Ah Nang Chong Theatre

 My uncle Lau Pang Ping had wanted to be an owner of a village cinema. He decided to build a wooden house to rent out to Mobile Movies, an idea which was already in practice in Kong Thye sawmill. It was quite big, the width of two terrace houses (by today's measurement). the benches were wooden, properly made to last long. 

A cousin told me that the hall was also used to teach traditional dances for schools and church. When SUPP first started, the leaders and members rented the venue for meetings. 

Village cinemas were fairly normal then for during the 60's villagers found it hard to go to Sibu as it would incur a lot of costs, meals, accomodation etc. Besides it was not a wise move to bring the whole family to Sibu just for movies. It was not the done thing.

Once when Fung Bao Bao came to Sibu the headmen even arranged to charter motor launches just to bring the villagers to Sibu for a night performance. It was the talk of the town for weeks!! I was a kid then and my grandmother was delighted to be part of the social scene - just to see the child star in Sibu.

A group of young men decided that they could make some money by showing films from village to village. Most importantly there must be a hall. With the possibility of earning extra money, my uncle decided to build a wooden shed. In fact before the hall or cinema was built some movies were already shown in my Grandmother's Ah Nang Chong house.

The white screen was pulled up from floor to ceiling ,with the help the big staircase goig upstairs. And stools were placed on the balcony and right to the back into the kitchen. About 80 people could easily sit in that space. Collection or entrance fees were collected by the organizers. The organizers came in their chartered motor launch, set up their equipment, with generators and all. It was quite a grand occasion when a film was shown!

So, in the history of Ah Nang Chong, some movies were shown in a small wooden "cinema" built by Lau Pang Ping, who had the land and the audacity to build a wooden cinema!! 

In fact, my cousins remembered that there was quite a bit of excitement for a few years in Ah Nang Chong. Some romances blossomed, while some wives got very angry with their husbands because they were not allowed to go to the shows.

Village movies were only shown once a week. And sometimes there were double features. The young men in charge of the reels brought their projectors by motor launch and left for the next village by the next morning. Quite a nice kind of business I suppose.Movies were shown for quite a number of years until disaster struck. The unexpected curfew put a stop to all the movie shows!!

So it was good bye to Lin Dai, Yu Ming, Yen Chung, Zhao Lei, Peter Ting Heu...and a string of other Chinese Shaw and Cathay organizations movies.

My grandmother enjoyed some movies, many of which were repeated many times. Yet she went to see the movies. So did the other villagers. In 1978 she became totally blind. But I am sure she was able to "see" those scenes in her mind. 

She must have been quite proud of her eldest son for thinking of doing some social services in the village. 

But eventually when there was so much controversies both social and political, he demolished the wooden cinema.

(NB. My ngie ma had a remarkable mind. She was very strong mentally until the last days of her life.)