The Chinese side of Penang

Penang was claimed by the Brits and became part of the English colonies during the 1780s. In the next two centuries, it was flooded by immigrants- Indians and Armenians, Javanese, Japanese, Malays- and Chinese. Of all these communities, it was the Chinese who contributed most prominently in making Penang what it is today, and there’s evidence of it all around- in the intensely colourful Chinatown, where little red altars, complete with joss-sticks and red candles, stand before each house; in the old `kongsis’ or clanhouses across town, and in the heavily ornamented, incense-befogged temples to sundry deities which stand tall on every road. Among the must-sees are the spectacular Khoo Kongsi, the clanhouse-cum-temple of the Khoo clan; the historic Temple of Kwan Yin (the Goddess of Mercy), and the lovely indigo-tinted Mansion of Cheong Fatt Tze. Take a trishaw-tour around Chinatown, get a peek into Chinese history at the Penang Museum; stop at a roadside eatery to have a plateful of mixed fried rice, or wind a handkerchief around your nose and stroll through the 200-year old fish market. It’s all part of Chinese Penang: exotic all the way!

Quick Tips:

Like much of Asia, Penang's a place where the people are friendly, but too many of them are out to fleece you. It’s all very good-natured, of course, but if you aren’t careful, you just might end up spending more than you rightfully should. Bargain for most everything; check whether the taxi you’re getting into has a meter (and if it doesn’t, agree on the fare before you set off); and double-check all rates, preferably from two completely different places. (An instance: at Butterworth we were told that the ferry to Penang cost RM47 per person; a little bit of cross-checking revealed that it actually cost just 60 sens!).

Fortunately for those who know only English, nearly everybody here knows at least a little bit of the language, and most street signs are in English. Do get yourself a map, though- they’re available at the Tourist Information office at KOMTAR, and are very handy.

One last tip: though Penang’s pretty Western in some ways, people still expect you to be decently dressed when you’re visiting temples or other places of worship. No tank tops or shorts, please- and no obtrusive giggling or talking loudly; it may earn you a few black looks.

Best Way To Get Around:

Chinatown is best seen on foot- arm yourself with a good map, and you can have a great time exploring the area. The other good way is to hire a trishaw: there are plenty of trishaw-pullers in Georgetown who will take you where you want to go, or even take you on a guided tour (we took an hour-long trishaw tour, which cost us RM30 and was, we felt, an excellent introduction to Chinatown and Penang per se).

For longer distances- further out and beyond Chinatown- taxis are great, but make sure you agree on the tariff (in case the taxi doesn’t have a meter, or if it isn’t working) before you start off. I believe Penang has a fairly decent bus service too, although we didn’t see a single bus- maybe we didn’t go to the right places!

Among Penang’s most prominent communities were- and still are- the Chinese, many of whom came to this island in the late 1800s as merchants. The Penang Chinese traditionally followed a combination of Taoist, Confucianist and Buddhist beliefs, and built, as religious-cum-community structures, what were known as `kongsi’- the traditional `clanhouses’ of the Chinese. The kongsi usually took the form of temples where ancestor-worship was the focal point, and tablets carved with the names of the ancestors took pride of place. Of all of Penang’s clanhouses, the stunning Khoo Kongsi is one of those you just can’t afford to miss- it’s splendid.

The clanhouse of the prosperous Khoo clan, the Khoo Kongsi dated back approximately to 1851 (when the Khoo clan acquired this piece of land), although the building you see now was built only in 1906, after the first temple got burnt down in a fire (legend has it that the destruction was a result of `divine justice’- a punishment for making too ornate a temple in the first place!) The temple’s still pretty ornate, though- superbly decorated with wooden carvings, delicate paintings and gilt work, with a huge stone-paved courtyard in front of it. In the courtyard crouch two stone lions, and across the temple is a Chinese opera stage- again stunningly decorated and with side screens made of bamboo blinds. It is one of the few permanent Chinese opera stages outside China.

Within the temple, joss sticks, ancestral tablets and candles, along with huge paper lanterns, predominate; below, in the basement, is a small museum tracing the genealogy of the Khoo (the clan originally came to Penang from Hokkien province in China, and portraits of clan elders decorate much of the museum). A series of treasures- especially ceramics- belonging to the Khoo- are also displayed. A touch-screen introduction to the Khoo, the temple, the museum and the opera stage is also part of the museum- a neat summary of the place.

Admission to Khoo Kongsi is free.

We'd intended to tour Chinatown on foot, but while we were hanging around outside KOMTAR trying to figure out where to start, we were approached by a trishaw-puller who said he’d take us on a one-hour tour for RM30. It sounded like value for money, so we took him up on his offer- and ended up having a great ride- past many of Chinatown’s most interesting sights. Going past the distinctive copper-coloured domes of the Masjid Kapitan Keling, we entered Chinatown- starting with a stop at the gaily decorated twin temples of Yap Kongsi. The Yap Kongsi is one of Penang’s many kongsi- or clanhouses- and is both a tribute to the clan’s ancestors (who are worshipped here) and the former base of a Straits Chinese secret society called the Tua Pek Kong society.

From the Yap Kongsi, we went further into Chinatown- a vast spread of neat houses (many of them `shop houses’, where the owners live above their shops), with red paper lanterns and tiny red altars, in front of each house. Also a part of Chinatown was a very smelly, 200-year old fish market, and what must rank as one of Penang’s greatest attractions, the stunning clanhouse of Khoo Kongsi.

Beyond Khoo Kongsi, we went past the gaudily-painted, plaster-idol decorated façade of the Sri MariammanHindu temple and then stopped over to walk down to the jetty. The fishermen’s houses are wooden and extend over the sea, standing atop stilts- each with the customary red altar in front. We made our way on a wooden-plank paved `street’ down to the end of the pier, from where one can look across the sea to Butterworth, and further away, Langkawi. On our way back from the jetty we stopped at the red-roofed, very ornate Temple to the Goddess of Mercy, Kwan Yin. This deity’s very popular, and the temple was full of people kneeling before the idol, waving joss-sticks and praying. Huge red incense burners smouldered in the front courtyard, and the entire temple was filled with clouds of smoke. The Temple to Kwan Yin (who is believed to bestow everything from prosperity to good health and offspring) is Penang’s oldest temple- it dates back to 1800.

From the temple of Kwan Yin, we made our way into the heart of Georgetown, beyond Chinatown and on to Fort Cornwallis, largely built by Francis Light and named after the Governor-General of India (talk of sucking up to the boss?!). The fort was a disappointment- nearly all of it is gone- all that’s left is a few outlying walls and a large expanse of grass. They’ve tried whitewashing walls and plastering whatever’s falling apart, so it doesn’t look even vaguely historic.

Also part of the trishaw ride around town was a visit to the delightful Penang Museum- a very interesting collection of artefacts and the very `Indian’ Benggali Masjid.

On the whole, time well spent- and a great way of seeing Penang- especially Chinatown!

The `Rockefeller of the East’, Cheong Fatt Tze (1840-1916) was a Hakka tycoon and mandarin born to a poor farmer family; he came to Batavia (now Jakarta) when he was 16 and became a water-carrier. Over the years, Cheong Fatt Tze made his fortune and built an empire encompassing everything from coconut and rubber plantations to tin mining, silk weaving, stone carving, shipping, trade and banking- across China, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Designated a mandarin and a minister by the Chinese government, Cheong Fatt Tze built his mansion in his favourite place- Penang- in 1880. The indigo-tinted mansion, a delightful combination of Oriental and Western influences, is an embodiment of the man himself- traditional Chinese yet modern Western. 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases, 22 `yin-yang’ windows (wooden shutter- windows, so called because the shutter grooves form the yin and yang symbol when closed), form the mansion, in which the upper storey was used by the family, the lower as Cheong Fatt Tze’s offices. Indian indigo mixed with lime and cartilage was used to paint its exterior (which is why it was also called `La Maison Bleu’).

Dark teak, coated with seven layers of shellac for durability, forms much of the flooring and staircases; the ornate clay tiles of the floor and balconies came all the way from England. All across the house there’s a profusion of decoration: stunning stained-glass windows, carefully carved, gold- painted wooden screens (covered with a profusion of traditional Chinese `auspicious’ symbols- flowers, dragons, bats and phoenixes). Across the mansion’s façade, on the roof and the main gate is elaborately crafted `chien nien’- a now-nearly-extinct form of tilework done by using shards broken from ceramic bowls to create 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional mosaics.

The mansion holds many portraits and photographs of the man himself and his favourite wife (Cheong Fatt Tze had eight wives). There are other antiques too- chamberpots (yuck!!), an abacus, silk clothing, bamboo pillows, and a few bits of old furniture are all that actually remain of the Cheong family’s possessions.

After Cheong Fatt Tze’s death, the family scattered and the mansion fell into disrepair until it was bought in the 1990s by a group of heritage lovers, who invested heavily in restoring it. Seven years later, it’s a World Heritage site, a fine peek into the life of China’s `last mandarin and first capitalist’. Purple waterlilies bloom in a stone tub on the front lawn, where Cheong Fatt Tze had planted lotuses; a Victorian lamppost from Scotland stands sentinel above them.

16 rooms of the mansion are today guest rooms, and are rented out at RM195 per double bedroom per night, including breakfast. They’re nice, cosy rooms with quiet verandahs where you can sit in the shade of green bamboos (like everything else here, a symbol- in this case, of durability and freshness). But even if you don’t stay here, you can visit the mansion- there are daily hour-long guided tours at 11 and 3. The entry fee’s RM10.

Penang must surely rank as one of South East Asia’s most interesting- and most vividly diverse- places. Wandering through the island, you find a new side of it at every turn- the almost European look of the villas on Lebuh Light, complete with wrought iron gates, conifers and gravel driveways; the very Indian colour of Little India- and of course, the deliciously Oriental feel of Chinatown, all red lanterns and stone temples, incense burners and clanhouses.

It is the Chinese, largely, who have contributed to making Penang what it is today. Along with the Indians, Armenians, Eurasians, Javanese, Malays, Japanese (everybody, it seems, who happened to be in the vicinity washed up on the shores of Penang and made it their home)- along with all of these, the Chinese too arrived on this pretty little island sometime in the 18th and 19th centuries. Mainly from the Chinese provinces of Kwantung and Fukien, the Chinese immigrants who arrived in Penang were largely traders and merchants (who came here in the late 1700s) and later, in the mid-1800s, petty traders, labourers and artisans. Whereas some of these worked in order to earn enough wealth to finally return to China and live lives of comfort, the majority made permanent homes in Penang. Many of these (like the famous mandarin-minister-merchant-millionaire Cheong Fatt Tze) eventually acquired considerable fortunes of their own, and built palatial mansions known locally as ang mor lau- `big European mansions’ (check out Cheong Fatt Tze’s splendid blue-painted mansion on Lebuhraya Leith). Using a basis of feng shui and traditional Chinese architectural symbols and forms, these mansions incorporated more than a few European details- including, in some cases, material and furniture from as far away as the UK. The ang mor lau were actually in many ways an embodiment of the towkays (as the Chinese tycoons and rich merchants of Penang were known) themselves- Chinese and traditional, yet greatly influenced by the West. Many towkays dressed as Westerners, educated their children in England or America, and lived lives tinged with a fair bit of the Occident. Deep down, though, the Orient never let go of them- a blend of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism continued to be the basis of their religious beliefs, and the customs and traditions they followed remained very much those of their forefathers.

The days of the towkays and their somewhat flamboyant lifestyles have gone, but Penang’s Chinatown retains a delightfully part-Chinese, part-European feel which is really worth a visit.