Friday, July 8, 2011

More Snapshots of Old Kuching

I have a new friend living in Kota Kinabalu, who has been posting old photos of Kuching on his Facebook page. His family must have lived in Sarawak some years back. In fact I believe his father is a former Josephian from the late 30s.

All this has inspired me to hunt down some other old photos I have in my possession. Here is a random selection to share with you. I'm sure they will invoke nostalgic memories. Do share them ...


Pic 1: Satok Road (circa late 1980s)

The picture above is a familiar one for me. I remember Swee Hua Cinema (the big building) when it first opened. A few of my aunts lived only a few houses away and I often spent afternoons at their place. I remember walking over to Swee Hua to catch a matinee once in a while. From this picture, it seems that Swee Hua had already ceased operations and looks quite run-down.

The interesting thing about Satok Road is that on the left side of the road are mostly Chinese residences, whereas on the right side are largely the Malay homes.


Pic 2: Th Old General Post Office and surrounds

I am not sure when this picture was taken, but if you look carefully I think there are some clues. I invite you to make a guess and share your reasoning why you think it is that period.

Pic 3: View looking towards the Central Padang and former Secretariat building

Remember those special events on the Padang when we were small .... when we had to line up, wave flags and do those marches and other shenanigans ...

8 comments:

  1. James,

    the old shophouse next to the Pavillion (now Textile Museum) been demolished for White Hair's project.

    the surrounding GPO building. I have seen several cracks, next door Old Court House building also cracks even the Textile Museum has cracks.

    who should we blame?

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  2. Clue: The flags in Pic 2 are the old Sarawak flag ... hmmm

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  3. That black car (or is it a van) registration K614 (or something). Hardly see a car with the pre-fix K these days. And that car in front looks likes Pink Panthers Nick Jee's car, the almost antique car parked besides the lamp-post, the motorcyclist without a helmet, the 2-way traffic flow with car-park in the middle.

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  4. Sherlock Old-Folks-HomesJuly 8, 2011 at 1:55 PM

    This is pre-16 September 1963. The flag shows that it is before joining Malaya, Singapore and Sabah to form Malaysia.

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  5. @viviena - Are your referring to the project that includes the shophouse and the carpark that used to be behind it? That project was stalled for a long time and seems to be taking forever.

    I remember that row of shops included the Sarawak Tribune office, Fook Hoi Restaurant and a bank.

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  6. a picture of some of those shops in WJ's prev posting ..

    http://josephians-of-the-seventies.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-well-do-you-know-your-kuching_23.html

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  7. Oh dear, Josephians from the 70s are involved in that project which involves tearing down the Old State Treasury Office next to the Police Station.

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  8. That project was Stalled for a long time becos of the two big pillars which was build on public road side and authorities moved in and stop the project.
    Treasury building was also taken over by him, shop houses bought over by him, only Post Office he dare not take.
    He took over the project and that is why it's on going and progressing very well.

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