Ernie Turner

What is your name?  Ernie Turner

What years were you in Borneo?  1965-1968

What ares of Borneo were you in?  Bintulu and Sarawak

What brought you to Borneo?  

US Peace Corps Program XII.  A desire to give back inspired by JKF: Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.  A curiosity I’ve had for jungles since I was a boy.  A passion for exploring different cultures.  A desire to teach and to learn.

When you talk about Borneo and your trip there what is the thing you’re always sure to say?

I mention my gift of my second ‘head’, the a token of appreciation from a head hunter, and what that meant to me symbolically. 

I mention the lasting influence that Francis Lim had upon me personally and professionally. My consulting firm is called LIM (Leadership in International Management). I was unconscious at the time that I was naming it after Francis. However, he was a living example of the kind of ‘learner’ I am aspiring to be; constantly curious irrespective of my age.

I mention that in Borneo I moved from teaching to learning and that now I am in the learning business as is our company. We use a methodology called Action Reflection Learning, inspired by my 3 years in Borneo.

How have your experiences in Borneo impacted your life outside of Borneo?

My career and my current company have their roots in my 3 year teaching and learning journey in Borneo. Learning and leadership have been the two words that have driven my life and career. And now I’m looking for a way to return to Borneo to provide some support to those who are doing their best to improve the environment and lives of those who live in Borneo.

If you had three minutes on a loudspeaker that could be heard by the whole world, what would you tell them about Borneo? 

Borneo was an island of beauty, opportunity, adventure and discovery. Borneo is where I discovered what it meant to be an “American”. Borneo is where I learned the difference between teaching and learning. Borneo is where I met Francis Lim, a father-figure, mentor and role model. Borneo is where I finally became a cowboy, one of my childhood dreams, after trying for several years in Colorado and Montana. Borneo is where I received a priceless gift — my second head, a token of appreciation from a head hunter, the father of one of my Dayak students. 

Borneo is in trouble; the forests are being decimated; the rivers are being polluted and damned; the indigenous peoples are being uprooted; rare and not so rare animals and birds are disappearing. Urban slums are replacing virgin forests. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Borneo needs our help! Borneo is where I want and need and will go back and give again so I can be filled and renewed again and, hopefully, in the process I will contribute in some small way to a Better Borneo. Borneo can be beautiful again with just a little bit from each one of us.

What do you think people who have never been to Borneo should know about it?  

The location, size, the beauty (forests, mountains, sea, animals & people), the devastation that is currently occurring, the corruption that must be stopped. The importance Borneo has to our planet and it’s future.

What was the thing that was most surprising to you about Borneo?

The gentleness, generosity and openness of its indigenous peoples.

Who was the most memorable person you met in Borneo and why?

Francis Lim. He was a 60 yr. old Chinese man when I knew him who had a very rich history. He served Raja Brooks as his ‘right hand’ at the age of 16 with only an 8th grade education. He became a millionaire in the timber trade exporting to Japan and South Africa then he sold his timber business and introduced dairy farming into Borneo (Sarawak). He lost this business to the Japanese during WWII where he was the head Chinese in the town of Bintulu. He was ‘forced’ by the Japanese to build an airport with the threat that if he didn’t he and the entire Chinese community would be killed; he complied.  After WWII he was ostracized by the Chinese community who charged him with ‘selling out’ to the Japanese.

He then re-located to a piece of land he was given by a Melanau who owed him a favor outside of Bintulu on a small creek where he and his 28 yr. old third wife built their home by hand while they were living in a boat. There he cleared the jungle with an axe and created a model ‘farm’. The agriculture department and people from all over came to see what Francis created with his bare hands after experimenting and ‘studying’ on his own.

This is the time that I met him and discovered an avid learner (he would read Time magazine from cover to cover and kept a journal writing down every new word he discovered after looking it up in the dictionary).  Lim had a tremendous vocabulary and used the new words he learned every day until he owned them.  He also knew more about US politics and sports than I did — a man of action and reflection (he worked every day in his garden from 5 in the morning until noon, would take a nap, go fishing for food in the afternoon and would study at night with a kerosene lamp).  He was an athlete (champion boxer and runner as a young man), musician (he played the violin), linguist (besides Mandarin and several other Chinese dialects he spoke great English and several indigenous languages, and entrepreneur (whatever he touched turned to ‘gold’).  Lim was lastly, but surely not least, a no-nonense pragmatist (he spoke his truth without hesitation or shame) and a teacher (he joined me in educating my students — I brought Francis to the Bintulu Government Secondary School and I brought my students to Francis’ farm where they learned more than the British curriculum could ever ‘teach’ them). Mostly, he was my closet friend during the three years I was in Borneo and my memories of him are very much alive today.

Do you have a story or experience you’d like to share with us?

I always had fun visiting the longhouses. One of my friends, Derek, was responsible for building the road from Bintulu to Miri. One one occasion Derek and I decided to visit a longhouse around Mile 18, the end of the road at the time. When I arrived the road was at Mile 5, so Derek and his team were making good progress over a very rough terrain. We took with us some tinned curry beef and curry chicken, several pounds of rice and a few other items we knew would be well received.

We were warmly welcomed into this very simple community with no running water or electricity. They prepared a tasty meal with our food and theirs, a veritable pot-luck feast. After dinner, we were invited for their local entertainment, ‘Main Miao’ (Play Cat is the literal translation). The concept was pretty simple and only required some imagination and a ‘poker face’. Everyone sat in a circle except the person in the middle whose job it was to get someone to laugh. Of course, Derek, a 6’5″ large man and me were the primary targets to make laugh so we could go in the middle and make ‘fools’ of ourselves.

I can’t remember an evening where I laughed so much and had so much fun. The human connection was magical. The next morning Derek and I were escorted back to the road to Derek’s Land Rover with laughter and memories of the last evenings Main Miao and Indian Leg Wrestling.

 Anything else you’d like to share?  

I’m looking for local NGO’s who are fighting corruption and who are focused on saving, conserving and protecting the rivers, forests, animals and people of Borneo who might need and want some support in the area of leadership development and team development. I’m offering my services over the next couple of years to help them become stronger and more viable. Currently, I work with executives and teams in multinational corporations around the world. Now I want to give back to help those people in Borneo become as effective as they can possibly be in making a difference. So I’m interested in names of NGOs and names of individuals with whom I can speak to see if my offer fits anyone’s needs.