KECHARA

PEOPLE • PEOPLE INSPIRE PEOPLE
75
WAN WAI MENG –
REACHING OUT TO THE NATIVES
Since July 2014, the Kechara Ipoh
Study Group, led by Wai Meng,
has been actively visiting and
offering help to a community of
Orang Asli (aboriginal people
of Malaysia) in the Perak region.
Known as the Semai tribe, who
hail from Kampung Pawong,
Kampung Jantung Baru and
Kampung Chiduk, these groups
of natives consisting many
families have finally warmed up
to the humanitarian acts of Wai
Meng and his team.
“We have to understand their
situation. Many of these natives
have been removed from their
natural habitat against their
volition for reasons such as
development. Once uprooted,
they cannot simply be glued
back into their bygone homes
simply because these places no
longer exist,” said Wai Meng, a
civil engineering graduate from
Imperial College, London.
It is the aim of Wai Meng and the
rest of the team to help the Orang
Asli assimilate into their new
environment through education.
“As the saying goes, we hope to
teach them to fish instead of just
giving them fish each time we
visit,” explained Wai Meng.
Foodstuff such as cooking oil,
bread and noodles and items
like bags, shoes and clothes were
initially used to bridge the gap
between these urban folks and
the jungle dwellers. “It did take
a while for them to trust us. Now,
we have even taken the village
head to the doctor for a medical
check-up,” added Wai Meng.
Far from just being an object
of anthropological studies,
the natives are the original
people who inhabited the land
and had remained unaffected
by modernisation. They are
gatherers, hunters and practise
mainly shifting cultivation, felling
and slash-and-burn agricultural.
Being mostly nomadic, they
collect and eat jungle vegetable
and fruits. “They are not farmers
and may not know how to plant
food to survive as most city
people believe the Orang Asli
to be. Therefore, they lack the
knowledge and skills to be able
to survive once they have been
shifted from the environment
that used to provide them shelter
and sustenance,” said Wai Meng.
Having met H.E. the 25th Tsem
Rinpoche in 1992, Wai Meng
joined Kechara as a full-time staff
after leaving the corporate world
to be part of the E-Division, where
he manages the Tsem Rinpoche
website, maintains Kechara’s
online social presence and
leads all online correspondence
on behalf of Rinpoche and the
Kechara organisation. He is also
a member of the Kechara House
Education Committee.
Throughout this interview, Wai
Meng was calm and composed
perhaps due to his scientific
background. He elucidated
each point clearly linking how
meeting the Dharma, through