Ulam Raja, tracing the roots.

All of us fall within a particular family tree and if every birth is recorded since the beginning of time we can really understand more how each family interact with another family tree through marriage. I can only trace to  our great grandfather by the name Mat Saman. The elders used to relate stories that Mat Saman was a man of importance in Kedah sultanate. One of his son Mat Isa  moved out of  Kedah  after a feud,  as a teenager with his younger brother and settled in Pantai Remis Perak. We have stopped trying to trace the family roots beyond Mat Saman as we had figured out the reasons of Mat Isa departure southwards. There is no reason to scrutinize old wounds and the best is to come to term with ancestral history and live with it.

On Kakdah side, her family can be traced back to Yemen , and she retains the sharp middle-east features. That's how life goes....

Ulam Raja in our garden, Pasir Gudang Johor. (dated 14.1.2012)

It's about our ulam raja. I remembered taking seeds while visiting Kakdah's elder sister who lived in Tanjong Rambutan, Perak. Those were the seeds later germinated to fill up a section of our Putrajaya garden in the year 2008. Then we moved northwards to Tanah Merah in 2010 and a year later traveled southwards and settled in Pasir Gudang, Johor. It's almost nomadic, each time bringing along the whole family, belongings and seeds. Ulam raja traveled too........

Ulam Raja at different location, our Pasir Gudang garden
(dated 1. 6. 2012)

Over here in Pasir Gudang Johor they are almost to the third generation already. First planted late last year, then the seedlings around the mother plants were moved to different corner and they are flowering now. Three generations in Putrajaya, two generations in Tanah Merah, and already two generations in Pasir Gudang Johor. After seven generations, they still are ulam raja, same look, same smell, same taste, same flower. The genetic code is intact, secretly locked in seeds to the end of time.... at least to the end of our time....

_____ bangchik and kakdah _____
my little vegetable garden