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Tour: Foreign and Religious Enclaves
The port provided the cradle for early immigrant settlers, the nannies of Penang's progress and modernization. By colonial design, Georgetown started as a neat patchwork of residential, commercial and religious enclaves with ethnicity as the denominator of segregation. Today, however, the invisible racial lines have gone, but the enclave boundaries, where generations of multi-ethnic settlers toiled and thrived, leave indelible architectural and physical landmarks. This recommended walking tour presents them all.
The Chinese make up more than 90 per cent of Penang's population. So, perhaps, we should begin our day like many resident Chinese do—at one of the numerous dim sum teahouses in Chinatown. Along the same street, the beautifully restored and creatively adapted premises of 100 Cintra Street Bazaar offers a copious supply of Chinese crafts and antiques. Lebuh Cintra straddles two famed streets, which in and between lies the heart of Chinatown. By day, Lebuh Campbell turns into a busy thoroughfare of honking Protons, eateries, goldsmiths, electrical stores, apparel shops and textile merchants. By night Lebuh Kimberly takes over and comes alive with some of the best hawker fare on the island.
Roadside stalls selling almond and peanut soup desserts, duck meat and internals, and glutinous rice porridge compete with veteran names such as Goh Huat Seng, known for its delicious steamboat and authentic Teochew cooking. Nearby, Bee Chin Heong Praying Articles and Antique Supermarket presents a fine model of success built on the ancient Chinese custom of joss burning. Lebuh Carnarvon, the eastern border of Chinatown, is the site of bookshops and stationers, including Nanyang Book Co, and undertakers and coffin shops.
Against a dominant Mandarin backdrop, the Indian community stands out for the vividness and vibrancy of its culture and commerce. Little India offers living proof that some things do not change even in a century. Victor Purcell's metaphorical tent-pitchers—moneychangers and street vendors who stock a mind-boggling range of merchandise—have survived progress and homogenization along with the pre-war shops that house their wares.
Before exploring the fascinating bazaar of Indian commerce concentrated around Lebuh Pasar, Lebuh Penang, Lebuh Queen and Lebuh Chulia, eat a sumptuous second breakfast or lunch of roti canai and teh tarik from dozens of South Indian restaurants, including tested eateries such as Hameediyah Restaurant, Dawood Restaurant and Kaliaman's. Of course, the omnipresent "Mamak" stalls abound to add spice and adventure to your itinerary. Come Thaipusam and Deepavali, Little India explodes into a crescendo of spectacular rituals and rites seldom witnessed anywhere else.
Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling, originally called Pitt Street, was designed and designated as a street where places of worship of every faith could co-exist in harmony. Georgetown's colorful religious enclave makes for pleasant and easy exploration on foot as this major thoroughfare stretches from St George's Anglican Church on Lebuh Farquhar on the northern end, past the Goddess of Mercy Temple at the Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling, the Maha Mariamman Temple at Lebuh Queen, the Kapitan Keling Mosque at Lebuh Buckingham, past the Khoo Kongsi at Cannon Square, and it ends at the Acheen Street Mosque at Lebuh Acheh.
Minority communities, such as the Jews, left little behind except burial grounds and tombstones—at the Jewish Cemetery. Likewise, the Armenians once provided prominent and successful entrepreneurs such as the Sarkies family of the E&O Hotel and the famous Raffles Hotel. Sadly the Great Depression of 1930 bankrupted the Sarkies, and today little remains of the Armenian legacy. Lebuh Armenian exists uneventfully save for 120 Armenian Street, which witnessed great energies of revolution in the salad days of Dr Sun Yet Sen, and Syed Alatas Mansion, a restored heritage centre and the premises of a vegetarian restaurant, Green Rhythm. Tengku Syed Hussain Alldid, who founded the mosque at Lebuh Acheh, was an Achehnese and one of the richest locals in Francis Light's time. The street, though, saw better days when it became the mid-19th-century centre for Arab and Achehnese traders and a gathering point for Muslim pilgrims traveling by ship to Mecca in the early 20th century.
Georgetown's most visible and frequented landmarks have been substantially covered, but the legacy of the Chinese, the backbone of Penang's commercial and cultural development, remains. The largest concentration of historical and physical evidence bearing this out rests at Lebuh King, a treasure trove of antiquated guild houses and clan establishments, though not all open for public viewing.
Pengkalen Weld or Weld Quay, an enclave of the trading houses and shipping agencies where life in Penang started, now holds a mishmash of dull commercial establishments except for the refurbished premises of the British Council, one of the last operating vestiges of colonialism. The Malayan Railway Building, though it houses the pallid Customs offices, still offers a worthwhile architectural sight. At the waterfront, Kampung Ayer, the territory of the clan jetties, affords a treat through its sampan cruise. Why not try one? For a century or more, the people, who in one way or another became involved with this island, enjoyed the romantic view from the sea. This view now becomes increasingly ignored and forgotten in the suffocating air of homogenization that sweeps through every nook and cranny on shore.
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