Fashion of the Day in Old Sibu after the Japanese Occupation

My mother was quite fashionable and many of her relatives were quite envious of her.

As a tall lady my mother could wear her dresses elegantly.

Her first dress or "gown" in the local Malay dialect was a used or second hand dress probably from Australia. The Allied Forces distributed used clothes to the local people in Sibu and the surrounding villages when they took over the government. It was called the British Military Administration. she told us that it was a three quarter length sleeved dress with buttons all the way down in the front. She wore it very prettily and for several years for special functions. How she loved the dress. During the war she wore cotton pants and simple blouses made with minimum material as textile was almost non existent. Some women even had to fashion blouses from old sarongs.

She also had her first tinned corned beef which was dropped by the planes over a large area of the lower Rajang. The children were so excited about the gifts from the sky!!

The Japanese Occupation lasted 3 years and 8 months. Throughout that period all imported resources like flour, tinned food, textiles, etc were stopped because all transport means were suspended by the Japanese.