No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski (2025) s01e06 Episode Script
Henry Golding's Malaysian Adventure
1
[gentle music playing]
[Antoni Porowski] I'm Antoni Porowski.
Hello.
And as a son of immigrants,
-I know that food
-Hoo!
can tell you more about who you are
Nothing makes me feel
more Polish than this.
and where you've come from
-This is it.
-than you ever imagined.
-[upbeat music playing]
-[mooing]
So now, I'm leading
six curious Hollywood stars
-Are you excited for this?
-Yeah.
[Antoni] on their very own
journeys of a lifetime.
I've been waiting for
this moment my entire life.
[Antoni] I'll be delving into
their family histories
[gasps]
-Florence?
-[Antoni] Yeah!
and tracking down culinary clues
Oh my gosh, it's so good!
to unlock the past.
[Issa Rae] It almost feels
unreal to think that
I descend from a king.
[Antoni] And it all begins
-Ha!
-For you, Nonna.
-[Antoni] with just one
-Mm
-[laughter]
-[Antoni] family recipe.
-[kisses]
-It's crispy!
[Florence Pugh] Mm!
♪♪
[Antoni]
This time, I'm taking Henry Golding,
star of Persuasion, The Gentlemen,
and Crazy Rich Asians.
on a journey to the jungles of Borneo
You're the only person
I've seen in the jungles
-with a tucked-in shirt.
-[laughs]
[Antoni] a place once famous
for its fearsome warriors
I remember seeing the skulls
-Human skulls?
-as a kid Human skulls.
[Antoni] to try to get a handle
on his Malaysian heritage.
I kind of always knew
there was a dark history.
-Iban are very skillful people.
-Yeah.
Along the way, we'll sample
the most unique flavors
-This is so good.
-That's my type of fish.
[Antoni] and unearth forgotten stories
to discover a family history
that Henry can really celebrate.
-[all] Ooh, ha!
-[bottles clink]
♪♪
-[upbeat music playing]
-[birds chirping]
[Antoni] I have to say, when I found out
we were starting our journey in Surrey,
this is exactly what I pictured.
[laughs] Really?
[Antoni] So much brick!
I have to admit, England wasn't
the first place I thought of
when I asked Henry where
his culinary roots begin.
[Henry Golding]
This is your typical British suburb.
We're, like, half an hour
from London by train.
And it's like a totally different world.
And that's because Henry spent
his first 8 years growing up
in an expat community in Malaysia.
We moved over from Malaysia, came here,
lived down the street in the first house,
moved, like, 100 meters up this way,
and that was the start of
my childhood in the UK.
-Your parents are still here?
-They're still here.
[Antoni]
Well, I'm very excited to meet them.
They're your traditional, sort of,
-very embarrassing parents.
-[laughs] Yes!
♪♪
-They better be in.
-[laughing]
-Hi, there!
-[laughing]
Hi, how are you? You've come
just at the right time.
-Mum's already started cooking.
-[overlapping chatter]
[Antoni] Dad, Clive,
was stationed in Malaysia
with the British Army in the 1980s,
when he fell in love with
Henry's mom, Margaret.
-[Henry] Hello!
-[Margaret] Hello.
[Henry] How are you?
Ah This is Antoni.
[Antoni] So nice to meet you, Margaret.
Thank you so much for having us.
-Already busy at work?
-[Margaret] Oh, yes.
[Antoni] What are we making?
[Margaret] Chicken, mushroom, and bamboo.
-One of my faves. Oh, man.
-Really?
-[Henry] Growing up, oh yeah.
-[Margaret] That's right.
[Antoni] Would Henry cook
with you as a little kid?
[Margaret] Yes. He loved cooking.
I was her little
sous chef growing up, so
-What do you need us to do?
-You can, uh,
pound the onion and garlic.
[Antoni] Okay.
-You can open the bamboo.
-[Antoni] Okay.
-The honors of opening the tin.
-Yeah!
[Henry] You're really
like a natural at this.
-[laughs] Opening a can?
-[laughs]
[Henry] We try to use ingredients
as close to the original as possible,
-but it's a little difficult.
-[Margaret] Yes.
[Antoni] So, this is the best
version you can get here?
Yes. Okay,
-let's start cooking.
-[sizzling]
First, put the garlic and onion.
[Antoni] Is this a Malaysian classic?
Mum's from a very, sort of,
special tribe in Malaysian Borneo
-called the Iban.
-Okay.
And so, a lot of Mum's cooking
was, like, derived specifically
-from where she grew up.
-Where I come from.
♪♪
[Antoni] And that is
a place called Sarawak,
part of Malaysia, but located on
the neighboring island of Borneo.
♪♪
Henry went there often as a child
to visit his mom's family in the jungle.
Mum grew up in a longhouse.
Communal sort of building,
by a river usually.
Everybody kinda lives under one roof.
There was no connection to electricity,
like, very remote,
so you would have to cook
with local ingredients.
[Antoni] Right, right.
We go in jungle and pick what we can.
So, you would go to the jungle?
-Yep!
-Pick out fresh bamboo shoots,
or you would hunt.
Really?
-How old were you?
-About 7 years old.
-7?
-[sizzling continues]
[Margaret] Okay. Now,
you can put the chicken back.
A chicken that you killed
yourself, I'm presuming?
[laughs]
[Henry] The garden's
just a mess of feathers.
[laughs] The neighbors are like,
"There goes Margaret again."
[laughter]
[Margaret] If you wanna go and sit down.
[Henry] Okay.
♪♪
Here's what we've all been waiting for.
[Antoni] Yeah, yeah, closer to us, please.
-Thank you so much.
-Ooh
-Looks good, Mum.
-[Antoni] Looks beautiful!
Remind me the name of this again?
-[Henry] Rice.
-[laughter]
[Antoni] Bon appetit.
♪♪
-[Margaret] What do you think?
-Really good.
-[Antoni] Mm!
-[Clive] Mm!
[Antoni] Very delicious.
It's perfectly seasoned.
So good. So many different textures.
The bamboo is like that needed crunch.
Feels like It's like a hug for the soul.
-It's soupy goodness.
-[Antoni] Yeah! Mm-hmm.
So, I'm always so interested,
when you think of
people who emigrated to another country,
and it's sort of like what comes with us?
Like, how's it been in your family?
It's interesting from
Mum's kind of perspective
because the Iban culture,
it's an oral history.
It's not like you can go
down to, like, city hall
-and look up the family records.
-Right.
Have you shared stories about
what it was like growing up
in Borneo, specifically?
-A little bit.
-[Antoni] Really?
And why don't you?
[somber music playing]
Um
I think I haven't been
the most communicative
-in terms of her stories.
-Yeah.
[Henry] Growing up, I was, like,
one of the only non, sort of,
Caucasian kids in this area.
and I really felt this sense of,
sort of, shame in being kind of different.
So, I turned away from my heritage.
[Antoni] So, what do you
wanna get out of this adventure?
[Henry] We don't know our family history
beyond my grandfather.
So, to learn a little bit
more beyond that,
-that would be amazing.
-[Antoni] Right.
[Henry] But, also,
I think there's a part of me
that wants to kind of delve into
the uniqueness of being Iban.
[Antoni] Okay. We just have to go there
-and see what we can find.
-Yeah.
[Antoni] Margaret's cooking
offered tasty glimpses
of Iban culture as Henry grew up.
But, he's clearly got
a hankering for the family stories
that should have gone with it.
So, with few written records to consult
[adventurous music playing]
we need to go direct to the source.
And what better place to start than here,
where Sarawak's Iban story begins
at the confluence of two rivers
in Batang Ai.
[Henry] You're the only person
I've seen in the jungles
-with a tucked-in shirt.
-[laughs]
It's so the bugs don't go in!
It's utilitarian, I promise!
Got it, got it, got it. I understand.
♪♪
[Antoni] This area's
historically significant
to the Iban, including Henry's ancestors.
Peter!
And our Iban guide, Peter,
is taking us out onto
the water to explain why.
-Hello.
-[Peter] Hello. Hey, hello!
-Here are two handsome men.
-[laughter]
-Three!
-[Peter] Three, yeah, yeah
-Don't talk so much, okay?
-[laughs] Okay! Thank you.
[laughter]
We know who's gonna be
the boss on this trip.
[laughter]
[upbeat music playing]
-[boat rumbling]
-Wow.
[Antoni] I really wanna jump in.
Today, Batang Ai is a national park.
But around 500 years ago,
long before the land was flooded
to create this reservoir,
the Iban migrated from western Borneo,
claiming this vast swathe
of jungle and rivers
for themselves.
-[Henry] Wow, look at this.
-[boat rumbling]
[Antoni] And you can still see the tops
of some of the ancient trees.
We are now exactly where
the first Iban settlers came.
-This is where they settled?
-Yes, yes, yes.
In the olden days,
we don't have roads. No roads.
The only way for us
to move around or move about
is through stream and rivers.
-Right.
-[Peter] River and stream
is also very important to identify
which Iban you came from.
Iban means "people."
-[Antoni] Oh, okay.
-[Peter] People, human being.
And Henry, do you know where
your mother's family is from?
I'm not familiar with
the name of the river.
Does that mean anything to you?
Ah, I know who you are now!
You came from the same river
as me, Batang Layar.
[Antoni] That's so cool.
[Peter] Yeah, my longhouse
is just above their longhouse
and theirs is just downstream. Yeah.
-[Antoni] Cool.
-[Henry] So, we're kind of
-in the same neighborhood.
-Yeah!
[Peter] Yeah,
same neighborhood. Yes, yeah.
So, we are Iban Batang Layar.
-Amazing.
-Wow, that's really cool.
♪♪
[Antoni] And to welcome us
to the neighborhood,
Peter's promised us
a taste of something that,
even for the Iban, is a rare treat.
♪♪
[boat rumbling]
[Antoni] Well, Peter,
tell us about this beauty.
This is from the freshwater.
-[Antoni] Okay, so this is wild?
-This is wild.
This is wild, and it's called semah.
[Antoni] For Iban old and new, semah fish
has always been a delicacy
and an elusive catch.
[Peter] The only way for us
to catch this fish
is you dive into the stream,
but only at night.
-[Antoni] At night? Wow.
-Yes.
[Antoni] And the dish relies on
other local ingredients as well,
all freshly picked from the jungle.
This is lemongrass.
-[Antoni] Oh, my favorite.
-Lemongrass and fish.
So good.
♪♪
Whoa, what's that?
I've never even heard of that before.
-Oh, wow.
-Whoa!
This is how it looks like. Yeah.
-It tastes sour, okay?
-[Antoni] Okay.
But, it has its own smell,
the aroma smell,
and, of course, the taste.
-That is fascinating.
-Not too strong though.
Is there a specific, like, flavor profile
that the Iban like to use?
-Sour. Yeah.
-More sour?
-Sour palm.
-Yeah, you wanna try?
[Antoni] I can already
smell it just by opening it up.
-[Henry] Buah maram.
-Yeah, buah maram.
-[Henry laughs]
-Oh, wow!
-Let me have a taste as well.
-That is wild.
♪♪
-Oh! [clears throat] Damn.
-[laughs]
-Wow.
-Yeah, it's very sour.
Okay, I think the fire is ready now.
What are the leaves?
This is what we call
[speaking native language].
To protect it from drying and, of course,
-some smell, also, yeah.
-Okay. Fragrant.
-It's Yeah.
-Oh, it grows right here.
-Literally right here.
-[Peter] Yeah.
[Henry] Think one of my
greatest sort of memories
is my grandad always
cooking on an open flame.
-Ah.
-That charcoal flavor.
-[Peter laughs]
-[Antoni] Yeah.
But for Henry, who always
struggled to reconcile
his Iban and Western roots,
memories like these can be bittersweet.
♪♪
For me, growing up,
I was ashamed of being half Asian.
You were embarrassed
that you were from Sarawak
because everybody was like,
"Oh, they live in the jungles,
they do this." So, there was a lot of
-[Antoni] Stigma?
-[Henry] Stigma attached to it.
[Peter] Precisely, yeah. However,
there's some group of people
who still want our culture
to be preserved.
[Antoni] Well, people like you.
[Peter] Oh, yes, of course. Yeah.
[Henry] I mean, one of
the massive cultural aspects
is definitely the tattoos.
I got a lot of tattoo.
You wanna have a look?
Yeah!
-Wow, dinner and a show!
-Take it off! Take it off!
[laughter]
[Antoni] Whoa!
Okay, that's awesome. That's really cool.
-Each has a different meaning?
-[Peter] Yes, yes.
-Achievements.
-[Antoni] Achievements?
What kind of achievements
would the Iban celebrate?
Being brave
-Fearless.
-[Peter] Yeah, fearless.
A good fighter, or good jungle trekker.
Iban are very skillful people.
-Yeah!
-[Henry] Yeah.
[mystical music playing]
-[excited chatter]
-Ah, the fish is cooked.
-[Antoni] Bro, what a reveal!
-[laughs]
-[Henry] Oh, my gosh.
-[Antoni] Oh, my gosh.
Look at the char on that.
The little crispy edges.
[Peter] I'm gonna slice this.
-[indistinct]
-[Henry] Beautiful.
Thank you.
That's my type of fish. You know,
when it's just, like, delicious.
I'm sorry, this is [bleep] incredible.
-[Peter] Really?
-[Antoni] This is so good!
There's a sweetness, a butteriness,
with the fresh torch ginger, it's so good!
But, it's so meaty.
It's meaty like a halibut.
Wow!
Welcome to Borneo.
So, this is how we cheers.
Ba ba ba ba, ooh ha!
-[both] Ba ba ba ba, ooh ha!
-[clink]
-[thunder rumbling]
-[gentle music playing]
[insects chirping]
[Henry] That was magic.
These flavors were really sorta
reminiscent of my childhood.
Like there's something
in the air, there's this
feeling of home for me.
And, you know,
whenever I used to sort of visit
as a child to my longhouse, Skuyat,
where my mum's from,
you know, I always thought of it as
kind of just this little
island within this jungle.
Nowhere in my mind would I imagine
that there was another longhouse
up a river somewhere else.
So, when Peter was like,
"Oh, I'm from, like,
the same sort of area as you," I was like,
that's really interesting.
'Cause I never really imagined,
sort of, there being another
kinda civilization close to it.
Well, maybe we should go visit
some of those longhouses.
[Henry] 100%.
Perfect, 'cause that's what
we're doing next. [laughs]
[laughter]
-[upbeat music playing]
-[insects chirping]
[Antoni] Wow. So cool.
[Henry] Just like this crescendo of bugs.
It's amazing sounds.
[flapping]
-So, there's one little durian.
-Wow! Look, at the little bean!
Henry's fired up,
but there's still huge gaps
in the family story.
So, I'm taking him to
a place he's never been
to find family he's never heard of.
Hey!
Wow.
[Antoni] So, this is
obviously a longhouse.
-[Henry] Yes.
-And it's called Pematoh,
and there's a distant relative
who still lives here.
-No Amazing.
-[Antoni] Yeah.
We barely, like, can sort of, like,
list out our relatives,
so this is, this is insane.
[both laugh]
-You wanna go meet him?
-Yes.
-Okay, let's go. Let's go.
-Wow.
[insects chirping]
♪♪
[Antoni] Pematoh longhouse
is home to almost 200 people,
all living under the same roof.
But this isn't where Henry's mom grew up.
-[bamboo rattling]
-[Henry] Hello.
[Antoni] We're here to meet
a different relative.
[Antoni] Hello. So,
this is your distant cousin, Abang.
Abang.
Amazing.
I kind of [laughs]
It's really strange. A real similarity
-[Antoni laughs]
-with my aki, yeah.
My grandfather.
And this is Nicolas,
who is actually serving as our translator.
Just three generations back,
Henry's great-grandfather, Enggan,
was the brother to
Abang's grandmother, Chandu.
-I hear a lot of noise
-[Nicolas] Yeah.
Because they are welcoming you
-to the longhouse.
-[muffled chopping]
And they are preparing
the food for everybody.
We're just about go
and cook rice and bamboo.
-Can you help?
-[Henry] Yes, absolutely.
[speaks native language]
♪♪
-[water sloshing]
-[muttering]
-[laughs]
-[indistinct chatter]
[Antoni] So, why do we
wanna cook it in bamboo?
-Very interesting rice.
-[Antoni] Oh wow.
It's a very short grain, like an arborio
-or a carnaroli almost.
-Look at you.
-[Antoni] Like for risotto.
-[laughter]
[shaking, rice rattling]
-Don't Yeah, don't tap it.
-[Henry] Oh, don't tap it?
[Antoni] Henry!
Don't tap the rice!
[laughter]
[Nicolas] This one is pandan leaf.
It has a nice smell.
-Oh wow, yeah.
-Yeah.
♪♪
[Henry] God, my eyes!
[laughs] His eyes are stinging as well.
-[Antoni] Ah, no! Ah!
-[laughter]
Ah.
[Antoni] Whoa!
-Okay, okay.
-Alright. Easy, tiger.
So, this is Henry's
-Great-grandfather.
-great-grandfather.
-Enggan.
-[Nicolas] Enggan.
[Henry] Wow.
So, what else does Abang remember
about my great-grandfather?
[Nicolas] Left behind.
[Henry] Skuyat, where my mum was from.
Does he remember my mum?
Did they ever meet when they were younger?
Wow. See, that's what I sort of saying,
when you're from one longhouse,
very rarely will you go
to another longhouse
to sort of meet other people.
So, that's kinda why, like,
our family tree is so kinda
mysterious in a weird way.
Hence why we didn't have
any idea you were here.
[gentle music playing]
[Antoni] Much of traditional
Iban life is communal.
[laughter]
So, I have to hope that
stories of Henry's family
have been passed down
and shared here, too.
♪♪
Wow.
[Henry] Goes all the way down.
-Oh, baby!
-Yeah. Families.
-[all greeting]
-[chuckling]
[Antoni] After a welcome from the chief
[Antoni] Abang wants
to show us today's specials,
starting with sago worms.
-Oh, God. Let's calm down.
-[laughs]
You think it's very funny, uh-huh?
-[laughing]
-You think it's so funny.
-[upbeat music playing]
-[sizzling]
But, there are plenty of other
local delicacies on the menu.
[quiet chatter]
-[Henry] Looks delicious.
-This is a feast!
♪♪
[Antoni] The vegetables
have been stir-fried
with garlic and shallots,
dried shrimp, and chili.
And while they might look similar,
they all taste uniquely delicious.
[Antoni] And no homecoming
would be complete
without Abang's sticky rice.
[quiet chatter]
[Antoni] Mm.
-That is decadent.
-[Henry] Yeah.
I've never had rice
taste like this before.
It's so sticky. Super glutinous.
So, that was the ubi leaf, right?
-Sweet potato leaf. Mm.
-[Antoni] Sweet potato leaf?
This is literally, like,
the gateway to my childhood.
-Really?
-Yeah. The flavor is so unique.
Mm
-[Antoni] Wow!
-Unreal.
[Antoni] Oh, my gosh!
The food is delicious.
But, Henry's still hungry for information
about other relatives
even further back in time.
[Henry] Are there any, sort of, stories,
about, sort of, my family
anybody could, sort of, share with us?
Birai?
[curious music playing]
[Antoni] Birai is the common ancestor
that Henry and Abang both share,
from more than 100 years ago,
when different Iban communities
were often at war with each other.
Sounds familiar. [laughs]
His bravery.
[Henry] And what happened to him?
He never made it back to the longhouse?
Yeah, he did not make it.
[Henry] Okay. That's crazy.
You know, I'm kind of processing
everything as we go along,
but I'm happy to have found you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having us.
-[insects chirping]
-[dog barks]
It's really amazing, I gotta say.
It's so nice to be back into
-a longhouse like this.
-Right.
I miss that so much.
That front portion where
everybody sort of congregates,
has dinner, shares stories.
And that's something, perhaps,
that kind of died out with my family.
Right, right.
Well, that was one ancestor,
-but there's more.
-Really?
This blew my mind already,
and you have more?
-Of course!
-[laughs]
♪♪
[Antoni] Although Henry
doesn't know it yet,
we're leaving the jungles and longhouses
and headed for the city
to investigate a darker side
of the family history.
♪♪
[Henry] Wow.
Beautiful.
[Antoni] Henry's search for family history
and Iban heritage has brought us here
away from the jungles
and into the city of Kuching.
It's long been a melting pot of migrants
from as far afield as England.
But, the biggest community
of all is the Chinese.
And there's a connection between them
and Henry's ancestral story.
♪♪
So, at the longhouse,
while I was doing research,
I learned about another ancestor of yours,
your great-great- great-grandfather.
-His name was Gundi.
-Gundi.
Gundi, and he fought in a historic battle
against the Chinese population.
-Way back.
-Way back.
♪♪
In 1857, to be precise.
But, Gundi is from a different
branch of the family to Birai,
on Henry's great-grandmother,
Pudai's side.
And I've brought Henry
to meet local writer
Karen Shepherd to find out more.
-Hello!
-[Karen Shepherd] Hello!
-[Henry] Henry.
-Hello, I'm Karen.
-Nice to meet you.
-Karen, great to meet you.
Love your tattoos.
-Oh, thank you.
-Amazing.
[Antoni] Just like Henry,
she is also of mixed heritage.
I'm half Chinese
and half British, in fact.
And now, here I am, talking
to another Eurasian Iban
-So wacky.
-so here we are.
This is Kuching.
Antoni tells me you have some information
about the family that
I never knew existed.
[Karen] Yes. So, around about the 1850s,
we were actually ruled by a British family
called the Brookes. I mean,
a lot of people now refer
to the Brooke family
as the White Rajahs.
So, James Brooke,
he very much styled himself
as an indigenous ruler,
and the Iban became closely
allied to him over time.
You have to understand that
there were Chinese immigrants
settled all through Sarawak.
So, the Rajah wanted to tax them,
and, well, they weren't
keen on being taxed.
So, about 600 of them came downriver
and attacked Kuching.
♪♪
[Antoni] Caught off-guard,
the British had no choice
but to call on the Iban,
who, even into the 20th century,
remained notorious for
being fearsome warriors.
I have to warn you, what
follows is not the highlight
or the most beautiful moment
of Sarawak history.
The Ibans were famous headhunters,
and your great-great-great-grandfather
-was one of the warriors.
-Wow.
And so, how many Siniawan
Chinese perished, or
[Karen] The estimate is about 2,000.
-[Henry] Oh. Jeez.
-Yeah. 2,000.
And there are a lot of stories
that, apparently,
the Sarawak River ran with blood,
and these are still known today.
I kind of always knew
there was a dark history,
but I really had no idea
about that particular
brutality of that period.
But, it's kind of
fascinating and strangely
I don't know, unnerving to understand,
but gotta get in my head that
that was that period in time.
[Karen] It's a very different culture.
It wasn't just an act of war.
Headhunting was a ritual
and spiritual pursuit, actually.
By taking the head, you would bring back
the spiritual power contained in the head
and harness it for your community.
It wasn't considered a brutal practice.
Unless you're on the other end
of such headhunting.
[Karen] Yes, but I think most of
the indigenous groups here
were headhunters.
So, in fact,
if your ancestor had not
been a good headhunter,
that would've been really problematic
-for the rest of your family.
-[Henry] Right, right.
It's a lot to digest,
uh, but
with you putting it into,
kind of, context,
I think it's slightly easier.
Thank you, Karen.
-[mystical music playing]
-[Antoni] Luckily,
the Chinese community
was eventually rebuilt.
And now, their culture
is an integral part of Sarawak's DNA.
[Henry] Oh my gosh, look at this.
[Karen] We're gonna try
something called kolo mee,
and I think that kolo mee is
the thing that most Sarawakians
who live overseas miss the most.
You'll see, the texture,
the simplicity of it all
is just like [kisses].
What's your memory of this then?
Every single morning,
without fail, with my mum,
we would walk into town,
and we'd get kolo mee.
-[Antoni] So, this is breakfast.
-You start the day.
♪♪
[Antoni] Kolo mee is a tasty dish
of boiled and seasoned noodles
topped with char siu,
the classic Chinese version
of barbecued pork.
So, this is historically Chinese?
[Karen] Yeah, and it's
usually served with chilies.
and a bit of vinegar.
You good with spicy?
-I'm fairly good.
-I'm a white boy.
You have to watch the size of the chilies.
The smaller they get, the worse they are.
[upbeat music playing]
[Antoni] Oh, it's beautiful.
Thank you.
Oh, I'm so exci
I'm so excited to have this.
[Antoni] Wow.
There you go.
-So good.
-Oh my gosh.
[Henry] The noodles are so fresh.
Like, it's so different
from a dry noodle, but
These are made in Sarawak?
Yeah, And I think exclusively in Sarawak.
[Antoni] Oh my gosh.
It leaves you wanting more.
Is it rude if I eat from the bowl? Okay.
[Karen] I think you can
do whatever you like.
[Henry laughs]
-[laughs]
-That was incredible!
♪♪
[Antoni] It's amazing
that a bowl of noodles
could have such a wealth
of history behind it.
For Henry, they're the taste of childhood.
But they're also the culinary legacy
of how Sarawak's past shaped it's culture.
And considering
his ancestors' role in that,
suddenly, old memories
are making new sense.
[Henry] Just wrapping my head around that.
I remember, growing up
in the old longhouses,
seeing the skulls, like,
up in the rafters, and
-[Antoni] Human skulls?
-As a kid Human skulls.
Would you ask your parents?
Yeah, and my mum would be like,
"Oh yeah, it was from
the headhunting days."
And never really questioned it,
but, obviously, those skulls
-would've been from that period.
-Sure.
To know that an ancestor of mine
was one of the headhunters
that was kind of recruited,
um, I'm still undecided kinda
how I feel about it all.
But, to know that there
was a source of power
derived from it,
there was a source of pride,
there was a protection element
for, you know, our families.
And their lives after life.
-In the afterlife. Exactly.
-Afterlife, yeah.
I'd like to, sort of, understand
a little bit more of that.
The spiritual side of it.
Yes, yes.
Mm-hmm. That's what we're here to do.
[both laugh]
And I believe this is one family mystery
that we can begin to solve next.
-[birds chirping]
-[light music playing]
[Antoni] It might be
exercise time in Kuching,
but we're not here to get in shape.
They're feisty!
I've got some more family insights
to share with Henry.
So, yesterday, we learned about
-Gundi, the headhunter.
-[Henry] Uh-huh. Yes.
He was in a relationship with a woman,
and her name was Indai Kampung.
-Indai Kampung.
-Indai Kampung.
Your great-great-great-grandmother,
and she was a manang.
Do you know what a manang is?
-Manang? No.
-Manang. No?
So, a manang is a spiritual healer.
-Right.
-A shaman of sorts.
-My gosh. Wow.
-Yeah.
That's crazy.
[Antoni] To find out more, you'd think
we'd be heading to a temple,
but we're going out for drinks.
-[mystical music playing]
-Cool spot.
[Antoni] This is the pride
and joy of Maynard Langet,
who runs a microbrewery making tuak
[Henry] Hi, Maynard.
[Antoni] a traditional rice
wine central to manang rituals.
-Hey.
-Hi. Henry.
-Maynard. Nice to meet you, too.
-Maynard? Good to see you.
[Antoni] He knows all about local spirits,
in both senses of the word.
How long have you been doing this?
[Maynard] Five years now.
Do you find there's still
an appetite for tuak?
It's such a traditional drink.
It's not common for someone
my age to be making it.
It's one of those things
that got lost with time.
I started making it out of curiosity.
In a world where everybody's the same,
in a globalized society,
everybody's going back
to where they come from,
because they want to know
what makes them special.
-[gentle music playing]
-[Antoni] Gotcha.
[Maynard] So, we're going
to try some tuak.
This has been aged for about two years.
-You can sniff it.
-Ooh!
-It's quite strong.
-Wow.
-Before we cheers
-Oh?
the first person has to dump it.
-Dump it?
-[Maynard] Yeah, dump it.
-Why are we dumping it?
-[Maynard] We dump it
because our ancestors like to drink.
-Okay. [laughs]
-So it's, in a way,
we are waiting for our ancestors
to have a drink with.
-They're everywhere.
-[Henry] So, it's for the gods?
Yeah, that's for the gods.
[Henry] So, Antoni revealed that
my great-great-great-
grandmother was a manang?
[Maynard] Ah!
A manang is basically a mediator
between the spirit realm
and the physical realm.
-Okay. Like a bridge?
-[Maynard] Like a bridge, yeah.
When it came to things that
happened to the community,
be it sickness, plagues, war,
Ibans attribute it to
the work of the spirits.
So, you need a manang to help "heal"
any form of disturbances
in the physical realm.
-Right.
-Yeah.
And within Iban culture,
were manangs fairly common?
It's common that there is
a manang in every longhouse.
They need somebody to
communicate with the other side.
But it would be rare to have
one in, say, my family?
[Maynard] Yes.
[Henry] That's so interesting, isn't it?
Weird, like, I'm getting
goosebumps thinking about it.
[Maynard] If your ancestor's a manang,
most likely the descendants
will also be manang.
-Yeah.
-Wow.
I mean, that could kind of explain things.
I mean, there's been aunties in my family,
they would be described as,
"Oh, they have the ability
to sort of to see the spirits."
I had a cousin who was very much in touch
with the spiritual world,
and so would either feel the presence
or have the dreams.
-[Maynard] The third-eye thing.
-[Henry] The third eye, exactly.
-That's so interesting though.
-That's amazing.
[Antoni] There's only
one thing left to do.
A toast to another illustrious ancestor
and a supernatural family gift.
Cheers.
[speaking native language]
-Ooh-hoo!
-[laughs]
[birds chirping]
[Antoni] That was really good!
[Henry] It made so much sense.
I've always felt this
-this link to spirituality.
-Mm-hmm.
I could never really, kind of, explain it.
And also, just to see young guys like that
who are so proud of their heritage
and their indigenous roots.
I think it's kind of
urging me to look deeper
within myself and my
relationship with my Iban-ness.
Mm-hmm.
And it kind of inspires me
to kind of look a little deeper
into how I represent my culture.
-There's a sense of pride.
-Yeah.
♪♪
It's great to hear Henry say that,
but we're not done yet.
I wanna help take Henry's
new-found pride up a notch.
But for that, we need his parents,
which is why I've arranged for
them to join us from London.
♪♪
[Henry] Ah, this place is stunning.
[Antoni] Yeah.
Henry wants to impress his mom, Margaret,
with a dish full of the local ingredients
she just can't get ahold of in England.
Oh, wow!
And I've found the perfect
person to help him.
-[Henry] Hi.
-Hi!
[Antoni] Dona Drury Wee is from
the Sarawak Culinary Heritage Society.
-Do you wanna come inside?
-[Henry] Please, thank you.
[Antoni] She's determined
to bring the celebration
of Iban culture into the wider world.
[soft laughing]
-What a wonderful place.
-Wow.
Just goes on and on.
It's the same reaction
we had in the longhouse, right?
[laughs] Yeah. Well it's kind of
fashioned after that, so
[Antoni] Half American and half Iban,
she lives here with her
extended family of 15 people,
longhouse style.
[Dona Drury Wee] We play mahjong here,
and when we have our dinner parties
and all that, everybody just
sort of hangs out there.
-And this is my friend, Laura.
-[overlapping greetings]
[Antoni] Laura's son's family
also lives here,
and, lucky for us,
she's a gourmet Iban chef.
We brought you some tuak.
-Thank you for having us.
-Oh, thank you so much!
[Henry] What can we help with?
Well, we are going to cook pork pansuh,
so we gonna use this bamboo with it.
[Antoni] We're well versed in bamboo.
[laughter]
Fresh local ingredients are
the perfect partners for pork
in this classic Iban recipe.
So, what you normally do
is that you just break it,
and then, you have to get rid
of this fiber thing, yeah.
So, the next ingredient is the turmeric.
It's nice to use fresh turmeric,
but I will also use the powder.
-It's convenient.
-[Antoni] Yeah.
Especially those people
who lives in the city.
-[Antoni] Like your mama!
-[Henry] Yeah, exactly.
My poor mum, she loves cooking Iban food,
but can never, sort of, find it.
[Antoni] Next up,
our old friend, torch ginger.
[Dona] That has a beautiful fragrance.
-Oh my gosh.
-Oh!
That's amazing.
I'm gonna remember this smell.
This is what I associate with Sarawak.
Now, this is the tapioca leaves.
So, you two are very strong.
Can you please
Use those muscles for something.
-[Laura] Use your muscle, yeah.
-[laughter]
[Antoni] Oh, it's getting darker.
[Henry] You're pretty good at this.
[Antoni] And who taught,
like, a technique like this?
-Who taught you this?
-[Laura] Grandmother.
Yes, Grandmother knows best.
Passed down from generation to generation.
Is it hard, sort of,
keeping up traditional recipes?
That's a good question.
This is what we are trying to do now.
We want to pass the old
traditional to the young people.
-[Henry] Mm.
-[Dona] Yeah.
[Antoni] It's time to stuff the bamboo
with the pork and vegetables.
[Laura] Oh, slow down, Henry.
Just take a bit and put it in, yeah.
Wow, that was very seductive.
[laughter]
[Antoni] Traditionally cooked
over charcoal in the jungle,
Laura uses a regular oven
while we welcome some very special guests.
-Nice to meet you!
-Nice to meet you.
[Antoni] Henry's mom and dad.
Hello!
-[laughter]
-[overlapping chatter]
-[indistinct]
-[Antoni] So good to see you!
And their son has helped prepare
the food of his forebears.
That's beautiful.
A very proud moment.
You get to carry the pièce de résistance.
[Henry] Oh, that looks phenomenal!
[Laura] Mom will be impressed.
-[Dona] Ah, here they come.
-[Henry] I heard our name.
Look what we have here.
Very special pork pansuh.
-[Dona] Smells so good.
-Created by yours truly.
[Dona] He did.
[Henry] Uh, oven.
[Dona] This is the urban version.
Yes.
A bit of the old, a bit of the new.
[Henry] We come with the new age.
[Clive] It looks great.
[Dona] They look lovely.
-[Laura] Bon appetit.
-[Margaret] Yes, very nice.
[Antoni] Did he get it right?
[Margaret] It very, very good.
It's a long time that I have this.
[laughs] Because in England,
you can't do things like this.
[Henry] Mm-hmm.
So, do you think you've learnt more
-about the culture, Henry?
-[Henry] I would say
I learned more of
our family's history.
I learned about
Great-Great-Great-Grandfather,
who was a headhunter,
and he had a relationship with a lady
who was a spiritual healer,
witch doctor of sorts.
♪♪
What do you think of that?
[laughs] Quite surprised.
The family never tell the story.
I just first heard it.
[Dona] First time you're hearing it?
-Yeah.
-[Antoni] Wow.
[Henry], But I think seeing
people like yourselves,
who's very proud to be where they're from,
and it was really sort of
rekindling that curiosity.
Actually, you know what?
It makes me so unique.
-It's just so special.
-[Antoni] That's beautiful.
[all] Ooh ha!
[gentle music playing]
So, what do you think
you're gonna go back with
after all this?
Do you feel like it helps you
understand your own mom more?
-Absolutely. Absolutely.
-[Antoni] Right?
I think, you know, growing up,
Mum was always very, sort of, quiet.
When we were younger,
we would always push her away.
We would always try to side
with our, kind of, British side
because we were, perhaps, embarrassed.
But then, when it got to a point
where I was curious about it,
she had already got into a habit
of not speaking about things to us.
And so, I think,
moving forward, I'm gonna, uh,
I'm gonna dig a little deeper for sure.
[Antoni] I love how food unlocks memories.
-It's the great connector.
-Yeah, it really is.
-Absolutely. Absolutely.
-[Antoni] Right?
♪♪
[gentle music playing]
[Antoni Porowski] I'm Antoni Porowski.
Hello.
And as a son of immigrants,
-I know that food
-Hoo!
can tell you more about who you are
Nothing makes me feel
more Polish than this.
and where you've come from
-This is it.
-than you ever imagined.
-[upbeat music playing]
-[mooing]
So now, I'm leading
six curious Hollywood stars
-Are you excited for this?
-Yeah.
[Antoni] on their very own
journeys of a lifetime.
I've been waiting for
this moment my entire life.
[Antoni] I'll be delving into
their family histories
[gasps]
-Florence?
-[Antoni] Yeah!
and tracking down culinary clues
Oh my gosh, it's so good!
to unlock the past.
[Issa Rae] It almost feels
unreal to think that
I descend from a king.
[Antoni] And it all begins
-Ha!
-For you, Nonna.
-[Antoni] with just one
-Mm
-[laughter]
-[Antoni] family recipe.
-[kisses]
-It's crispy!
[Florence Pugh] Mm!
♪♪
[Antoni]
This time, I'm taking Henry Golding,
star of Persuasion, The Gentlemen,
and Crazy Rich Asians.
on a journey to the jungles of Borneo
You're the only person
I've seen in the jungles
-with a tucked-in shirt.
-[laughs]
[Antoni] a place once famous
for its fearsome warriors
I remember seeing the skulls
-Human skulls?
-as a kid Human skulls.
[Antoni] to try to get a handle
on his Malaysian heritage.
I kind of always knew
there was a dark history.
-Iban are very skillful people.
-Yeah.
Along the way, we'll sample
the most unique flavors
-This is so good.
-That's my type of fish.
[Antoni] and unearth forgotten stories
to discover a family history
that Henry can really celebrate.
-[all] Ooh, ha!
-[bottles clink]
♪♪
-[upbeat music playing]
-[birds chirping]
[Antoni] I have to say, when I found out
we were starting our journey in Surrey,
this is exactly what I pictured.
[laughs] Really?
[Antoni] So much brick!
I have to admit, England wasn't
the first place I thought of
when I asked Henry where
his culinary roots begin.
[Henry Golding]
This is your typical British suburb.
We're, like, half an hour
from London by train.
And it's like a totally different world.
And that's because Henry spent
his first 8 years growing up
in an expat community in Malaysia.
We moved over from Malaysia, came here,
lived down the street in the first house,
moved, like, 100 meters up this way,
and that was the start of
my childhood in the UK.
-Your parents are still here?
-They're still here.
[Antoni]
Well, I'm very excited to meet them.
They're your traditional, sort of,
-very embarrassing parents.
-[laughs] Yes!
♪♪
-They better be in.
-[laughing]
-Hi, there!
-[laughing]
Hi, how are you? You've come
just at the right time.
-Mum's already started cooking.
-[overlapping chatter]
[Antoni] Dad, Clive,
was stationed in Malaysia
with the British Army in the 1980s,
when he fell in love with
Henry's mom, Margaret.
-[Henry] Hello!
-[Margaret] Hello.
[Henry] How are you?
Ah This is Antoni.
[Antoni] So nice to meet you, Margaret.
Thank you so much for having us.
-Already busy at work?
-[Margaret] Oh, yes.
[Antoni] What are we making?
[Margaret] Chicken, mushroom, and bamboo.
-One of my faves. Oh, man.
-Really?
-[Henry] Growing up, oh yeah.
-[Margaret] That's right.
[Antoni] Would Henry cook
with you as a little kid?
[Margaret] Yes. He loved cooking.
I was her little
sous chef growing up, so
-What do you need us to do?
-You can, uh,
pound the onion and garlic.
[Antoni] Okay.
-You can open the bamboo.
-[Antoni] Okay.
-The honors of opening the tin.
-Yeah!
[Henry] You're really
like a natural at this.
-[laughs] Opening a can?
-[laughs]
[Henry] We try to use ingredients
as close to the original as possible,
-but it's a little difficult.
-[Margaret] Yes.
[Antoni] So, this is the best
version you can get here?
Yes. Okay,
-let's start cooking.
-[sizzling]
First, put the garlic and onion.
[Antoni] Is this a Malaysian classic?
Mum's from a very, sort of,
special tribe in Malaysian Borneo
-called the Iban.
-Okay.
And so, a lot of Mum's cooking
was, like, derived specifically
-from where she grew up.
-Where I come from.
♪♪
[Antoni] And that is
a place called Sarawak,
part of Malaysia, but located on
the neighboring island of Borneo.
♪♪
Henry went there often as a child
to visit his mom's family in the jungle.
Mum grew up in a longhouse.
Communal sort of building,
by a river usually.
Everybody kinda lives under one roof.
There was no connection to electricity,
like, very remote,
so you would have to cook
with local ingredients.
[Antoni] Right, right.
We go in jungle and pick what we can.
So, you would go to the jungle?
-Yep!
-Pick out fresh bamboo shoots,
or you would hunt.
Really?
-How old were you?
-About 7 years old.
-7?
-[sizzling continues]
[Margaret] Okay. Now,
you can put the chicken back.
A chicken that you killed
yourself, I'm presuming?
[laughs]
[Henry] The garden's
just a mess of feathers.
[laughs] The neighbors are like,
"There goes Margaret again."
[laughter]
[Margaret] If you wanna go and sit down.
[Henry] Okay.
♪♪
Here's what we've all been waiting for.
[Antoni] Yeah, yeah, closer to us, please.
-Thank you so much.
-Ooh
-Looks good, Mum.
-[Antoni] Looks beautiful!
Remind me the name of this again?
-[Henry] Rice.
-[laughter]
[Antoni] Bon appetit.
♪♪
-[Margaret] What do you think?
-Really good.
-[Antoni] Mm!
-[Clive] Mm!
[Antoni] Very delicious.
It's perfectly seasoned.
So good. So many different textures.
The bamboo is like that needed crunch.
Feels like It's like a hug for the soul.
-It's soupy goodness.
-[Antoni] Yeah! Mm-hmm.
So, I'm always so interested,
when you think of
people who emigrated to another country,
and it's sort of like what comes with us?
Like, how's it been in your family?
It's interesting from
Mum's kind of perspective
because the Iban culture,
it's an oral history.
It's not like you can go
down to, like, city hall
-and look up the family records.
-Right.
Have you shared stories about
what it was like growing up
in Borneo, specifically?
-A little bit.
-[Antoni] Really?
And why don't you?
[somber music playing]
Um
I think I haven't been
the most communicative
-in terms of her stories.
-Yeah.
[Henry] Growing up, I was, like,
one of the only non, sort of,
Caucasian kids in this area.
and I really felt this sense of,
sort of, shame in being kind of different.
So, I turned away from my heritage.
[Antoni] So, what do you
wanna get out of this adventure?
[Henry] We don't know our family history
beyond my grandfather.
So, to learn a little bit
more beyond that,
-that would be amazing.
-[Antoni] Right.
[Henry] But, also,
I think there's a part of me
that wants to kind of delve into
the uniqueness of being Iban.
[Antoni] Okay. We just have to go there
-and see what we can find.
-Yeah.
[Antoni] Margaret's cooking
offered tasty glimpses
of Iban culture as Henry grew up.
But, he's clearly got
a hankering for the family stories
that should have gone with it.
So, with few written records to consult
[adventurous music playing]
we need to go direct to the source.
And what better place to start than here,
where Sarawak's Iban story begins
at the confluence of two rivers
in Batang Ai.
[Henry] You're the only person
I've seen in the jungles
-with a tucked-in shirt.
-[laughs]
It's so the bugs don't go in!
It's utilitarian, I promise!
Got it, got it, got it. I understand.
♪♪
[Antoni] This area's
historically significant
to the Iban, including Henry's ancestors.
Peter!
And our Iban guide, Peter,
is taking us out onto
the water to explain why.
-Hello.
-[Peter] Hello. Hey, hello!
-Here are two handsome men.
-[laughter]
-Three!
-[Peter] Three, yeah, yeah
-Don't talk so much, okay?
-[laughs] Okay! Thank you.
[laughter]
We know who's gonna be
the boss on this trip.
[laughter]
[upbeat music playing]
-[boat rumbling]
-Wow.
[Antoni] I really wanna jump in.
Today, Batang Ai is a national park.
But around 500 years ago,
long before the land was flooded
to create this reservoir,
the Iban migrated from western Borneo,
claiming this vast swathe
of jungle and rivers
for themselves.
-[Henry] Wow, look at this.
-[boat rumbling]
[Antoni] And you can still see the tops
of some of the ancient trees.
We are now exactly where
the first Iban settlers came.
-This is where they settled?
-Yes, yes, yes.
In the olden days,
we don't have roads. No roads.
The only way for us
to move around or move about
is through stream and rivers.
-Right.
-[Peter] River and stream
is also very important to identify
which Iban you came from.
Iban means "people."
-[Antoni] Oh, okay.
-[Peter] People, human being.
And Henry, do you know where
your mother's family is from?
I'm not familiar with
the name of the river.
Does that mean anything to you?
Ah, I know who you are now!
You came from the same river
as me, Batang Layar.
[Antoni] That's so cool.
[Peter] Yeah, my longhouse
is just above their longhouse
and theirs is just downstream. Yeah.
-[Antoni] Cool.
-[Henry] So, we're kind of
-in the same neighborhood.
-Yeah!
[Peter] Yeah,
same neighborhood. Yes, yeah.
So, we are Iban Batang Layar.
-Amazing.
-Wow, that's really cool.
♪♪
[Antoni] And to welcome us
to the neighborhood,
Peter's promised us
a taste of something that,
even for the Iban, is a rare treat.
♪♪
[boat rumbling]
[Antoni] Well, Peter,
tell us about this beauty.
This is from the freshwater.
-[Antoni] Okay, so this is wild?
-This is wild.
This is wild, and it's called semah.
[Antoni] For Iban old and new, semah fish
has always been a delicacy
and an elusive catch.
[Peter] The only way for us
to catch this fish
is you dive into the stream,
but only at night.
-[Antoni] At night? Wow.
-Yes.
[Antoni] And the dish relies on
other local ingredients as well,
all freshly picked from the jungle.
This is lemongrass.
-[Antoni] Oh, my favorite.
-Lemongrass and fish.
So good.
♪♪
Whoa, what's that?
I've never even heard of that before.
-Oh, wow.
-Whoa!
This is how it looks like. Yeah.
-It tastes sour, okay?
-[Antoni] Okay.
But, it has its own smell,
the aroma smell,
and, of course, the taste.
-That is fascinating.
-Not too strong though.
Is there a specific, like, flavor profile
that the Iban like to use?
-Sour. Yeah.
-More sour?
-Sour palm.
-Yeah, you wanna try?
[Antoni] I can already
smell it just by opening it up.
-[Henry] Buah maram.
-Yeah, buah maram.
-[Henry laughs]
-Oh, wow!
-Let me have a taste as well.
-That is wild.
♪♪
-Oh! [clears throat] Damn.
-[laughs]
-Wow.
-Yeah, it's very sour.
Okay, I think the fire is ready now.
What are the leaves?
This is what we call
[speaking native language].
To protect it from drying and, of course,
-some smell, also, yeah.
-Okay. Fragrant.
-It's Yeah.
-Oh, it grows right here.
-Literally right here.
-[Peter] Yeah.
[Henry] Think one of my
greatest sort of memories
is my grandad always
cooking on an open flame.
-Ah.
-That charcoal flavor.
-[Peter laughs]
-[Antoni] Yeah.
But for Henry, who always
struggled to reconcile
his Iban and Western roots,
memories like these can be bittersweet.
♪♪
For me, growing up,
I was ashamed of being half Asian.
You were embarrassed
that you were from Sarawak
because everybody was like,
"Oh, they live in the jungles,
they do this." So, there was a lot of
-[Antoni] Stigma?
-[Henry] Stigma attached to it.
[Peter] Precisely, yeah. However,
there's some group of people
who still want our culture
to be preserved.
[Antoni] Well, people like you.
[Peter] Oh, yes, of course. Yeah.
[Henry] I mean, one of
the massive cultural aspects
is definitely the tattoos.
I got a lot of tattoo.
You wanna have a look?
Yeah!
-Wow, dinner and a show!
-Take it off! Take it off!
[laughter]
[Antoni] Whoa!
Okay, that's awesome. That's really cool.
-Each has a different meaning?
-[Peter] Yes, yes.
-Achievements.
-[Antoni] Achievements?
What kind of achievements
would the Iban celebrate?
Being brave
-Fearless.
-[Peter] Yeah, fearless.
A good fighter, or good jungle trekker.
Iban are very skillful people.
-Yeah!
-[Henry] Yeah.
[mystical music playing]
-[excited chatter]
-Ah, the fish is cooked.
-[Antoni] Bro, what a reveal!
-[laughs]
-[Henry] Oh, my gosh.
-[Antoni] Oh, my gosh.
Look at the char on that.
The little crispy edges.
[Peter] I'm gonna slice this.
-[indistinct]
-[Henry] Beautiful.
Thank you.
That's my type of fish. You know,
when it's just, like, delicious.
I'm sorry, this is [bleep] incredible.
-[Peter] Really?
-[Antoni] This is so good!
There's a sweetness, a butteriness,
with the fresh torch ginger, it's so good!
But, it's so meaty.
It's meaty like a halibut.
Wow!
Welcome to Borneo.
So, this is how we cheers.
Ba ba ba ba, ooh ha!
-[both] Ba ba ba ba, ooh ha!
-[clink]
-[thunder rumbling]
-[gentle music playing]
[insects chirping]
[Henry] That was magic.
These flavors were really sorta
reminiscent of my childhood.
Like there's something
in the air, there's this
feeling of home for me.
And, you know,
whenever I used to sort of visit
as a child to my longhouse, Skuyat,
where my mum's from,
you know, I always thought of it as
kind of just this little
island within this jungle.
Nowhere in my mind would I imagine
that there was another longhouse
up a river somewhere else.
So, when Peter was like,
"Oh, I'm from, like,
the same sort of area as you," I was like,
that's really interesting.
'Cause I never really imagined,
sort of, there being another
kinda civilization close to it.
Well, maybe we should go visit
some of those longhouses.
[Henry] 100%.
Perfect, 'cause that's what
we're doing next. [laughs]
[laughter]
-[upbeat music playing]
-[insects chirping]
[Antoni] Wow. So cool.
[Henry] Just like this crescendo of bugs.
It's amazing sounds.
[flapping]
-So, there's one little durian.
-Wow! Look, at the little bean!
Henry's fired up,
but there's still huge gaps
in the family story.
So, I'm taking him to
a place he's never been
to find family he's never heard of.
Hey!
Wow.
[Antoni] So, this is
obviously a longhouse.
-[Henry] Yes.
-And it's called Pematoh,
and there's a distant relative
who still lives here.
-No Amazing.
-[Antoni] Yeah.
We barely, like, can sort of, like,
list out our relatives,
so this is, this is insane.
[both laugh]
-You wanna go meet him?
-Yes.
-Okay, let's go. Let's go.
-Wow.
[insects chirping]
♪♪
[Antoni] Pematoh longhouse
is home to almost 200 people,
all living under the same roof.
But this isn't where Henry's mom grew up.
-[bamboo rattling]
-[Henry] Hello.
[Antoni] We're here to meet
a different relative.
[Antoni] Hello. So,
this is your distant cousin, Abang.
Abang.
Amazing.
I kind of [laughs]
It's really strange. A real similarity
-[Antoni laughs]
-with my aki, yeah.
My grandfather.
And this is Nicolas,
who is actually serving as our translator.
Just three generations back,
Henry's great-grandfather, Enggan,
was the brother to
Abang's grandmother, Chandu.
-I hear a lot of noise
-[Nicolas] Yeah.
Because they are welcoming you
-to the longhouse.
-[muffled chopping]
And they are preparing
the food for everybody.
We're just about go
and cook rice and bamboo.
-Can you help?
-[Henry] Yes, absolutely.
[speaks native language]
♪♪
-[water sloshing]
-[muttering]
-[laughs]
-[indistinct chatter]
[Antoni] So, why do we
wanna cook it in bamboo?
-Very interesting rice.
-[Antoni] Oh wow.
It's a very short grain, like an arborio
-or a carnaroli almost.
-Look at you.
-[Antoni] Like for risotto.
-[laughter]
[shaking, rice rattling]
-Don't Yeah, don't tap it.
-[Henry] Oh, don't tap it?
[Antoni] Henry!
Don't tap the rice!
[laughter]
[Nicolas] This one is pandan leaf.
It has a nice smell.
-Oh wow, yeah.
-Yeah.
♪♪
[Henry] God, my eyes!
[laughs] His eyes are stinging as well.
-[Antoni] Ah, no! Ah!
-[laughter]
Ah.
[Antoni] Whoa!
-Okay, okay.
-Alright. Easy, tiger.
So, this is Henry's
-Great-grandfather.
-great-grandfather.
-Enggan.
-[Nicolas] Enggan.
[Henry] Wow.
So, what else does Abang remember
about my great-grandfather?
[Nicolas] Left behind.
[Henry] Skuyat, where my mum was from.
Does he remember my mum?
Did they ever meet when they were younger?
Wow. See, that's what I sort of saying,
when you're from one longhouse,
very rarely will you go
to another longhouse
to sort of meet other people.
So, that's kinda why, like,
our family tree is so kinda
mysterious in a weird way.
Hence why we didn't have
any idea you were here.
[gentle music playing]
[Antoni] Much of traditional
Iban life is communal.
[laughter]
So, I have to hope that
stories of Henry's family
have been passed down
and shared here, too.
♪♪
Wow.
[Henry] Goes all the way down.
-Oh, baby!
-Yeah. Families.
-[all greeting]
-[chuckling]
[Antoni] After a welcome from the chief
[Antoni] Abang wants
to show us today's specials,
starting with sago worms.
-Oh, God. Let's calm down.
-[laughs]
You think it's very funny, uh-huh?
-[laughing]
-You think it's so funny.
-[upbeat music playing]
-[sizzling]
But, there are plenty of other
local delicacies on the menu.
[quiet chatter]
-[Henry] Looks delicious.
-This is a feast!
♪♪
[Antoni] The vegetables
have been stir-fried
with garlic and shallots,
dried shrimp, and chili.
And while they might look similar,
they all taste uniquely delicious.
[Antoni] And no homecoming
would be complete
without Abang's sticky rice.
[quiet chatter]
[Antoni] Mm.
-That is decadent.
-[Henry] Yeah.
I've never had rice
taste like this before.
It's so sticky. Super glutinous.
So, that was the ubi leaf, right?
-Sweet potato leaf. Mm.
-[Antoni] Sweet potato leaf?
This is literally, like,
the gateway to my childhood.
-Really?
-Yeah. The flavor is so unique.
Mm
-[Antoni] Wow!
-Unreal.
[Antoni] Oh, my gosh!
The food is delicious.
But, Henry's still hungry for information
about other relatives
even further back in time.
[Henry] Are there any, sort of, stories,
about, sort of, my family
anybody could, sort of, share with us?
Birai?
[curious music playing]
[Antoni] Birai is the common ancestor
that Henry and Abang both share,
from more than 100 years ago,
when different Iban communities
were often at war with each other.
Sounds familiar. [laughs]
His bravery.
[Henry] And what happened to him?
He never made it back to the longhouse?
Yeah, he did not make it.
[Henry] Okay. That's crazy.
You know, I'm kind of processing
everything as we go along,
but I'm happy to have found you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having us.
-[insects chirping]
-[dog barks]
It's really amazing, I gotta say.
It's so nice to be back into
-a longhouse like this.
-Right.
I miss that so much.
That front portion where
everybody sort of congregates,
has dinner, shares stories.
And that's something, perhaps,
that kind of died out with my family.
Right, right.
Well, that was one ancestor,
-but there's more.
-Really?
This blew my mind already,
and you have more?
-Of course!
-[laughs]
♪♪
[Antoni] Although Henry
doesn't know it yet,
we're leaving the jungles and longhouses
and headed for the city
to investigate a darker side
of the family history.
♪♪
[Henry] Wow.
Beautiful.
[Antoni] Henry's search for family history
and Iban heritage has brought us here
away from the jungles
and into the city of Kuching.
It's long been a melting pot of migrants
from as far afield as England.
But, the biggest community
of all is the Chinese.
And there's a connection between them
and Henry's ancestral story.
♪♪
So, at the longhouse,
while I was doing research,
I learned about another ancestor of yours,
your great-great- great-grandfather.
-His name was Gundi.
-Gundi.
Gundi, and he fought in a historic battle
against the Chinese population.
-Way back.
-Way back.
♪♪
In 1857, to be precise.
But, Gundi is from a different
branch of the family to Birai,
on Henry's great-grandmother,
Pudai's side.
And I've brought Henry
to meet local writer
Karen Shepherd to find out more.
-Hello!
-[Karen Shepherd] Hello!
-[Henry] Henry.
-Hello, I'm Karen.
-Nice to meet you.
-Karen, great to meet you.
Love your tattoos.
-Oh, thank you.
-Amazing.
[Antoni] Just like Henry,
she is also of mixed heritage.
I'm half Chinese
and half British, in fact.
And now, here I am, talking
to another Eurasian Iban
-So wacky.
-so here we are.
This is Kuching.
Antoni tells me you have some information
about the family that
I never knew existed.
[Karen] Yes. So, around about the 1850s,
we were actually ruled by a British family
called the Brookes. I mean,
a lot of people now refer
to the Brooke family
as the White Rajahs.
So, James Brooke,
he very much styled himself
as an indigenous ruler,
and the Iban became closely
allied to him over time.
You have to understand that
there were Chinese immigrants
settled all through Sarawak.
So, the Rajah wanted to tax them,
and, well, they weren't
keen on being taxed.
So, about 600 of them came downriver
and attacked Kuching.
♪♪
[Antoni] Caught off-guard,
the British had no choice
but to call on the Iban,
who, even into the 20th century,
remained notorious for
being fearsome warriors.
I have to warn you, what
follows is not the highlight
or the most beautiful moment
of Sarawak history.
The Ibans were famous headhunters,
and your great-great-great-grandfather
-was one of the warriors.
-Wow.
And so, how many Siniawan
Chinese perished, or
[Karen] The estimate is about 2,000.
-[Henry] Oh. Jeez.
-Yeah. 2,000.
And there are a lot of stories
that, apparently,
the Sarawak River ran with blood,
and these are still known today.
I kind of always knew
there was a dark history,
but I really had no idea
about that particular
brutality of that period.
But, it's kind of
fascinating and strangely
I don't know, unnerving to understand,
but gotta get in my head that
that was that period in time.
[Karen] It's a very different culture.
It wasn't just an act of war.
Headhunting was a ritual
and spiritual pursuit, actually.
By taking the head, you would bring back
the spiritual power contained in the head
and harness it for your community.
It wasn't considered a brutal practice.
Unless you're on the other end
of such headhunting.
[Karen] Yes, but I think most of
the indigenous groups here
were headhunters.
So, in fact,
if your ancestor had not
been a good headhunter,
that would've been really problematic
-for the rest of your family.
-[Henry] Right, right.
It's a lot to digest,
uh, but
with you putting it into,
kind of, context,
I think it's slightly easier.
Thank you, Karen.
-[mystical music playing]
-[Antoni] Luckily,
the Chinese community
was eventually rebuilt.
And now, their culture
is an integral part of Sarawak's DNA.
[Henry] Oh my gosh, look at this.
[Karen] We're gonna try
something called kolo mee,
and I think that kolo mee is
the thing that most Sarawakians
who live overseas miss the most.
You'll see, the texture,
the simplicity of it all
is just like [kisses].
What's your memory of this then?
Every single morning,
without fail, with my mum,
we would walk into town,
and we'd get kolo mee.
-[Antoni] So, this is breakfast.
-You start the day.
♪♪
[Antoni] Kolo mee is a tasty dish
of boiled and seasoned noodles
topped with char siu,
the classic Chinese version
of barbecued pork.
So, this is historically Chinese?
[Karen] Yeah, and it's
usually served with chilies.
and a bit of vinegar.
You good with spicy?
-I'm fairly good.
-I'm a white boy.
You have to watch the size of the chilies.
The smaller they get, the worse they are.
[upbeat music playing]
[Antoni] Oh, it's beautiful.
Thank you.
Oh, I'm so exci
I'm so excited to have this.
[Antoni] Wow.
There you go.
-So good.
-Oh my gosh.
[Henry] The noodles are so fresh.
Like, it's so different
from a dry noodle, but
These are made in Sarawak?
Yeah, And I think exclusively in Sarawak.
[Antoni] Oh my gosh.
It leaves you wanting more.
Is it rude if I eat from the bowl? Okay.
[Karen] I think you can
do whatever you like.
[Henry laughs]
-[laughs]
-That was incredible!
♪♪
[Antoni] It's amazing
that a bowl of noodles
could have such a wealth
of history behind it.
For Henry, they're the taste of childhood.
But they're also the culinary legacy
of how Sarawak's past shaped it's culture.
And considering
his ancestors' role in that,
suddenly, old memories
are making new sense.
[Henry] Just wrapping my head around that.
I remember, growing up
in the old longhouses,
seeing the skulls, like,
up in the rafters, and
-[Antoni] Human skulls?
-As a kid Human skulls.
Would you ask your parents?
Yeah, and my mum would be like,
"Oh yeah, it was from
the headhunting days."
And never really questioned it,
but, obviously, those skulls
-would've been from that period.
-Sure.
To know that an ancestor of mine
was one of the headhunters
that was kind of recruited,
um, I'm still undecided kinda
how I feel about it all.
But, to know that there
was a source of power
derived from it,
there was a source of pride,
there was a protection element
for, you know, our families.
And their lives after life.
-In the afterlife. Exactly.
-Afterlife, yeah.
I'd like to, sort of, understand
a little bit more of that.
The spiritual side of it.
Yes, yes.
Mm-hmm. That's what we're here to do.
[both laugh]
And I believe this is one family mystery
that we can begin to solve next.
-[birds chirping]
-[light music playing]
[Antoni] It might be
exercise time in Kuching,
but we're not here to get in shape.
They're feisty!
I've got some more family insights
to share with Henry.
So, yesterday, we learned about
-Gundi, the headhunter.
-[Henry] Uh-huh. Yes.
He was in a relationship with a woman,
and her name was Indai Kampung.
-Indai Kampung.
-Indai Kampung.
Your great-great-great-grandmother,
and she was a manang.
Do you know what a manang is?
-Manang? No.
-Manang. No?
So, a manang is a spiritual healer.
-Right.
-A shaman of sorts.
-My gosh. Wow.
-Yeah.
That's crazy.
[Antoni] To find out more, you'd think
we'd be heading to a temple,
but we're going out for drinks.
-[mystical music playing]
-Cool spot.
[Antoni] This is the pride
and joy of Maynard Langet,
who runs a microbrewery making tuak
[Henry] Hi, Maynard.
[Antoni] a traditional rice
wine central to manang rituals.
-Hey.
-Hi. Henry.
-Maynard. Nice to meet you, too.
-Maynard? Good to see you.
[Antoni] He knows all about local spirits,
in both senses of the word.
How long have you been doing this?
[Maynard] Five years now.
Do you find there's still
an appetite for tuak?
It's such a traditional drink.
It's not common for someone
my age to be making it.
It's one of those things
that got lost with time.
I started making it out of curiosity.
In a world where everybody's the same,
in a globalized society,
everybody's going back
to where they come from,
because they want to know
what makes them special.
-[gentle music playing]
-[Antoni] Gotcha.
[Maynard] So, we're going
to try some tuak.
This has been aged for about two years.
-You can sniff it.
-Ooh!
-It's quite strong.
-Wow.
-Before we cheers
-Oh?
the first person has to dump it.
-Dump it?
-[Maynard] Yeah, dump it.
-Why are we dumping it?
-[Maynard] We dump it
because our ancestors like to drink.
-Okay. [laughs]
-So it's, in a way,
we are waiting for our ancestors
to have a drink with.
-They're everywhere.
-[Henry] So, it's for the gods?
Yeah, that's for the gods.
[Henry] So, Antoni revealed that
my great-great-great-
grandmother was a manang?
[Maynard] Ah!
A manang is basically a mediator
between the spirit realm
and the physical realm.
-Okay. Like a bridge?
-[Maynard] Like a bridge, yeah.
When it came to things that
happened to the community,
be it sickness, plagues, war,
Ibans attribute it to
the work of the spirits.
So, you need a manang to help "heal"
any form of disturbances
in the physical realm.
-Right.
-Yeah.
And within Iban culture,
were manangs fairly common?
It's common that there is
a manang in every longhouse.
They need somebody to
communicate with the other side.
But it would be rare to have
one in, say, my family?
[Maynard] Yes.
[Henry] That's so interesting, isn't it?
Weird, like, I'm getting
goosebumps thinking about it.
[Maynard] If your ancestor's a manang,
most likely the descendants
will also be manang.
-Yeah.
-Wow.
I mean, that could kind of explain things.
I mean, there's been aunties in my family,
they would be described as,
"Oh, they have the ability
to sort of to see the spirits."
I had a cousin who was very much in touch
with the spiritual world,
and so would either feel the presence
or have the dreams.
-[Maynard] The third-eye thing.
-[Henry] The third eye, exactly.
-That's so interesting though.
-That's amazing.
[Antoni] There's only
one thing left to do.
A toast to another illustrious ancestor
and a supernatural family gift.
Cheers.
[speaking native language]
-Ooh-hoo!
-[laughs]
[birds chirping]
[Antoni] That was really good!
[Henry] It made so much sense.
I've always felt this
-this link to spirituality.
-Mm-hmm.
I could never really, kind of, explain it.
And also, just to see young guys like that
who are so proud of their heritage
and their indigenous roots.
I think it's kind of
urging me to look deeper
within myself and my
relationship with my Iban-ness.
Mm-hmm.
And it kind of inspires me
to kind of look a little deeper
into how I represent my culture.
-There's a sense of pride.
-Yeah.
♪♪
It's great to hear Henry say that,
but we're not done yet.
I wanna help take Henry's
new-found pride up a notch.
But for that, we need his parents,
which is why I've arranged for
them to join us from London.
♪♪
[Henry] Ah, this place is stunning.
[Antoni] Yeah.
Henry wants to impress his mom, Margaret,
with a dish full of the local ingredients
she just can't get ahold of in England.
Oh, wow!
And I've found the perfect
person to help him.
-[Henry] Hi.
-Hi!
[Antoni] Dona Drury Wee is from
the Sarawak Culinary Heritage Society.
-Do you wanna come inside?
-[Henry] Please, thank you.
[Antoni] She's determined
to bring the celebration
of Iban culture into the wider world.
[soft laughing]
-What a wonderful place.
-Wow.
Just goes on and on.
It's the same reaction
we had in the longhouse, right?
[laughs] Yeah. Well it's kind of
fashioned after that, so
[Antoni] Half American and half Iban,
she lives here with her
extended family of 15 people,
longhouse style.
[Dona Drury Wee] We play mahjong here,
and when we have our dinner parties
and all that, everybody just
sort of hangs out there.
-And this is my friend, Laura.
-[overlapping greetings]
[Antoni] Laura's son's family
also lives here,
and, lucky for us,
she's a gourmet Iban chef.
We brought you some tuak.
-Thank you for having us.
-Oh, thank you so much!
[Henry] What can we help with?
Well, we are going to cook pork pansuh,
so we gonna use this bamboo with it.
[Antoni] We're well versed in bamboo.
[laughter]
Fresh local ingredients are
the perfect partners for pork
in this classic Iban recipe.
So, what you normally do
is that you just break it,
and then, you have to get rid
of this fiber thing, yeah.
So, the next ingredient is the turmeric.
It's nice to use fresh turmeric,
but I will also use the powder.
-It's convenient.
-[Antoni] Yeah.
Especially those people
who lives in the city.
-[Antoni] Like your mama!
-[Henry] Yeah, exactly.
My poor mum, she loves cooking Iban food,
but can never, sort of, find it.
[Antoni] Next up,
our old friend, torch ginger.
[Dona] That has a beautiful fragrance.
-Oh my gosh.
-Oh!
That's amazing.
I'm gonna remember this smell.
This is what I associate with Sarawak.
Now, this is the tapioca leaves.
So, you two are very strong.
Can you please
Use those muscles for something.
-[Laura] Use your muscle, yeah.
-[laughter]
[Antoni] Oh, it's getting darker.
[Henry] You're pretty good at this.
[Antoni] And who taught,
like, a technique like this?
-Who taught you this?
-[Laura] Grandmother.
Yes, Grandmother knows best.
Passed down from generation to generation.
Is it hard, sort of,
keeping up traditional recipes?
That's a good question.
This is what we are trying to do now.
We want to pass the old
traditional to the young people.
-[Henry] Mm.
-[Dona] Yeah.
[Antoni] It's time to stuff the bamboo
with the pork and vegetables.
[Laura] Oh, slow down, Henry.
Just take a bit and put it in, yeah.
Wow, that was very seductive.
[laughter]
[Antoni] Traditionally cooked
over charcoal in the jungle,
Laura uses a regular oven
while we welcome some very special guests.
-Nice to meet you!
-Nice to meet you.
[Antoni] Henry's mom and dad.
Hello!
-[laughter]
-[overlapping chatter]
-[indistinct]
-[Antoni] So good to see you!
And their son has helped prepare
the food of his forebears.
That's beautiful.
A very proud moment.
You get to carry the pièce de résistance.
[Henry] Oh, that looks phenomenal!
[Laura] Mom will be impressed.
-[Dona] Ah, here they come.
-[Henry] I heard our name.
Look what we have here.
Very special pork pansuh.
-[Dona] Smells so good.
-Created by yours truly.
[Dona] He did.
[Henry] Uh, oven.
[Dona] This is the urban version.
Yes.
A bit of the old, a bit of the new.
[Henry] We come with the new age.
[Clive] It looks great.
[Dona] They look lovely.
-[Laura] Bon appetit.
-[Margaret] Yes, very nice.
[Antoni] Did he get it right?
[Margaret] It very, very good.
It's a long time that I have this.
[laughs] Because in England,
you can't do things like this.
[Henry] Mm-hmm.
So, do you think you've learnt more
-about the culture, Henry?
-[Henry] I would say
I learned more of
our family's history.
I learned about
Great-Great-Great-Grandfather,
who was a headhunter,
and he had a relationship with a lady
who was a spiritual healer,
witch doctor of sorts.
♪♪
What do you think of that?
[laughs] Quite surprised.
The family never tell the story.
I just first heard it.
[Dona] First time you're hearing it?
-Yeah.
-[Antoni] Wow.
[Henry], But I think seeing
people like yourselves,
who's very proud to be where they're from,
and it was really sort of
rekindling that curiosity.
Actually, you know what?
It makes me so unique.
-It's just so special.
-[Antoni] That's beautiful.
[all] Ooh ha!
[gentle music playing]
So, what do you think
you're gonna go back with
after all this?
Do you feel like it helps you
understand your own mom more?
-Absolutely. Absolutely.
-[Antoni] Right?
I think, you know, growing up,
Mum was always very, sort of, quiet.
When we were younger,
we would always push her away.
We would always try to side
with our, kind of, British side
because we were, perhaps, embarrassed.
But then, when it got to a point
where I was curious about it,
she had already got into a habit
of not speaking about things to us.
And so, I think,
moving forward, I'm gonna, uh,
I'm gonna dig a little deeper for sure.
[Antoni] I love how food unlocks memories.
-It's the great connector.
-Yeah, it really is.
-Absolutely. Absolutely.
-[Antoni] Right?
♪♪