Sibu : Singing along with Zhou Xuan 周璇

 Like any young woman in Sibu, my late mother was happy that she could see movies and enjoyed vinyl records bought by my father after they were married.

She started living in Sibu town at the original Cathay cinema (Now known as the Lido) in a small apartment for two people. Newly married, my mother was an attentive new bride and helped my father who was then the manager (only for a short while) for my grandfather's cinema. My grandfather and two friends owned the building but in 1948 he decided that my father should look after the ice factory in Pulau Kerto, while he himself would move to Binatang to look after the rice and saw mill there.

My mother , thus gave birth to me in Pulau Kerto, and at the same time looked after my great grandmother who did not want to move to Binatang.

Life in Pulau Kerto (or Hua Hong Factory) was considered peaceful, although lonely.

To give my mother some happy down times, my father bought a lot of records for her to listen to. Great Grandmother was thus entertained too in the evenings. My father was only too happy to wind the record player for them. He also bought a lot of the needles for the records.

We kept the record player in Sibu for years, even after my father passed away in 1965.

One of the most popular singers whose records continued to be bought by Sibu Foochows was Zhou Xuan.

My mother could sing almost all of her songs. Even though my father was a good ballroom dancer, my mother never learned dancing from him because she was very conservative. And at one time we asked her why.

We had quite a few of these black vinyl records in our Hua Hong and Sibu houses...(Shanghai Night)

She answered."Not good for elders to see us...holding like that at home...."

As a young mother then, my mother was not a liberated woman. She was still holding on to the traditional beliefs that a good wife was "inside" the house or  Neiren....But however, having said all that, my mother was a very good decision maker.

She really had a very good head on her shoulders, with honesty, integrity and strong faith as the main principles of her life.