Past Posts

Spanish Dollatr 1500’s The Hakka, Borneo and the Spanish Dollar. China had goods the Western world wanted, such as porcelain, cloth, iron tools, beads and other products. They accepted silver for the payment of these goods. The Spanish had established colonies in Bolivia and Peru. They opened silver mines, and the silver was minted into… Read more: Spanish Dollar, Hakka and Borneo

New Species A novel cyanobacterium, Ammassolinea thermalis sp. nov., was isolated from a hot spring pool in Sarawak, Malaysia. DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.763.1.4 New Species A new genus has been erected to  accommodate two new species of Plant Hoppers discovered by canopy fogging in Sabah.  https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2026.1069.3294 One cell critter on a mite attached to a pitcher plant A one-celled… Read more: All Creatures Great and Small #84

The Early origins of the Chinese who migrated to Borneo When I first moved to Kuching,I wanted to try to understand the Chinese people. I soon learned they were divided into different peoples from different parts of China, each with their own dialect, history and customs. Below, please find an explanation of how this happened… Read more: Early History of the Chinese who came to Borneo

Before the Austronesians and the Chinese The cause of the last ice age has to do with Earth’s orbit around the sun, the tilt of the earth on its axis and the wobble of the earth. These are called Milankovitch cycles. These cycles came together to form the last ice age or glacial maximum as… Read more: Early Borneo People

Origin of the Malays and Ibans There is an old theory, still making the rounds, that the Iban arrived here from Java or Sumatra. There is currently no genetic or archaeological evidence to support this idea. From the last essay, we established that the Bidayuh were among the first Austronesians to leave Taiwan, visit the… Read more: Early Iban and Malay People

Long Range Weather Forecast for Borneo June -December 2026 The long range weather forecast for Malaysia will be hot, dry, drought filled, hazy and with water disruptions. This forecast is brought on by the current El Nino forming in the western Pacific. Coupled with the warming caused by climate change, temperatures are expected be the… Read more: Weather Borneo July-December 2026