Gurney Drive memories

Unnerving traffic jams on Friday nights, a beach that looks like a still from the apocalypse, an endless flow of hawker food, thirsty tourists and overdressed teenagers sipping Starbucks – Gurney Drive is a place where charm mixes with grime. This long seaside promenade is where the pulse of Penang with all its vices and virtues is at its strongest.

By Gabija Grusaite

One can feel the heart of the city beating with a stop-motion movement as the high rise luxury condominiums grow into a dense forest. As I gazed at the seafront where the beach used to be, I had the sense that the city’s liver is failing; there is also the probability of a stroke as the main artery is constantly clogged with cars. Whether one regards Gurney Drive as ugly or charming, it is a good place to diagnose the island’s “health”.

After a short stroll along the seafront (at low tide the beach is full of mud and rubbish) one keeps wondering why so many people come here for a late evening walk. One quickly learns that Gurney Drive is a place of nostalgia for Penangites and a symbol of Penang for foreigners. Most importantly it keeps reminding Penangites that in a battle of modernisation there are always some casualties.

Development comes with a price tag and Penang will do well to learn from cities like Hong Kong, London or New York that have lost large swathes of nature to explosive growth. Development changes not only the natural environment, but also the social landscape. Change is natural and unavoidable, however people like telling nostalgic stories about the past and things lost forever. There is plenty of reminiscence floating in the air; about the times one could go swimming off Gurney Drive and come in the morning to collect seashells along the beach.

People still long for fishermen’s shanty huts and point towards places where bungalows were torn down to make space for hotels, restaurants and condominiums. An old woman told me that she used to live in Penang in the 1960s; the bungalow she used to stay in is now the Evergreen Hotel. One can bump into many of the Penang Diaspora who currently live in faraway places like Melbourne, Toronto, London or Seattle wandering along the promenade trying to become reacquainted with the city of their childhood. They somehow believe that deep down beneath the glossy surface Gurney Drive bears the memories of a different time, a much simpler, more humble time when Penang was a quiet island with a low key vibe.

Nostalgia has a power to add elements to one’s memory, to saturate the colours and sharpen the contrast with the contemporary. Penang is what it is. However, the nostalgia does reflect the people’s anxiety with overdevelopment. George Town is rapidly changing, that’s a fact of life that cannot be altered. The issue is the direction it is heading in. The state government’s Cleaner Greener Penang programme is a start, although it will take more than the recycling bins along Gurney Drive to polish the famous promenade.

Contemporary Gurney Drive is not crippled by its dying beach or by people looking for a past that never existed – life goes on. In a modern world development is seen as a success and in that sense Gurney Drive is blessed. Modern shopping malls, bars, hotels, restaurants, hawker stalls – everything is bursting with energy and wealth. At night along the promenade, street vendors set up their stalls selling glowing children’s toys; one can witness hundreds of whirligigs flying in the air and watch passers-by unsuccessfully trying to avoid soap bubbles.

There is a lot of joy among children playing along the promenade and another generation is growing; one that will also remember their childhood Gurney Drive with nostalgia. There is still a charming queue near a well-known rojak stand and every night hordes of hungry tourists indulge in Penang’s signature dishes (arguably one can get a lot better food elsewhere, but Gurney Drive’s hawker stalls provide the glamour!). Later on, when everyone has been fed, it is time for a leisurely stroll along the promenade, punctuated by street performances. Or it is time to have a drink in one of the tacky seaside bars where one can sometimes see mysterious Russian girls in sky-high heels climbing up the stairs with some lucky company to unknown depths of the building.

Gurney Drive has as many faces as Penang itself and probably its biggest charm is its ability to provide a treat for everyone – luxury for the wealthy; hawker food for perpetually hungry Singaporeans; a romantic place to bring a date for working class boys; a profitable working ground for street beggars and a long cooling walk along the sea for middle class families. It is as if the promenade has the power to cement society into a whole and allow parallel lives to intertwine into a tight web. It can be nostalgic; it can be sleazy; annoying or plush – so many different ways to approach “the Drive” – that is if you are brave enough to challenge the traffic.

Gabija Grusaite works as a journalist, and also writes scripts for short movies and animations.