Julia Tan - Penang Monthly

Pierre Bismuth Explores Penang's Cultural Depths

5 min read

Renowned French visual artist and filmmaker Pierre Bismuth has a career spanning decades. His impressive list of accolades includes an Academy Award for his work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

by Julia Tan

What We Talk About When We Talk About Heritage

7 min read

It’s the word du jour, “heritage”. International organisations vote to acknowledge and list it (for protection purposes, among...

by Julia Tan

Handling the Intangibles: Heritage Management in George Town

14 min read

The road to becoming a World Heritage site was not easy for George Town and Melaka – the paperwork, inventorying, filing and so on all require...

by Julia Tan

Penang Hokkien On Life Support

17 min read

 This article first appeared in our May 2017 issue. In celebration of our 10th anniversary, we put together for you in this issue some of our most memora...

by Julia Tan

Permaculture – No Green Thumb Required; Just Passion

8 min read

My grandfather had a garden where he planted flower bushes, fruit trees, vegetables and herbs. Before I was born, he reared chickens and geese, but I suppose he...

by Julia Tan

Jawi Pekan Cuisine – Unique to Penang, Yet So Evocative of Other Foods

5 min read

Along Lebuh Armenian, where the Jawi Pekan – or Jawi Peranakan – traditionally settled, is the family-run Jawi House establishment. Chef Nurilkarim...

by Julia Tan

The Storm that Shook Penang

23 min read

Every time it rains now, Penangites get skittish – and for good reason. It has been five months since the freak storm hit the state. The storm of November...

by Julia Tan

Feeding Penang

16 min read

Penang – food haven par excellence. And it goes without saying that its people are a proud lot, fiercely defensive and boastful of their hybrid cuisines....

by Regina Hoo & Noorhasyilah Rosli & Julia Tan

A right time for novel fashion, retail and architecture

8 min read

Situated along Jalan Kelawai is a breathtaking piece of structural design. Two blocks of 43-storey residential units and a 10-storey office tower rise over a fu...

by Julia Tan

Penang people are more diverse than you think…

10 min read

Captured for posterity: Dr Sibert's old house built in the Eurasian style.A community of faithAmong the earliest settlers in Pulau Tikus were the Cathol...

by Julia Tan

(Sun)burning for PSY

3 min read

The papers warned of a crowd 60,000 strong, which translated as a massive jam alert. Typical of Penangites, we fretted. In the end, it wasn’t the traffi...

by Julia Tan

A Little Island That Danced

7 min read

Oratnitza's Horhe on the didgeridoo.Music defines us. It gives us an identity, a culture. Flutes carved from animal bone, stone drums, goat-skin string in...

by Julia Tan