I’ve worked here since 2005. It’s a family-owned business. The original and main business was tailoring. After that we sell some decorations and handicrafts, and now festival/seasonal decorations. I’m not sure how old this business is, I think around 40 years, since I was young they were already selling. There is the main shop and two branches. 

We get almost 100% of our stock from China. Around 10 or 20 years ago, we got our stock from Taiwan and Thailand. But the most cost-effective is from China.

Our customers are mostly tailors, and now a lot of students. Students who learn tailoring will drop in to get their materials for projects or any other learning materials. For the festival seasons’ decorations, there are hotels or house-owners who want to decorate, they will come drop by, take a look and buy. Mostly households, hotels, everybody lah. Because Melaka is a cultural place, right?

This coming Chinese New Year we’re not as busy as previous years, because now there’s competition. Now every year [business is] declining because nowadays a lot of people are doing online business. Online business has really affected a lot of shops.

I’m Melakan. When I was young, I liked the seaside, when Mahkota Parade hadn’t been built yet, it was all sea. That’s my best memory, and also Klebang Kecil [where there’s a beach].

In this shop, during festive seasons, you can see a lot of people, different people, different cultures. They come in to buy some decorations and some eldest (as what I know), they insist on doing certain decorations for traditional culture. They come to buy some really traditional items like Ang Chai [red cloth]. Here we are selling two types of the material, the soft one like rubber cloth and the rough one. 

Only in Melaka, all the houses of Chinese people will hang the red cloth during Chinese New Year. Others states I am not sure; I know in KL they don’t use it, they use it only when they move into their new house. Like my classmates from other states, they don’t use the red cloth for Chinese New Year. In Melaka Chinese would hang the red cloth from the first until the 15th day of Chinese New Year. Some customers like to put some decorations to make it more creative. Maybe they put more organza and flower. And the Melakan style of red cloth is from top to bottom, in other states they put it half way or top only.