1950's Sibu : Guys in white suits and ladies in Cheongsams

1950's was an era when the British colonial government was still in power but all over the world the British Commonwealth was in decline.

However, English was emerging as a strong medium of instruction, perhaps even threatening the Chinese as a medium of instruction in Sarawak.


There were already more than 300 Chinese primary schools in Sarawak then and all of them were run by their own individual school boards. The then colonial government could be said to be very reluctant to spend any extra money on educating the Chinese who were clamouring for good education. Many of the mission schools were bursting at the seems, while the Malay language schools were doing fine.

As the Chinese urban population started to grow, the demand for school started to be a big headaches for the ruling power.

With this as a background, the government also found that the Chinese have been educating their children sending them to China, the UK and the USA. And besides, many schools were able to engage Chinese graduates from Mainland China.

Many of these educated Chinese were well dressed, preferring the white suits of the day, while the ladies wore cheongsam, a trending conservative dress, very fitting for formal teaching.