Sabah State Museum: Outdoor Exhibition

At the Sabah State Museum, it wasn't just an indoor museum. were more exhibitions outside!

Walking out of the main hall, there is a small vintage car (and one motorbike) display.

They date back to the 40s

This one reminded me of the one Ron Weasley drove because of the color...

Pretty random but cool regardless display of a train

Rolls Royce. My BF said HM of Brunei still has one of these :-)

After the car display, we walked further uphill (in the scorching heat) to find the Heritage Village. There was also a hanging bridge but we didn't manage to walk on it.

There is also an Islamic Civilization Museum but we didn't walk that far :-)

Felt a little bit like we were going hiking

Quick map of the Museum exhibitions, click to enlarge

The Heritage Village was really impressive! I was given rather negative reviews about the museum about how it is not maintained and stuff, but I felt that everything, especially the Heritage Village was really well maintained.

The Heritage Village showcased the different houses the different Sabahan villages of different tribes live in all over Sabah. I've always loved my home country because we have so many different types of people that are so rich in culture and traditions of their own, and nobody is belittled or forced to behave a certain religious/ cultural way.

The walk down the Heritage Village was really interesting because each of the houses were so different yet the same, and we could enter every one of them to get closer looks.

First up was a look at the Suluk House

My BF in the Suluk House

Some of the houses had little souvenir/ trinket sellers inside

Lovely "rivers" because some villagers live on river areas. There is actually a 'perahu' under the hut that the villagers use for fishing.

Lotud House

Me in the Bisaya House

We got really excited when we saw the next house because we were not expecting it at all:

Haha, The excitement is due to me living in Brunei for decades and my BF being Bruneian.
Sabah used to be part of the Sultanate of Brunei. 

In 1658, the Sultan of Brunei ceded the northern and eastern portion of Borneo to the Sultanate of Sulu in compensation for the latter's help in settling the Brunei Civil War in the Brunei Sultanate; Northern Borneo being present day Sabah.

Something interesting I discovered that some Sabahans are Malaysians but their race is Brunei. I still have difficulty grasping that, but Brunei is not just a country but it also refers to a local ethnic group in Sabah.

After we saw the Brunei House, we saw the Hakka House which pleased me tremendously. Haha we are such geeks.

Sabahans Chinese are mostly of Hakka descent (including myself if you didn't catch the gist of why I got excited). 

I guess we were mostly farmers??

From Wikipedia, it says:

In 1882 the North Borneo Chartered Company opted to bring in Hakka labourers from Longchuan County, Guangdong. The first batch of 96 Hakkas brought to Sabah landed in Kudat on April 4, 1883 under the leadership of Luo Daifeng (Hakka: Lo Tai Fung). In the following decades Hakka immigrants settled throughout the state, with their main population centres in Kota Kinabalu (then known as Jesselton), with significant miniority in Sandakan (mainly ex-Taiping revolutionists), Tawau and Kudat. The British felt the development of North Borneo was too slow and in 1920 they decided to encourage Hakka immigration into Sabah.^[42] In 1901, the total Chinese population in Sabah was 13897; by 1911, it had risen 100% to 27801.^[43] Hakka immigration began to taper off during World War 2 and declined to a negligible level in the late 1940s.

 

I cannot speak Hakka to save my life (contributing to the fact that my cousin thinks I am not Sabahan) so here is a snippet of me trying (and making a fool of myself). But I can understand it pretty well as my relatives all speak it.

Kitchen in the Hakka House

We then approached a Murut Longhouse:

Yes that is a trampoline in the center, which is used for traditional games the Muruts play. It was by far the biggest (and longest, yes) house of all the other houses we entered.

That basically concluded our trip to the Sabah State Museum. We spent around 2.5 hours there and frankly it wasn't complete but it was too hot so we could not go on especially for the outdoor exhibitions.

There were a lot of Taiwanese/ Chinese tourists there visiting on tour buses.

I enjoyed the visit and it has certainly brought me closer to (half of) my roots. I am always a sucker for history (although I have trouble remembering them after a while even after intense research-- is it the age already?!). The visit definitely lingered on my mind because of the horrific insight into the World War 2 and the prisoners of war that I feel is uncalled for pure cruelty among human beings.

I definitely recommend everybody to visit the Sabah State Museum because it really is interesting and educational. Locals with MyKads pay RM 2 per entry, while foreigners pay RM15. You can use the same ticket for entrance to the Agnes Keith Museum in Sandakan  (Agnes Keith wrote the famous book "Land Below the Wind) and a few other places as well.