Cow

When I was young we would take my dad's little speed boat over to the islands dotting the sea by the Kota Kinabalu docks. One of them is called Sapi Island, and I never gave it a thought till I visited again in December 08. We had my in-laws with us, and one of them asked if it meant anything, the name. My dad said it meant "cow" in the kadazan language. He said it was named so because it's in the shape of a cow.

I thought, how would they have known so long ago, that it was shaped like a cow? They must have had some kind of topographic mapping skills that allowed them to sense the shape of the island from measurements procured on the ground.

As we flew above the island on the way home, I realised that the island must have been named in recent times, viewed from a height, as the shape of the island was not the organic shape of a whole cow, but rather just the head, and quite a cartoonish one at that.



Hello Kitty Cow.