For the past 42 years, Mdm Ker Ah Kin, 64, and her husband have been mending the unimpressionable Long Hwee Book Store at Mei Ling Street diligently. They sell bags, shoes, cassette tapes in addition to their wide collection of Chinese novels and literatures.
Long Hwee Book Store at Mei Ling Street
Married in 1969, Mdm Ker and her husband had initially rented a small space at Beauty World Shopping Centre for their book store. They bought over the shop house at Mei Ling and started their ‘small business’.
In the early 1970s, Mei Ling was undeveloped and it was a hill covered by graves and farms. There were no schools (Mei Chin Primary was built in the late 1970s) and a mud road was all that led the residents to Queensway.
Fancy toys of the yesteryear
The township in Mei Ling blossomed and business at Long Hwee was brisk as the book store served a growing number of students in Queenstown.
Mdm Ker’s greatest satisfaction in life was her ability to support her family and bring up her 4 children with the book store. She was delighted to make bosom friends who came back to visit her although they had moved out of Queenstown.
Today, Long Hwee Book Store serves as a timely reminder of its position as a pioneer business in Queenstown. The 1960s public phone and the money register were symbols of the yesteryears.
The old money changer
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2 comments:
Shopping for gifts is hard work and finding the perfect present can take hours or even weeks or hard work looking for the right item. You can remove some of the stress from Christmas shopping by buying gift vouchers instead.
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Thank you for this post! I stay really near here and this place is childhood!:)
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