Changkat Keruing

Changkat Keruing
[[File: Changkat Keruing Street |250px|none|alt=|]]
Changkat Keruing
Coordinates: 4°23′N 100°41′E / 4.383°N 100.683°E / 4.383; 100.683
Country	Malaysia
State	Perak
Established	1900s
Elevation	56 m (183.7 ft)
Time zone	MST (UTC+8)
– Summer (DST)	Not observed (UTC)

River flowing through Changkat Keruing

Changkat Keruing is a small town in Manjung district, Perak, Malaysia.

This small village is located between Ayer Tawar and Pantai Remis which is 20km from Ayer Tawar and 14km from Pantai Remis. Dinding River pass by the village and contributes some beautiful scenery. The village had been awarded "The Most Beautiful Village" in the National Contest in the 1990s. The majority ethnic group in this village is Chinese (FuZhou).

Economy

There is a Chinese primary school in the village - SJK Khuen Hean, temple - Guang Fu Gong, Wesley church, mosque, polyclinic, bank (Agro Bank), petrol station, a few sundry shops and restaurants.

Most of the residents were rubber tappers before the 1990s. In the recent years, Oil palm plantations are more prevalent due to the lucrativeness of this line of business. The locals hire foreign workers to harvest the crops instead of doing it themselves as they used to decades ago. Many locals accumulated great wealth from harvesting and selling palm oil. The price of land around Changkat Keruing have increased more than ten-fold since 2000.

The Most Beautiful Village

In addition to other traditional agricultural plantations like mangoes, papayas and coconuts, locals are beginning to look towards fish and prawn farming as another source of income. However, there are several environmental concerns that flow from this practices.

Also, the locals are beginning to invest into the Bird's Nest market. They do so by constructing 3-4 storey high buildings that resembles caves, home of the Edible-nest Swiftlet. These swiftlets would nest in the buildings and their nests would then after be harvested for sale.

Local cuisine

Folks in this town would usually have noodle dishes for breakfast, for instance, noodles in braised soup (卤面), dried chinese noodles (干捞面）etc. Some other popular Malaysian dishes like Assam Laksa, Curry noodles (咖哩面), and Nasi Lemak are enjoyed widely by people of this town. High temperatures experienced by the town year round has also made cooling desserts popular amongst the locals. Ice shavings like Ais Kacang, sweetened ice balls and other fruit juices greatly helps in relieving the searing heat around.

As the majority of the population is of Fuzhou(福州） descent, the delicacies found in this town is heavily influenced by Fuzhou culture. For example, red wine chicken vermicelli (红酒鸡面线），a dish unique to Fuzhou， is often prepared by the locals, especially during special occasions like birthdays.