Sibu Post Cards : Merrido Hotel

How many of you still keep post cards of your own home town? I am from Sibu and I used to buy lots of postcards from a special shop called "Long House". Most of the postcards in those days were black and white. And I have sent some to my hostel mates in West Malaysia to show them that Sibu was not a village but a town with high rise( 4 storeys only) buildings and quite a few cars!!

And in those days, the photographer's name was not acknowledged. so I have always wondered who took this photo and which company produced this post card.




The Merrido Hotel is no longer in existence but the building is still standing in Sibu. One day I will go back to Sibu and take a photo of this building. It is situated at Wong Nai Siong Road and to the left of the Sibu Post Office which is at the corner of the Wong Nai Siong Road and Jalan Kampong Nyabor.

When we were young the Merrido Hotel was a very "happening place" and lots of young men built their dreams of playing in bands and becoming famous like members of the Rolling Stones or the Beatles.

Young girls all dreamed of becoming the best singing stars in the world.

Timber tycoons paid for lots of drinks while entertaining their clients and Taiwan Singers made a fortune out of the generous business men.

The 1960's were the years of timber boom in Sibu. People's lives changed for the better or worse in those flashy years and in the 1970's I left Sibu for my tertiary education in West Malaysia, being one of the first Foochow girls to gain entry to MU. Our fates were thus sealed in the academics : flashy night clubs were not for us as we stuck our noses in our books.

And as rock music faded from our horizon we became lost in our own struggles in life in so many different ways.