there wasn't much left by the time it got to them, the last two of the ten at the table.

I said if I were to turn up for the next meal with the students and find him there, I'd suddenly remember I had a double booking and walk out.

In hindsight (my brain is so slow), I should've turned the situation round.  If the lazy Susan wouldn't revolve in the other direction, I should've physically picked up each dish to give to No.9 and No.10 first, and asked them to pass it round the other way.  That would've meant those two men getting some food, and perhaps also sent a message to people who seem to be out for a cheap meal, eating more than their one-tenth share of the bill.  More importantly, it's to let them know that one has to respect and think of other people as well.

(London, late 90s)

* lazy Susan:  (from googling) a turntable (rotating tray) placed on a table or countertop to aid in distributing food. Lazy Susans may be made from a variety of materials but are usually glass, wood, or plastic. They are circular and placed in the centre of a table to share dishes easily among diners.

Some Chinese practices: 10 (Table manners.2: Do not be selfish)

 

Another rule with regard to helping oneself to the food in the middle of the table is:  one does not pick up food from the far end of the plate, as this denotes selfishness.

    The far end is the inconvenient end, therefore it must mean that it's a particularly good morsel for you to stretch out to the other side.  You are, therefore, being selfish by picking out that piece for yourself.  (However, picking out a particularly good piece of food is the right thing if you're giving it to someone else, especially if it's someone in the older generation -- you're showing your filial piety or respect for your elders.)

    We were taught as children that if you really want that specific piece of food, then at least choose with your eyes first:  identify the piece you want, then dive straight in (no poking around), so that it's not so obvious.

    The MA Bilingual Translation group I was teaching in the late 90s decided to take the teacher out for a Chinese meal.  It was a course for Chinese-speakers, so they were from (in alphabetical order) China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan.  The white British boyfriend of one of them decided to come along, although it was a teacher-student meal.

    We ordered a mixture:  some dim sum dishes (dumplings), and some fried noodle dishes, one of which was seafood fried noodles.

    At one point, I caught the boyfriend poking his own chopsticks around the seafood noodle dish, turning over the noodles, the topping ingredients and the gravy.  When I asked him what he was doing, his reply was, "I'm looking for the squid."

    That was a double offence:  he was not only being selfish, looking for a particular ingredient (I also noted that squid is expensive and not so common an ingredient), he was also poking his own chopsticks (which had been in his mouth countless times up to that point) among the noodles and topping ingredients to find the squid.  (Of course, I refused to touch the dish after that.)

    He turned up yet again for another teacher-student Xmas meal a few months later when I'd taken on his girlfriend to teach one of my evening programme language modules.  Once again, as a total outsider to a teacher-student meal.

    Yep, he did the same thing again:  poked his chopsticks around the seafood noodle dish, "looking for the squid" yet again when I asked him what he was doing.  He even complained to the rest of the group (my students, who didn't know him at all) that I'd told him off once before for the same thing.  (Some people just don't seem to learn.)

    The Chinese would immediately blame his parents for his selfish behaviour.  I certainly noted that the girlfriend didn't do anything about it, although she's from the Chinese culture and therefore knows the code of behaviour.  She'd let him do it not once but twice.  I dread to think what their children might be like...