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KOH FAMILY’S STORY
OF DRIED AND SALTED FISH.

5km away from the city heart of Kuantan, Pahang. Lies here Koh’s family of dried and salted fish industry at Pantai Beserah. Koh’s ancestor started this business more than a hundred years ago, and now the 3^rd generation of Koh is handling the site. They are famous along the east coast, and was recognized as a tourist spot and source of quality salted fish, which also where the movie of “Tiger woohoo” was shot.

The family of Koh’s family success doesn’t come easy, throughout the hundred years of business they have faced a lot of challenges. Koh’s family persevered and manages to turn their problems into opportunity.

Koh’s ancestors worked as fishermen at Pantai Berserah. Selling most of the fish and kept some for food. Because of monsoon they are times that they cannot go out to the sea for fish.  To kept the food on the table, they decided to salt some of the fish they captured. The aroma captured attention of their neighbors, and they started to sell salted fish in a small scale. Later on, the demand got higher and Koh’s ancestor used this opportunity to start salting fish in larger scale to sell them.

The fish they used to salt are only available in seasons because of slight change in weather causes the fish’s habitat to change. The fisherman society also implements strict quotes set for certain fish types to ensure the fish to rebreed and still available to catch in the future.

The beauty of salted fish is, that most fish can be made into salted fish but the type of fish does gives a different quality of product. They spent years to experiment with each type of fish, salted and tested. Finally, they came up with a list of fish they would use to salt in line with the season of fish.

As resident of Kampung Besearah grows, so does the number of fishermen. The competition grows even higher when the number of fish is diminishing. Koh’s family decided it is time to stop following its ancestor’s footstep of being fishermen. They sold their boat with the equipments.

The money gained from the sale they used on investing and building a shop. The shop focused on selling dried sea products especially the salted fish, and also frozen sea products. The salted fish are brought over here to be packet and sold. Focused only on salting fish, their production grew, along with the number of their customers. Because of the quality of their product they got a lot of loyal customers from the east coast.

However, Koh’s family is facing the biggest threat of their industry yet. Although their customers are loyal and their products are always on high demand, the challenges this time is not from the outside but from within the family itself. Due to globalization and the reach of technology, minds of the younger generation on occupation were changed. Many considered white collar job to be the ideal type of occupation instead of labor job. Koh’s family are unsure whether the 4^th generation are willing to take up family business.

Whether the younger Koh’s are willing to take up the business that will be their choices to make. But surely it will impact the salted fish supply in the east coast.

Salted fish or not, life is full of hardship and challenges no matter who and what we are doing for a living. The real matter is whether we can turn our problem into profit. It is human nature to change, grow, learn and adapt to keep up with the ever changing world. Besides, How else would we learn if we never face trouble?