THE VANISHING OF CHANGKAT HILL

What you don't see doesn't mean that it never have existed.

Let's say if you go and tell a silkworm there is snow in winter, she will be perplexed and say you are pulling its leg.

Similarly, if you were to tell a Nibong Tebal lad today that you had once scaled up Changkat Hill, he would have said that you are living in Alice's Wonderland and you needed to be housed at the mental institution in Tanjung Rambutan.

Be it in winter or at Alice’s Wonderland, I have not the slightest doubt that I had hiked up Changkat Hill, not once, but several times!

http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2010/09/old-town-chinese-medical-hall-on.html

Changkat Hill was once the highest landmark of Nibong Tebal although it was dwarfed by Mount Everest by a mile. It was a dense jungle once used by the communists as a hiding place to launch their 'hit and run' attacks on local police officers. One afternoon, as a kid, before the school going age, I heard a sudden sound of ‘bang-bang'  coming from the eating stalls opposite my house at  High Road,Nibong Tebal. A Chinese constable was gunned down. Following this incident, Nibong Tebal was immediately declared a 'Black Area' with curfews imposed indefinitely. Business in Nibong Tebal was gravely affected as police checkpoints were set up at the major roads leading to the town. This was how Changkat Hill was indirectly linked to the ups and downs of the business of the town.

http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/2008/07/fate-fooled-my-dad.html

Changkat Hill disappeared gradually over the years. In the seventies and eighties of the last century, red earth was dug and removed from it consistently for development purposes until there was no sign of the hill on the landscape of Changkat village.

Now, the village of Changkat exists in name but not in 'substance' as ‘changkat’ literally means ‘small hill’ in the Malay language.

Once the hill had been flattened it could never be restored to its original position. It is rather a sad story that by far no historian or any public figure has ever voiced or explained  as to why and how the hill could be flattened as all hills or mountains were supposed to be gazetted as protected areas since the British colonial times.

How could we answer to our ancestors in Nibong Tebal or to explain to our future generations that Changkat Hill which was once a landmark and a green lung of Nibong Tebal, was levelled to the ground before our very eyes without even the slightest protest from the local residents of the town.