The Amazing Race

Call it a challenge, term it as self-imposed or think of the whole experience as letting go in holiday mood, but to me it was more an amazing race back in my home island of Penang. There were new things to discover, long forgotten dimensions encountered again and an unrelenting pace. Mix it with high humidity in the afternoons, late nights out and meeting various people. At times, things never change and on other occasions, I realize things have. There were pit stops met, quiet moments of reflection, spectacular views seen and quick decisions required.

It commenced with the prevalence of fried rice served on the plane. Changing seats at will with my elderly second cousin, we realized too late that each of us were served each other’s requested preferred meals. After arrival at the international airport, I could not resist immediately partaking in its unofficial hawker dish – stir-fried rice noodles ala Penang (1) – even before reaching home. Three middle-aged cousins were visiting when I dragged my luggage in. As I write at the close of this holiday, I see on the desk things to pack for my other home in Wollongong – baked bean paste biscuits (2), books on the culture I grew up in, freeze dried white coffee beans and more.

The sheltered Penang Straits look uncannily molten still when compared with the big waves of the Tasman Sea. Beaches are narrower with coarser grain. The city comes more alive in the evenings, especially with the approach of the first full moon since the advent of the new Lunar Year of the Rat. Fireworks and fire crackers were inadvertently lit on two auspicious nights – that of offering homage to the Emperor of Heaven (ala Beijing Forbidden City style) and that of Lantern Night, when in more socially restrictive times, one spotted the love of your life for the very first time. A much sought after fruit at this time of the year are cousins of the grapefruit – the pomelos – and they are sweeter than what I had remembered.

Irrespective of whether it was a school or working night, crowds still gathered in malls, cafes and shops to have supper, wi-fi browsing or face-to-face relationships. Georgetown remains an eclectic mixture of old and new, of Victorian architecture and faceless modernism, of East and West. With May, I attended a public lecture on the current race towards the American Presidential elections by Professor Bird Loomis from the University of Kansas. Post lecture, we could still have a Thai fish-based delight (3) served with focaccia in a trendy club that was still open around midnight on a Tuesday. On another day, I had the opportunity to visit the world-renowned Snake Temple and then seamlessly drop by a shopping center the size of a cruise liner at Queens Bay Mall, with familiar retail outlets like Borders, Harvey Norman and Dome. In the heart of the old city, I could walk protected from the equatorial sun in sheltered five-foot ways lined with food and products from my childhood, and bump into visitors from Australia. More old residential mansions were maintained and prolonged in heritage by commercial use. A favorite aunt took upon herself to cook, on the same dinner night, two key dishes from the South Indian and Malay cultures – tomato-flavored rice served with spicy curry and nasi lemak respectively. And yes, we are Chinese in descent and cultural heritage.

An earthquake had struck a small island off nearby northwestern Sumatra on a Wednesday afternoon, while I relished in a vegetable-prawn wrap dish called the poh piah on the edge of a field still named after a colonial British Governor. The newspapers reported of consequent tremors in high-rise buildings on Penang Island and which had caused the evacuation of office workers to the nearby streets. I did not feel any tremors, only how good authentic street food can be in Penang. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii had actually issued possible tsunami wave warnings for two hours after the quake struck at 7.6 on the Richter scale.

For me, I only felt the tsunami of tasty food at reasonable prices in various surroundings, from restaurants to the stand-up partaking of a coconut-based dessert (4) in a narrow but busy lane. Crabs were served in unusual sauces; vermicelli were stir fried with the full force of wok heat; the compulsory chili-based concoction of Malaysia and Thailand (5) was more tangy and hot than I ever remember; a succulent garoupa fish lightly cooked with ginger and soy sauce was memorable; Straits Chinese herbal rice (6) topped up with dried shrimps gave a rare kick to the taste buds; soul food egg-based jam (7) from the Continental Bakery melted in the mouth on any bread; home made moon cakes had a subtle light feel in contrast to commercial ones; fish head curry was lovingly made two times with a heady mix of spices from India and Straits Chinese cooking; and fresh ingredients in southern Thai food made a remarkable impression. With so much choice of food, one had to be quick in selecting samples and not over indulge. At times, there was no choice – I must have had at least three occasions to eat the festive salmon salad (8) only available at this time of the year.

There were unplanned encounters. When I closed a bank account, the authorizing officer turned out to be a dear colleague from days when I was fresh-eyed out of university. On lazy afternoons, I dwelt in dreamland snoozing without a care in the world. I walked into the Hardwick to see if it was still open at 10pm one evening and was reunited with a dear friend whom I thought had relocated to Kuala Lumpur. A lovely bungalow perched on an outcrop so perilously close to the sea. The rush of activity at the Celebrity Fitness Gym, in one of the island’s premier shopping centers, offered a glimpse of the rising importance of exercise routines, an important supplement to the constant eating that may describe the social pulse of Penang. An efficient method of order taking and customer invoicing was noted being practiced at a Shanghai Ding dumpling outlet at the revived New World Park. When a Sydney friend’s mother treated a group of us to lunch, I was introduced to a Straits Chinese dish I had not known before (9).

In any so-called race, there are moments of restoration. They may be having good chats with a close cousin in an apartment, or enjoying a new dessert (10) concoction made by a sister-in-law. My eldest niece is on a hiatus from Auckland and was spending quality time with family and dabbling in making hand-crafted bracelets. I recall a lunch gathering beside a quiet green-blue bay and watching small sampans still going out to catch fish – it was only ten minutes by car from the central business district of Georgetown, but it captured an essence of a simpler time. To celebrate the end of the customary fifteen-day period to celebrate the Lunar New Year, I had opportunity this time to enjoy the pungat, another coconut cream dessert cooked with bites of bananas, sweet potatoes and so forth.

National elections were announced in Malaysia when I was there, and with a short political campaigning period of under two weeks, some things indeed do not change. With limited time, I did not manage to catch up with everyone I was aiming for. So it had been a race in time to do everything diverse and to savor as many experiences possible – hey, that does sum up my holiday.

References in Penang lingo:

(1) Char Koay Teow
(2) Tau Sar Pneah
(3) Otak Otak
(4) Cendol
(5) Belacan Sambal
(6) Nasi Ulam
(7) Kaya
(8) Yee Sang
(9) Binchee
(10)Tako

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hello,

glad to see locals coming home for holidays.

Did you get to celebrate the Hokkien event at Chew Jetty. Over 20 tables of food, fruits, all kinds of kuih, pilglings and even effigy of families members were staked on the table for offering to Thni Kong.

If you miss it, you can view at
http://www.my-island-penang.com/Penang-Festivals.html

The sound of fireworks, lion dances greeting all the throngs of people, crackers is so great that you wont hear anything in the video except tables laden with food. But what a celebration.

Look out for the nyonya wedding which i will post late in the week.

Do come back more often. this is our heritage, be proud. And I know u r. god bless.

nyonyapearl

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