Yes. I know. I said that I wouldn't do this - that lumping multiple days into one entry is the cardinal sin of blogging. And I know that this excuse will seem all the thinner given that I am behind on my blogging and trying to catch up. But rules are made to be broken, yes? And, like all good laggards, I have a cast iron excuse.
The fact is, that on the first day we walked around Georgetown, getting a feel for it and for the different communities and cultures living so peaceably within it, and on the second day we went to the Georgetown State Museum and found out a lot of the history and background to Penang island which explained and gave depth to what we had previously observed. So it just makes sense to make this entry an introduction to Georgetown, a frame through which to read subsequent entries.
See. When I slack off, at least I can excuse it properly. It's practically a skill in itself.
An Introduction To Georgetown
Originally, Penang Island, then known as Betel Island after the betel nuts grown and chewed here, was a quiet fishing community, sparsely populated and little known. Then an Englishman named Francis Light turned up and 'discovered' it, characteristically attempting to lay claim to it for the Great British Empire. As it was in fact part of Kedah, the Sultan of Kedah rather objected to this, but, as it happened he was rather worried about the threat of invasion in his home country by the Siamese, so he asked to strike a deal with the British. If the good Mr Light could send armies to help protect Kedah, the British could effectively 'rent' Penang island for a fee. Excitedly, the British moved in, rather before the deal had actually completed. It is widely believed that Francis Light did genuinely intend to bring forces but was rather a small fish in the grand scheme of things and didn't quite have the authority. And the powers that were back in Britain were not especially interested in giving support to Kedah. We have taken countries before, they thought, presumably, without such ceremony. Why bother to play fair now?
And so, play fair they did not. The Sultan of Kedah discovered that the British were doing rather a good job of setting up shop, literally, in Penang, but that neither the rent nor the armies promised had materialised. He objected. Strongly.
At which point of course the British finally mobilised their armies. Against him. He received the full force of the British military power he had hoped for - and the outcome was that the British owned Penang for a rent of only a third of the original price asked for. Whether any of it actually materialised I don't know.
We don't cover ourselves in glory throughout history. Notably we also don't teach those bits of our history in school. We like to leave our children blissfully unaware of our cheating thieving legacy.
And for once, we don't occupy and enslave the previous inhabitants. Francis Light, to this day, is talked of with a surprising respect, even affection. And he seems to have been shrewd but fair as a business man and, by default, a ruler.
Seeing the huge trade opportunities on the island he set up ingenious trading structures and started to make a name for this small Betel island that no one had been paying much attention to. Despite his best attempts to undo this by renaming it 'Prince of Wales' island and laying out a grid structure with the government building situated on 'downing street'. Really, why did those early colonists have such little in the way of imagination?
With the new trade lines came new people. And it is this which really made Penang. The trade gave it money. But the people gave it identity and culture. In the plural.
Chinese settlers arrived and built elaborate 'clan houses' at the jetty to shelter further clan members. They brought skills in trading, cooking, fine arts and painting skills, bead embroidery, Buddhism and a number of languages. And Chinese style food.
Indian settlers also arrived - though some rather less organically because the British brought over 'Indian Labourers'. Not slaves you understand. Though the wage structure was cleverly and sickeningly exploitative. They brought curry and roti, entrepreneur skills, Hinduism, bright silks and materials, and saris.
The Malay population grew and interbred with the Chinese, giving rise to Baba Nyonya culture - meaning a very specific blend of Malay and Chinese which is now a race and a culture in and of itself. This is the Nyonya cuisine which has now made Penang so famous and earned it a title of Food Capital of South East Asia. Baba Nyonya also brought us beaded slippers, intricate tiffin boxes (note the Indian influence) carved in red and black, and elaborate ceremonial customs, including 30 day weddings and three year long mourning periods with multi day funerals and special anniversaries of death.
Of course it was even more rich and complex than that. There were several sub cultures within each group, several denominations of any given religion - and all brought with them much much more to contribute to the melting pot of skills, customs, dress, food, architecture and history which shaped Penang and made it what it is now.
What makes Penang so interesting is that rather than being a simple case of different cultures living tolerantly alongside each other, this was a thriving community with all the ingredients sometimes combining to create fascinating new flavours like the Baba Nyonya, and sometimes simply continuing to grow and develop together. When we walk around Georgetown we walk through Indian street and through China street, far from being a small novelty street within a largely separate town, these are bustling living busy places - not for tourists - they are residential and real and they spill into each other effortlessly.
Our host, James (pseudonym), who runs the most homely hostel I have ever been to, tells us that schooling used to be in Malay, then was changed to English because this was the language of trade. But many people speak Hokkien, Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese, or Tamil at home and not Malay at all. So Malay was not being spoken anywhere. They moved the language of schooling back to Malay.
But, far from diluting or losing the Malay sense of identity, this addition and intermingling of other cultures and languages, even creating new ones, made up a new culture which is richer, stronger and more prosperous than before. The heady mix of skills made the country successful. The heady mix and sheer depth and vitality of cultures made it attractive to others and, more recently, to tourists.
You see, Nigel Farage? Put that in your pipe and smoke it. What is English culture without external influence? Bread pudding and dripping without spices. Clay pots (china came from China, remember?). No chocolate, no coffee, no tea. That's all foreign muck.
Georgetown is vibrant and arty today. Those cultures still flourish as do the new ones created and the new ones being created. It embraces things like public murals painted on old, crumbling walls, film festivals and art galleries - and it embraces its heritage. Its old buildings, so old, so distinct and somehow all the more beautiful for their being untouched. Where restored they are stunning. Where left alone they are atmosphere. Nowhere are they torn down, sanitised or made into office blocks. No. True to form the office and apartment blocks are simply scattered around in the spaces between them. Nothing, here, is taken away. But it's absolutely OK to add to it. Whether that is a painting, a new business, a building or a festival.
Tell you what, UKIP, if it's overpopulation you are worried about, let's do an exchange system. If people want to bring their culture here, some interested soul from Britain gets to swap countries with them. A cultural exchange. No taking away. Only adding. And a rigorous checking system for the outgoing Britons. To check they're not going there to drink cheap booze, flash their union jack underpants, barter people down to unreasonably low prices and sponge off the system. On top of the language test of course.
Postscript: I'll let you into a secret. This is something nobody else knows about Georgetown. In the State Museum grounds there is an old Rolls Royce which once conveyed countless dignitaries from A to B and which was the site of a, sadly successful, assassination attempt. Nowadays it stands behind a barrier for visitors to gawp at from a distance. What nobody knows is that inside that Rolls Royce is a little nest of kittens. We watched a cat run, little grey kitten in her mouth from a plant pot (her original nest) up and through the slightly open window of the Rolls Royce and disapear down into the front foot well. After a while we watched her reappear, and return, this time with a little tortoiseshell bundle. Finally she went back for the last one - a little black ball of fur. Don't tell anyone.
Postscript: I'll let you into a secret. This is something nobody else knows about Georgetown. In the State Museum grounds there is an old Rolls Royce which once conveyed countless dignitaries from A to B and which was the site of a, sadly successful, assassination attempt. Nowadays it stands behind a barrier for visitors to gawp at from a distance. What nobody knows is that inside that Rolls Royce is a little nest of kittens. We watched a cat run, little grey kitten in her mouth from a plant pot (her original nest) up and through the slightly open window of the Rolls Royce and disapear down into the front foot well. After a while we watched her reappear, and return, this time with a little tortoiseshell bundle. Finally she went back for the last one - a little black ball of fur. Don't tell anyone.
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