My Mother's Laundry by Hand days....

Do you remember the long bars of soap we used to buy in Sibu? They actually came in wooden crates we our families could afford a whole box. And then we would cut up the soap bars into small pieces and smoke the soap on the wood fire stove so that they became harder and would last longer. We could get more out of the harder soap.


Before the arrival of the Twin Tub washing machine most housewives did their own laundry at home. The rich had washerwomen who came by every day to do the laundry.

In those days we used bar soaps, which were made in China or in Malaya. Somehow there was a special fragrance from the soap in those days. The Softlan, or softener was not yet introduced and my mother did not have the pleasure of using fabric softener.

What was amazing was the way she literally boiled some of our very soiled clothes. She just loved boiling our white clothes over the wood fire. The fragrance of this special kind of boiling laundry was special. Unforgetable.

Laundry was usually done as soon as it was day light and the clothes would be hung out to dry as soon as possible.

the backyard was a good place to dry and lines, usually good thick wire lines were fixed to wooden poles. Some families used bamboo poles,. This would be the fashion of the old Fujian people. Hong Kong folks who lived in high rise buikldings put their laundry out in bamboo poles. My mum love the convenience of using bamboo poles.

this is because when the rain suddenly came, she would be like a Chinese acrobat, carrying the long bamboo poles into our spare room where she would place her beloved laundry in rows. The bamboo poles would be pushed into rope rings hanging from ropes