From food to art, Penang's George Town is a feast for the senses
With its diverse architecture, cuisines and arts scene, the capital of Malaysia's Penang state is an intoxicating cocktail of cultures, writes Ed Peters
In the beginning was the word, and the word was light. Or, in this case, Francis Light, an illegitimate English freebooter who turned Penang into the premier Asian trading hub of the 18th century, earned himself a fortune and sired six children for a Thai-Portuguese princess. Or so the better sort of legend has it.
Today, it's tourists as much as traders who head to Penang; but the island retains more than a little of the cosmopolitan richesse of the Light era, especially in the old quarter of George Town, which is lined with the shophouses that are the icon of the Chinese Asian diaspora, and dotted with museums, boutique hotels and the sort of whimsical tycoon's mansion - Cheong Fatt Tze's blue one is a prime example - that were part status symbol, part adult adventure playground.
Yet the core attraction is George Town's vibrant ambience: if someone could work out how to bottle that, they'd outsell the iPhone 6S. Never mind that some random factotum from Unesco slapped the place with a World Heritage bumper sticker, it's a hypnotic blend of Malaysia's three main cultures and races - Chinese, Indian, Malay - and many more besides.
"Europeans, Arabs, Armenians, Jews, Burmese, Thais, Bugis, Ambonese, Javanese, Acehnese, Rawanese, Minangkabaus [from the highlands of western Sumatra], Tamils, Malabaris, Gujaratis, Bengalis, Parsis, Cantonese, Hokkiens, Hakkas, Teochews, Hainanese, Ceylonese, Sikhs, Japanese, Filipinos - all these were active participants in the creation of a cosmopolitan city," says Khoo Salma Nasution, who wrote the definitive Streets of George Town guidebook and is director of the Lestari Heritage Network.
