JUNGLEBLUES BOY

 On 24 March 2015, I joined a small team of reporters on a trip to Bario. The main objectives of our visit were to cover the 70^th Anniversary of Operation Semut’s landing in the highlands and to interview the surviving local guerilla fighters and their descendants.

Stephen Baya, the owner of Junglebluesdream Art Gallery and Guest House, hosted us throughout our three-day sojourn. On first impression, the Kelabit man exuded a gentle bonhomie beneath his soft-spoken exterior, making us feel welcomed and at home. The homestay, built in the style of a long house, is perched on a dome-shaped hill overlooking a wide expanse of paddy fields, which abuts a stretch of forest that belts its way along a rolling chain of bluish mountains. The vista offered a pleasing respite from the workaday concrete forest we are accustomed to seeing in the city.

                             

 Almost every wall in the homestay is adorned with Stephen’s artworks. Painting is a deeply rooted passion of the affable man, who is a self-taught artist. The whole house pullulates with the colourful splendor of his masterpieces, which are a blend of local motifs and contemporary arts. He works on polyester fabric with acrylic paint.

Beginning the homestay business with a meager capital of RM400, Stephen worked his fingers to the bone in a space of four years to achieve what he has now – a well-established four-room lodging compared to its erstwhile one-room accommodation.

                “Before embarking on the homestay business,” revealed Stephen. “I worked as a  window display artist at Printemps Department Store, Kuala Lumpur in 1980s and a resident artist at Hilton, Kuching from 1988 to 2003. The experiences have tipped the scales in favour of my existing art career.”

                                         

                During his stint in Kuching, Stephen met Tine, a Danish exchange student at UNIMAS and fell in love with her. They got married and against the tide of migration to the city, moved back to Bario to start everything anew. Stephen worked temporarily as a forest tour guide before deciding to live a subsistent life off his ancestral land with Tine. They enjoyed their life to the full and Stephen continued to paint.  One day, he sold five of his paintings and Tine suggested that they use the profit as capital to start an art gallery.  Acting on his wife’s advice, Stephen gave the business a shot. In a year’s time, it reaped fruit and graduated to a homestay.

               How did Stephen and Tine attract customers in the beginning? Rain or shine they approached tourists at the airport, showing them photographs of their lodging and pamphlets on the services they offered. Before heading to the airport, they arranged an average of twenty fishing rods along their water-laden paddy fields. Once deals were struck, they would drive their customers back to the lodging. On the way, they would pick ‘paku ferns’ and check if the fishing rods had yielded any fish. They always arrived home with their boot full of the freshest and most succulent jungle produce, which would be prepared and cooked in the most meticulous way that flattered the taste buds. Stephen and Tine’s hospitable and rustic hosting appealed to many tourists, local and foreign alike, and they helped to promote their homestay by word of mouth and through the Internet. To this day the couple still fervently does what they did before, thus receiving scores and scores of positive online reviews. “We serve our customers with sincerity,” said Stephen, emphatically. “Their satisfaction is our utmost joy.”

                Stephen’s artworks are featured in Monica Janowski’s book: Tuked Rini, Cosmic Traveller, Life & Legend of Borneo. Tuked Rini, a Kelabit folklore hero, is the favourite grist to the mill of his artworks and many of his paintings depict the magical power of the hero’s sword, his cosmic travels and his fights with many different enemies.  One is easily impressed by the mystifying ethnical aura that radiates from his seemingly random but well-orchestrated brushworks of multi-coloured dots, jabs and strokes. In 2013, an eclectic of his works were exhibited in Cambridge University, England.  He received favourable comments from a renowned art critic, Jonathan King.  Recently, he was invited to exhibit in Lapland University, Finland.

                Stephen is also noted for his musical and dancing talents. As he strummed the strings on his elaborate sape, his face seemed to be lost in a trance and the lively, mellifluous strains that flowed out beneath his fingers made my heart flutter with sylvan joy. He danced with verve and gusto, bringing the courage of a Kelabit warrior to the nth degree.  Watching on one side, Stephen’s cute four-year-old son, the gem of his heart, cavorted in glee.

                               

                Stephen’s grandfather, the late Ngimat Ayu, played an instrumental role during Operation Semut’s resistance against the Japanese. The headman of Pa’main longhouse, he gave the Tom Harrison-led guerilla force undivided moral support by offering them all manner of help.  After the Second World War, Ngimat Ayu became the first Kelabit dresser in Bario. Known for his selfless devotion in treating the sick, he is a household name among the people of the highlands, who remember him fondly as ‘the sinseh’. The great man passed away in 2013 at the ripe old age of ninety-two.

                “I hope the younger generation will continue to treasure in their hearts the contributions of Operation Semut,” said Stephen. “Without them, we would not be who we are.”

                What about his hope for the Kelabits in Bario? 

                “I’d like to urge all the people of Bario to preserve their tradition. This is how we define ourselves and we should not let it fall into abeyance.”

                Nailed on the right walls of Stephen’s dining hall are many wooden message boards. Almost every board contains the feedback of multi-nationality customers. 

                “There’s an interesting story behind each message,” Stephen enthused. “The sight of each board engenders the image of each different customer that once stayed in my lodge.”

                Stephen has a lot of plans and dreams, one of them being opening a gallery cum restaurant in Miri, where he can display more of his artwork and serve myriad exotic foods.

                You may be curious as to why the gallery cum guesthouse was named ‘Junglebluesdream’? Well, it has much to do with Stephen Baya’s a nickname, which is Jungleblues Boy. He did not tell me why others had given him the name but it must have been his seasoned knowledge of Bario jungles, along with his artistic and musical talents that earned him the cognomen.

                All the best to you and your family, Jungleblues Boy.