Tun Lim Chong Eu: The past is not passé
4 min read
ONE easy way of approaching the history of a country is to study the life of a major player in that history. But as time goes on, such players tend to diminis...
Suffolk House-keeping
6 min read
Next to the Methodist Boys School stands what is destined to be one of Penang’s most renowned restored heritage buildings, Suffolk House. So named because...
Brain drain, once removed
8 min read
Petrina Lin Weilynn was born in Penang in 1986 and bundled to Hong Kong when she was just a few months old. Her father has been working at Hong Kong’s Sou...
Federalism going down the toilet
3 min read
Something that Malaysians have had to realise in recent months is that political power in the country has over the years become so centralised that local govern...
The man who industrialised Penang
6 min read
Any penangite born less than 40 years ago will not have known a Penang that was not a hub for the world’s electronics industry. Before the 1970s, the stat...
Colonial Penang's pre-modern roots
3 min read
Penang under the East India Company 1786-1858Andrew BarberAB&A. 2009; Hard cover;160 pagesReview by Ooi Kee BengThe salience of the approach Barber ch...
On vibrant port cities and anomalous nation states
6 min read
Ho Eng Seng returned to Penang in 1986 from Stanford University with degrees in Anthropology and Economics. The timing was bad, however. The country was in th...
The Regional Span Of Sun Yat Sen’s Republicanism
3 min read
Few dates in East Asia’s recent past act so well as a watershed for the scholar writing on the modern history of the region as October 10, 1911 does. On t...
The day George Town grew up
4 min read
IT IS THE MORNING OF the New Year. The face of the Victoria Memorial Clock Tower blocking the rising sun to the east shows the time to be 8.50.Here, on the Es...
The enchanting hill of early Penang
4 min read
Nahuijs was the first Dutch Resident for Suracarta and Yogjakarta, holding that office from 1816 until 1822 when he retired from office. While making his way...
Straits Muslims: Diasporas of the Northern Passage of the Straits of Malacca
4 min read
MARITIME SOUTH-EAST ASIA WAS – and is – a region filled with port cities. Such urban centres tend to concentrate both power and money. But more th...
Penang On The Brink of War,1821
4 min read
The Rajah of Ligor sent a hundred war perahus into Penang harbour, and with enemies at the gate, the first ever volunteer corps in Penang was formed by its inha...