5 Years Later
ELDERLY CHINESE FARMER DISARMS BURGLARS WITH BLOWPIPE
June 5, 2086114Please respect copyright.PENANAWXW2q7Y8aa
Beijing – A farmer in the remote province of Qinghai on the Tibetan plateau disarmed two114Please respect copyright.PENANAtMxWHTwfqH
burglars with a blowpipe. The elderly farmer in his 70s was awakened from his114Please respect copyright.PENANAP6WXDOMrqo
sleep in the middle of the night from sound coming from his kitchen. Using a114Please respect copyright.PENANAoXIQ5fj3w0
blowpipe, he disabled both burglars as they were scrounging around his home.114Please respect copyright.PENANA836niPeTjb
The darts used had a powerful tranquilizing drug used on animals. When asked114Please respect copyright.PENANAVu3i0uFqgN
how he acquired the blowpipe, he said he instinctively knew how to make the 5-foot114Please respect copyright.PENANA1xm80UC9Kk
long blowpipe out of bamboo. He was not taught the trade. A blowpipe is a114Please respect copyright.PENANA5P7dZEzpAE
weapon indigenous to tribes of Borneo, an island in the South China Sea. AFP.
“Did you read today’s report of a farmer in a remote part of China using a blowpipe to114Please respect copyright.PENANAWnuKuR41F4
knock down two burglars?” Cheng asked Hiang as she came into the office during114Please respect copyright.PENANANJTGVGYcDI
her usual start of the day.
“What of it?” she asked unconcerned.
“It strikes me as odd that this farmer on the Tibetan plateau knew how to use a blowpipe.”
“Tibetan plateau?”
Strange stories always catch her attention. She looked up the piece on her screen.
“I can see why it made the news,” she said. “Anyways, what do we have on our agenda114Please respect copyright.PENANA6JpWoH2NrH
today?”
They discussed the topics of the day that would potentially appear in the paper114Please respect copyright.PENANAUpPbXSgCqv
tomorrow.
But the story stuck in her mind: the blowpipe is a weapon indigenous to Borneo in the114Please respect copyright.PENANAm3GavKfeMv
South China Sea and the Kadazans, of whom Nur was a member, are from Borneo.
She recalled an interview she had of a Chinese retiree in Malaysia who had called her 4114Please respect copyright.PENANA97Pqxn0iVS
years ago after she had printed an article of Nur in the Singapore Times. The114Please respect copyright.PENANAJdM2CEr6Nj
article was an account of her search of the special forces officer over 6 years114Please respect copyright.PENANAFDf9foKHEO
culminating in her visit to the Etajima Naval Academy where she witnessed his114Please respect copyright.PENANAIlBrLDBbKG
death on video.
The retiree had a rank equal to a Lt Col in the Singapore Armed Forces when he was with114Please respect copyright.PENANAXJ9jwx7Wbw
China’s People’s Liberation Army. Lt Col Shang claimed he was a captain when he114Please respect copyright.PENANALlyfh1NTbQ
was attached to the Intelligence Department of the PLA. He said he recognized114Please respect copyright.PENANA3Re86tBaac
Major Nur as the prisoner he was tasked with keeping watch over in 2051. She114Please respect copyright.PENANAlHxQYLpGNR
had a meeting with him in Johor Bahru in a café in a busy Shopping Mall.
“How sure are you this person was Major Nur?” she had asked.
“He had a strange story. We knew he came from an observation post on an island in the114Please respect copyright.PENANArVzRqU3l5v
South China Sea. But he couldn’t remember anything from his past. Maybe he was114Please respect copyright.PENANAyEulHD7ZhI
faking it. We couldn’t be sure. So we kept him for 5 months asking the same114Please respect copyright.PENANAX6iprJLG0b
questions over and over again.”
“How did he survive that episode near Tioman island?”
“Apparently the Japanese had scuba divers in the water as soon as they spotted his body. He114Please respect copyright.PENANAFQxenkUY8E
was a high priority target and they wanted him alive. They pulled him out of114Please respect copyright.PENANAcuPLSq3Ehr
the water and applied CPR.”
“I saw he was in the water for 20 minutes his head submerged. How could anyone be114Please respect copyright.PENANAp7ndNyEAUE
resuscitated after being in the water for 20 minutes?”
He shrugged. Hiang eyed him as he answered the questions. He seemed sincere. And what good114Please respect copyright.PENANAw959vPezer
would it do him to create a story like this?
“Where was he sent after the 5 months of interrogation?”
“We did everything, torture, drugs, even changed our tactics by providing him comfort114Please respect copyright.PENANA9htBV48t0R
and good food. But he couldn’t remember. After 5 months he was sent back to the114Please respect copyright.PENANAiSV2xpL1X2
POW department. Not sure what happened to him after that.”
“Any tattoos on him?”
“Yes, there was one, the US Navy Seals trident on his left arm.”
Hiang was startled. There was no account anywhere in her article of the trident tattoo,114Please respect copyright.PENANALGyZ1ilEmP
nor for that matter anywhere in the internet. And Nur had that tattoo on his114Please respect copyright.PENANAhQ4zCIFh4d
left arm. However most US Navy Seals graduates do this kind of stuff, as a kind114Please respect copyright.PENANAPMPxZ9wr9r
of badge of honor. So it wasn’t unique nor conclusive.
She tried to get corroborating evidence from other sources including through Gen Sofi’s114Please respect copyright.PENANASzf1N7vSFF
successor. But there was none. It was a dead end. And now this article about a blowpipe in the Tibetan plateau far from114Please respect copyright.PENANAs6rYj8GNHO
its place of origin. If Nur was alive he would be in his 70s, the age of that114Please respect copyright.PENANAyI8fzI4T4L
elderly farmer.
“Let’s send Jenny to Qinghai,” Hiang said to Cheng a month later.
“What for?”
“I am intrigued by that blowpipe story.”
“You think there might be a connection with Nur?”
She nodded. “I was looking for corroborating evidence when the PLA officer claimed to have114Please respect copyright.PENANAgXELuUk5VH
seen Nur after the Tioman incident, and I think this is it.”
“Could someone be alive after been in the water for almost 30 minutes?” Cheng asked.
“Nur was especially fit and at the prime of his life. I wouldn’t discount that114Please respect copyright.PENANA2LtgCx5Tpn
possibility.”
And Jenny, one of her Senior Journalist, went on a trip to Qinghai.
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