The Year of the Hornbill

The story of a year spent in Malaysian Borneo on the Voluntary Service Overseas (an organisation that has since changed and been renamed as the Volunteer Service Abroad) in 1963, as a young New Zealand man having recently left school.

His role was teaching at Tanjong Lobang school, near Miri in Sarawak, where Wilson covered a range of topics and a lot of sporting and cultural extra curricular work, especially in gymnastics and sports.

From the outset, the genuine willingness to live with, and like the locals sets him apart from many other Europeans in Borneo. He constantly impresses upon the reader the enjoyment he gets from his day to day contact with the many ethnicities. The school at which he teaches has pupils of Chinese Malay, Sea Dayak (Iban), Land Dayak, Kenyah, Kayan, Murut, Kalabit and Bisaya. As well as local teachers, there were also Canadian, English and New Zealand staff, all a part of the VSO or other similar programmes.

As well as sharing his teaching and cultural experiences, Wilson spends his holidays taking in the local sights, including trips up Bukit Lamir, a 1500ft hill (mountain?) near Miri, the Apoh Valley, and finally after much planning, Mount Kinabalu in Sabah.

The book also has another interesting aspect, as it was taking place in the period just past British Colonialism, and Malaya, Singapore and the parts of non-Indonesian Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah) were in negotiation to form the Malaysian Federation. There is a brief mention at the end of the book (which was published in 1966) acknowledging that the Federation was formed, although Singapore withdrew in 1965.

It is a simple, fairly short book, well written, and comes across a very genuine. The author is now a botanist, who has written a number of books on New Zealand plants.