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"There was an opium den upstairs and another two across the street. There were also many Japanese prostitutes at that time and some said they were spies," Chen Shi Jing, 74, recalled.
Chen was born in 1937 and grew up in one of the shops located near the Kampung Jawa Bridge in Malacca.
"During the Japanese ruling from 1942-1945, we could hardly find a thief as no one dared to steal. We would even bow to greet when we saw Japanese at that time," Chen was 12 years old when the Japanese came.
He said that anyone caught for stealing would be executed.
"What was wrong with the Japanese? They had managed Malacca well. Do you dare to sleep without locking your door nowadays?" he asked.
Many areas were affected by the war but Chen said that businesses near the Kampung Jawa Bridge were not affected.
"The streets were so crowded in the past and most of them were estate workers," he said.
Chen said that the upper layer of the bridge was made of wood while the lower layer was made of iron. He claimed that the bridge was over a hundred years old.
Some called it the Ghost Bridge and Chen said that he knew a few senior residents had killed themselves by jumping off the bridge. However, he did not know why since he was very young at that time.
The bridge was built in June 1887 by three brothers Tan Hoon Guan, Tan Hoon Chiang and Tan Hoon Hin, connecting Kampung Jawa and Kampung Pantai. The bridge had been rebuilt for twice and it is now better known as the Ghost Bridge.
A few years ago, when the government wanted to beautify the river, some old houses along the river, including Chen's house, were expropriated for development.
Chen's grandfather did repairing work when he first came from China.
"He moved to the current shop and passed it to my father, and my father passed it to me," he said.
They repaired everything, including sewing machine, parang and bird cage.
However, they had less and less customers and Chen focused on repairing umbrellas for a few years.
"In the 1980s, I used to repair a dozen of umbrellas a day and each was charged for RM2 (S$0.80) to RM3 at that time," he said.
Some people still wanted to repair their umbrellas even when the charges increased to RM10, until a few years ago, Chen stopped repairing umbrellas due to worsening eyesight, and many did not collect the repaired umbrellas, causing him to suffer losses.
Helplessly, the only umbrella repairer in the Malacca old street laid down his historical mission.