About Sasaran

Sasaran, located north of the state of Selangor in Malaysia, is about 32 km from Klang. It is a small fishing village situated at the river mouth of Sungai Buloh or the Bamboo River.

A long time ago, this small fishing village was named after the river as Sungai Buloh, however, there is also a village named after the river at the upstream. The names of these two villages always caused confusion to non local residents, although they are almost 50 km apart.

Before the Independence in 1957, the British police force had set up a shooting range at a small hill near to this fishing village. The shooting target or "Sasaran" in the Malay language was used by the members of these police force for the shooting range.. Gradually the name caught onto the local residents to denote the village of Sungai Buloh. To avoid confusion, the local residents began to use Sasaran instead of the old name Sungai Buloh for their village. Hence Sungai Buloh was "renamed" Sasaran.

Although some villagers began to reside in Sasaran, as  fishermen, way back from 1920, the population had been gradually growing.

In 1948 during the period of Emergency, as Sasaran was not gazetted as a "new village" or a restricted village by the colonial government, many outsiders had migrated from the other villages and resided in Sasaran. The sudden influx of the population had created the development of Bagan Nelayan and the shop houses along Jalan Sasaran.

With the advantage of its location at the river mouth, a few big oil palm plantations were started in the north and many villages grew at the east side of Sasaran. With this Sasaran became the commercial centre serving the needs of the surrounding residents.

Sasaran is more than the traditional village in Malaysia, although most of the Malays residing at the east, are farmers while the Indians worked in the big plantations and the Chinese as fishermen at the Bagan Nelayan.  The coffee shops are usually patronised by the 3 races. They live harmoniously in this small village.

The only Chinese medium school, Chung Wah primary school which was established in 1936 started with only 2 classrooms, now has to expand to accommodate more new students. Today, the school is equipped with many modern facilities through the support of local residents.

In this modern era,  although many of the old wooden houses had been rebuilt into the concrete houses, many fishermen still prefer to live in their stilted wooden houses. Although the river bed has gotten shallower making it more difficult for the fishing boat to ply in, many fishermen still has not change their livelihood. The onslaught of development is unavoidable in most villages in Malaysia, the pace in Sasaran has remained slow and hopefully can still retain its own simplicity form of life.

Persatuan Kesenian Sasaran ( Sasaran Arts Association ) Kuala Selangor
11, Jalan Dato' Tan Teng Kuay, 45800 Jeram, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia