Growing Up In Penang

I was born and raised in the than free port of George Town on Penang Island in Malaysia. When I was about 13 years old I was sent to live with an uncle in Tanjong Bungah on the north of the island. This was after the death of my father when my family broke up and my siblings and I were sent to live with relatives on different parts of the island. It was tough being separated from your family but my uncle was a good man and since we lived by the sea it helped take the loneliness away. My school was located right in the heart of George Town about ten kilometers away and I would cycle to school every school day. When I got back home from school in the afternoons the first thing I would do after a quick lunch is head for the beach about a five minute walk from the house. Whole afternoons will be spent lazing around on the beach, swimming, sailing on self made bamboo rafts to Pulau Tikus Island with new found friend Ah Chye, fishing, exploring and picking up clams. I grew to love the sea. It gave me happiness and took my mind off my longing for my brothers and sisters. I never felt lonely when I was by the sea.

Beach Street ( or Leboh Pantai ) in George Town. Picture taken at about 1pm on a nice sunny day, looking east. This street has a lot of history and is situated in Penang's UNESCO declared Heritage area.

On weekends my friends from school would cycle up to my house and we would together cycle up to Batu Ferringhi or Telok Bahang. During the school term holidays we would camp at Miami Beach, located between Tanjong Bungah and Batu Ferringhi, for a couple of nights. When we camp our food will be from the sea and fruits and water from the hills. During the school holidays if we are not camping than we will go on a round island trip on our bicycles or hike up Penang Hill from the Moon Gate. Sometimes we will head to the Botanical Gardens to swim at the Upper Pool or to the Lower Pool at the Scouts' Coronation Camp grounds. Those days Gurney Drive was a great place for picnics or for families to hang out. The beach was sandy and clean and the water was crystal clear. We use to go there for swims sometimes and we use to play underwater catching. We will go underwater and open our eyes and we can see a person seven, eight feet away. The water was so clean and clear that you could see shoals of small multi-coloured fish swimming around you. I suppose if you were to go underwater today at Gurney Drive and open your eyes you will surely go blind. That's how dirty and polluted the water is nowadays.

View of Acheen Street from the junction of Lumut Lane. Looking north towards Carnarvon Street.

When I was living in Tanjong Bungah in the Sixties we lived near a suburb called Seaview Park which is today called Hillside. Almost a hundred percent of the residents of Seaview Park then were Australians who were Royal Australian Air Force personal based at the airbase in Butterworth. Every time I walked or cycled to the grocery store in Seaview Park I would feel like I was in another country. Even the Chinese lady running the grocery store spoke English with an Australian accent. The streets were kept clean and the curb grass trimmed and the gardens of the houses well kept. Almost all the houses had at least one frangipani tree growing in the garden. If you walk by in the neighborhood during dinner time you'll smell meat roasting on the grill on any day. I had some good friends from the Australian community. Kids near my age whose names I still remember today. There was Susan Humphrey who had an older brother Tony and a sister Roselyn whose father, a tall burly man, was a Royal Australian Air Force police officer. I had many wonderful times with this family at their home. I remember Susan was about nine or ten years old then and was a shy girl but she was my best friend and we spent lots of time together at the beach behind Park Hotel or at the so called haunted but beautiful Mac'Callum's House and it's vast grounds. Lots of tears flowed when her father's tour of duty ended and they had to relocate to Perth.

King Street in the little India district of George Town. In the far end of the street, where you see some trees, is the Esplanade.

Today where Mac'Callum's House stood four ugly blocks of high priced condominiums called The Cove stand. Park Hotel which was then a single storey colonial bungalow on a hillock, converted to a hotel and nightclub, had a unique concrete stairway down to the beach at the back of the property. The front of the property had a concrete gate in the center at the main road entrance and from there a concrete driveway goes all the way up to the front of the hotel. On both sides of the drive way rambutan trees grew. These trees bored some of the best rambutans I had ever eaten. Today Copthorne hotel stands where Park Hotel once stood.

Canon Street looking towards the Acheen Street Mosque. 

Right next to Mac'Callum's House stood Villa Aremi, a majestic french- Mediterranean styled villa with green glazed roof tiles and red brick tiles for its floor. This villa was the property of a French plantation company called Socfin. As it was for use as a holiday bungalow by the managers of Socfin it was unoccupied most times. The people taking care of Villa Aremi and its grounds were my uncle's friends. Moreover Ah Chye's parents were working there as cook and maid and were housed in the workers' quarters. I had a free reign of the place and some of the best moments of my growing years were spent there with my friends Ah Chye, Osman from the telecom worker's quarters located across the road from Villa Aremi and Ah Beng from the farming community off Vale of Tempe. Ah Beng's family farm was situated somewhere near where TAR College is now located and Vale of Tempe has been renamed Jalan Lembah Permai. As for Villa Aremi, unfortunately another casualty of progress, high rise million dollar apartments are being built where the beautiful villa once stood. Right next to Villa Aremi was the Penang Swimming Club which, fortunately, still stands today.

Junction of Armenian Street and Canon Street.

The beach between Park Hotel and the Penang Swimming Club was our domain. There was an abundance of fish and clams in the sea and coconut, mango and cashew fruit trees grew wild all along the beach. There were also tamarind and starfruit trees. And they were all at our disposal. At the beach fronting the Penang Swimming Club we would spent hours watching the European club members launching their sailing boats and sailing away into the horizon or gawk at scores of European ladies and girls swimming or sun bathing in their bikinis. We were not allowed to go further than the boathouse area and I use to wonder why everyone at the club was European except for the workers. One morning, whilst cycling to school, I passed the front entrance of the club on Tanjong Bungah Road and there, right next to the entrance, was a small signboard which read "Europeans Only". And I understood why Susan and her family, even though of European ancestry, never visited the club. This was in 1962.

China Street in Little India looking towards Pitt Street and one of the oldest Chinese temples in Penang.

Pearl Hill than was untouched. There was no road leading to the peak like there is today neither was it called Pearl Hill. There were no houses on Pearl Hill than, just jungle and rubber trees. We just called it the Hill or the Japanese Gunnery Hill because right at the top, on the slope facing the sea, there was a concrete structure built into the rocks which, we were told, had housed anti-aircraft guns during the second world war. This gunnery house, as we called it, still stands today. There was also a small Hindu Shrine built beside the structure. Sometimes snakes can be seen coiled at the shrine. The Gunnery House was our secret hideout. 

Main street Burma Road at Pulau Tikus, Penang. Picture taken from opposite the Police station at about 4pm.

A big colony of monkeys lived on the hill and obviously they did not like our presence. So we avoided them as much as we could but sometimes we will get ambushed, especially when we were carrying food. Whenever this happens and it has happened quite a few times, we will just drop everything and run for our lives. If not they will attack you or chase you until they get the food. As far as we were concerned the monkeys were the lords of the hill and it will be foolhardy not to respect that. 

A frangipani tree with flowers. There are a few variants of the frangipani, some with pink flowers and some with pure white flowers.

We used to hike up the hill quite often and spent our time playing hide and seek, war games with the Australian kids or just chilling out at our hideout. One day one of the Australian kids called Bryant came up to the Gunnery House with a pack of cigarettes lifted from his parent's room. Bryant and I were the first to light up. The others soon joined in. None of us in the group had smoked a cigarette before so we puffed and puffed non-stop until the whole pack of cigarettes was gone. That afternoon the whole hill went round and round like a merry-go-round. We promised that we will never touch another cigarette again. But then promises like this are made to be broken. There were many happy moments and adventures on that lovely hill and Gunnery House which will be forever etched in our hearts.

A beach in Tanjong Bungah with Kedah Peak in the distance and Pulau Tikus Island on the right.