Are We Still Living On Tree Top (And Eat Worms)???

And by we, I mean 'we' (people living in Borneo)... that is a question raised by 'people who apparently does not live in Borneo'. So why don't we gave them the answer in a proper manner so they won't ask it again.

'Yep! That's Borneo'

Question:

Does your people lives (and still) on tree?

Answer:

Nope and never had been, until now there had been no historical evidence stated that we had lived on tree in the past. We might live in caves but cave is cave, it's not tree.

Even nowadays we lived in our own house but not on tree. Pay a visit to Kampung Budaya Sarawak, you won't see any tree top houses there...

"Maybe this picture had confused them, the house is build on a ground but not on tree top"

Question:

How do you get here (Peninsular)? Did you swim?

Alternate Question:

How do you get here? Did you swim? You must be very tired... oh wait you're not cos you guys are jungle man!

Answer:

(This makes me laugh) If we did, we are going to be in the Guinness for being the first one to swim across the South China Sea... The answer is we used aeroplane @ flight. Even jungle man have their limit, right?

Trivia: Flights from North Borneo to Malaya was available since 1956. No reason for us to swim

Question:

What do you eat for lunch? Worms?

Answer:
This can be true but not all true. Some indigenous people did make worm as their delicacy but not every tribes in Borneo though. The worm is a sago worm which is a larvae found in sago tree. Sago is the white transparent thing you eat in your Bubur Lambuk. Although it's a food, we don't get to eat it during lunch. It can be considered as a gourmet food like escargot (snail) to the French.

"It taste better than escargot"

That's 3 of the questions, there are more but I only posted this because these are the most popular questions. My friends told me that she was asked this question when she first came there. Shocking but true.

Now it's our turn to ask question... why do they asked us this? I came up with my own theories.

• They trying to be funny - Different people have different sense of humor, apparently they thought this was funny, well my first impression when they asked me this was, " These guys are stupid hilarious"

• They were given false education -  We can't blame them for not knowing because they don't live with us, it's normal for them to ask. But how did they come up with such assumption, maybe they saw it in a documentary and got confused or maybe Alphonso d Albuquerque or Francis Light told them this.

• They mistaken us for barbarian or vikings or Spartans - They really thought we came to the west by swimming, sounds crazy but maybe they thought us to be a strong race with nothing but physical strength. Maybe they thought Sabahan babies are pushed to the cliff of Mount Kinabalu as a rites of passage (remember 300)

 "Thank God this never happened to us"

• They've watched Survivor (First Season) - The first season of this hit award-winning reality show was held in Borneo. It showcased Americans living on Borneo and trying to survived as an outcast. Maybe they've watched this show and assumed that Borneo people lived like that

"How to live like a Borneos, out on DVD" 

I hope this post will help ease the tension among us, we should not get upset that easily cos it's ok for people to ask even when they don't mean it. Thanks for joining.

P/S: Supporting 1Malaysia!