A week of aural sensory overload: sound, colour, taste and smell made for a
fabulous welcome to a new bustling and cosmopolitan Malaysian city.
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| Colour and crowds for Chinese New Year celebrations |
Gong Xi Fa Chai (Happy Chinese New Year) from Penang! We
were part of the island-wide party ringing in the lunar new year of the horse.
Festivities included the china town shutdown for the parade, arrival of
government dignitaries, dances, martial art demonstrations, Chinese family tree
history-tracing booths, art & craft stalls and the lane of food stalls. The
island city ground to a halt, with businesses closing for up to two weeks. This
is the one well celebrated holiday where people visit their family in distant locations
or go on holiday. From what we experienced in Langkawi, many Chinese work 7
days a week, but come Chinese new year everything changes while the Chinese
take their well-earned break.
Being here you could be mistaken for being in a southern
province of China, with 41.5% of the 1.6 million inhabitants being Chinese
(almost double the proportion of Malaysia), the languages being spoken, food
being eaten and the signage is a dead giveaway that Penang is a very different
piece of Malaysia.
Walking to China town, we had to pass through little India,
where Bollywood music and movies blare from tv screens lining the streets.
Glittering sari’s and sweet shops adorn the shopping strip as we make our way
to the Chinese section of the old town dodging cars and motorbikes that weaved
their way through the pedestrian masses. Upon arrival in China town, we became
part of the thousands of people forming the crowds watching the performances.
While there was a schedule of events, this is Malaysia and time is ephemeral
really.
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| Lion prowling amongst the crowd |
We saw not one, but three lion dances over the festival
period. The Lion dance is a traditional dance where two young men don a lion
suit with one guy being the head and operating the eyelids, ears and mouth,
while the other wags the lions rear along with the percussion beat being played
by a three person drum and symbol troupe. The dance is performed to rid evil
spirits and give blessings for the year ahead. The most impressive dance we saw
was performed on stilts, where the lion was jumping between platforms elevated
2m above the ground. The whole dance is very athletic with lots of jumping onto
precarious tables or balancing on a high wire.
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| Hugh snubbed by street art |
We continued on our journey through China town and ate at
the myriad of food stalls with Chinese, Malay and modern fusion dishes being
the orders of the day, while squeezing through crowds of people in the packed
streets to watch the performances.
Penang has an interesting history, also considered to be of
strategic importance to the trading that dominated the Malacca Strait, in 1771
the Sultan of Kedah signed an agreement with the British East India Company for
military protection from Siam (Thailand) in exchange for trading rights.
Captain Francis Light of the British East India Company took possession of the
island in 1786 and established Georgetown, a town which today is largely intact
and protected as a UNESCO world heritage site. Georgetown features narrow
streets with two-storey shop houses, impressive colonial architecture and
footpaths under covered walkways. The town was promoted as a duty-free port and
people from China, India and Malaysia flocked here to start their new lives.
The protected area is a relief from the new development as pedestrians can walk
on the footpath (not the road as in other sections), there is a cycle path and
public art adorning walls.
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| Luxury high density apartments on the northern side of Penang, seemingly under construction 24/7 |
Elsewhere there is rapid development, with high density
luxury apartment and shopping developments underway throughout the city. Areas
along the northern and eastern shores of the island are covered in construction
sites or impending developments. The demand for housing here has pushed the
cost of development up, such that it is 1.2m RM ($400,000 AUD) for the most
basic of units in a high density development one hour commute from the city
centre. But Penang is the place to be ranking highly in the GDP earnings of the
country, fast becoming the place for cashed up expat retirees and the Malaysian
elite. Units on the northern shore of the island are often owned as holiday
getaways for Malaysians living in other cities.
English is more proliferate here and spoken well by many
locals and it is often the language that unites the many different races. This
means that we are able to be let in on some really thoughtful discussion about
Malaysia, where it is headed and what role Penang plays in that future. Penang
is host to the country’s up-and-coming IT centre with high level manufacturing
for electrical and electronic goods and a number of multinational IT companies
locating their offices here, both fuelling the other big business – silicon
chip manufacture. There is also debate about whether Malaysia will make the
self-made target of becoming a developed nation by 2020.
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| Indian feast |
We didn’t waste any time in taking the opportunity to feast
on excellent quality Indian food. We started to call a number of eateries our
‘local’, indulging in rice, curry, raita, dahl and my personal favourite the
freshly cooked roti’s. My order rarely comprised less than 2 roti’s and I was
at risk of girth expansion due to these culinary experiences.
We needed to get out and do some exercise, so we visited the
Penang War Museum. It was located on the southern point of the island atop the
hill at a former British fort that was built in anticipation of the Japanese War.
Unfortunately for Malaysia it was promptly taken over by the Japanese for use
as a POW camp with the surrender of Malaysia early in the campaign. Barracks,
ammunition store rooms and an underground tactical centre located in concrete
bunkers were fascinating. Also interesting to experience was the escape tunnels
and ladders from the gun stores with a concrete tunnel 50cm high and 5m long
that you crawled through to scale a vertical ladder up 9m to ground level, all
creating a challenging route in event of an emergency.
We also took the physical challenge of scaling Penang Hill,
a gruelling 5km uphill push in 33C to the 830m peak providing uninterrupted panoramic
views of Penang Island. After the hot walk, we grabbed an ice tea with milk (my
other addiction) and caught the historic 1923 built funicular back down the hill.
Apparently you are supposed to catch the funicular up the hill and walk down,
but we didn’t get the memo.
Penang was a fabulous island city to visit teeming with
culture, history and things to do. It made for a great break from the boat
ahead of commencing our slow trip back down the Malacca Strait.
18/2/2014
18/2/2014
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