Penangites can be found all over the world. But no true Penangite ever leaves home. Soo Ewe Jin, a Penangite who has physically settled down in the nation’s capital for more than two decades, takes us on a whimsical journey through the real home in his heart.

I come from Jelutong, Penang. Somebody had to.

Bill Bryson used the same words in the opening paragraph of his best-selling book, The Lost Continent, to describe his birthplace in Des Moine, Iowa.

I had always thought of Jelutong in the same light. Back when I was a child, Jelutong was just a very small settlement sandwiched between the State capital, George Town, and the rural outback of the rest of the island.

It was a cowboy town of sorts. Every other kid in my neighborhood seemed to drop out of school at the primary level to become either a mechanic or a hawker’s assistant.

I grew up in a sprawling “mansion”, an attap (thatched) house with six bedrooms, whose roof we had to change once every ten years, or perhaps less often when money was tight. The house belonged to my family from the time of my great grandparents, but the land belonged to an absentee landlord.

During such periods when the thatch became sparse, we would look up through the roof and enjoy the stars, and scramble for containers when it poured. It was a beautiful place to grow up in.

The sea was just behind our house and when there were no dishes to accompany the pot of rice, my father would just walk behind the house to fish for food. However, despite its allure, most Penangites do leave home in search of greener pastures.

I remember the day I left, back in 1980. A group of journalists had packed into a small Honda Civic for the long drive south to Kuala Lumpur – the now defunct National Echo, the Penang-based daily that we worked for, was shifting base because of ambitions to go national.

Those early days saw many of us crammed in small houses and even smaller rooms, squeezed by the high cost of living in the capital. Most of us would return home every fortnight. KL was a place to work, but not to stay.

Penangites, I feel, are parochial in a nice sense of the word. They tend to not want to leave their beloved island but when they do, they bring Penang with them.

Some of my brighter school friends who received scholarships to study in Ivy League universities are still there. Some have developed strong entrepreneurial skills and opened restaurants offering Penang favorites. But speak to a Penangite any where in the world, and the Penangite in him will emerge – he is more likely to say, “I come from Penang” than “I come from Malaysia”!

Only Penangites can understand this special bond to home, which for me is now closer, thanks to the North-South Expressway and the Penang Bridge, which at 8.4 miles (13.5 km) is one of the longest bridges in the world. Opened in September 1988, it is a beautiful structure. But like all true-blue Penangites, I still have a tinge of regret about it having been built in the first place.

Each trip back home with my family, I will insist that we use the old ferry to cross over to Penang island. In the 20-minute ride on the sea, you see the rustic charm of Penang that seems to have frozen in time. Nostalgia; yes, that’s another thing that binds Penangites together.

Yet another “problem” with Penangites is that we seem to have a strong opinion about everything.
Maybe it’s the island air. The idyllic island, fondly referred to as the “Pearl of the Orient” in most travel journals, is the birthplace of many journalists, activists and non-governmental groups.

The British officially record the founding of Penang by Francis Light in 1786, but some current-day historians see it differently.

Political activist Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, who founded the Penang-based social reform movement Aliran, once wrote, “It was not Light who ‘discovered’ Penang; rather it was the people of Penang who one fine morning discovered Light standing on their shore!”.

Whatever the case, there is a lot of British charm that remains a part of the island. That Penang has changed in recent times is not in dispute. But beyond the new physical infrastructure – more concrete jungles, apartments in the hillsides, mega shopping malls – I believe that the heart and soul of Penang has stayed much the same.

The inner city, at least, has a chance of preserving its rich history, now that heritage organizations are deeply involved in conservation work. And many tourist spots have somehow been spared.

Besides that, true Penangites will know of many breathtaking hidden nooks and corners unknown to the rest of the world. I recently hiked to my “own” little stretch of beach, away from the usual tourist strips, and it looked exactly the way I remembered it – when as a boy, I’d lie down on the sand and look up into the heavens, lulled by the lapping of the waves. That is the charm of Penang where, happily, time does stand still for some. A favorite hawker stall from your childhood may still be there, even if the original owner is long gone, for he has passed the business on to his son.

I have often wondered why there is that something different about ethnic Peranakan (Straits-born) Chinese like me, as compared to the ethnic Chinese from the other Malaysian states. The key, I feel, is that the Peranakan have very long roots in Malaysia and that impacts the way we view our Penang roots.

So when I am in the company of fellow Penangites – and believe me, that happens often enough – the atmosphere changes palpably. The lingua franca switches to the very distinctive Penang Hokkien, replete with many Malay words, which a pure Hokkien Chinese would probably not understand.

Walk by the stalls in KL and if you see a Chinese man hemming and hawing in broken Cantonese (the most widely spoken Chinese dialect in the capital), chances are he is a Penangite.

I speak from personal experience. Despite having moved here in 1980, my command of Cantonese is, at best, laughable. One of the perks of marriage has been that my better half, a born-andbred KL’ite, takes care of communication with vendors, whether it is to order food or bargain.

My wife also has to put up with me and my Penang friends rambling on about how KL offerings just don’t come close to sumptuous Penang food. Yes, Penangites are passionate about our food. Well, if not, how do you account for the fact that every other stall in town boasts of a Penang Char Koay Teow, Penang Laksa, Penang Koey Teow Thng, Penang Lobak, etc?.

A typical trip to Penang would include an eating binge – we’d begin with breakfast in one part of town, followed, in quick succession, by numerous meals at various “famous” stalls, all the way till a late-night supper, perhaps right at the other end of the island.

The Penang state motto is “Penang Leads”, and Penangites take that very seriously. When computers were still a novelty in the rest of Malaysia, the Free Trade Zone in Bayan Lepas was already churning out computer chips for big names like Motorola, Intel, National Semiconductors, etc.

Penang became a Silicon Valley long before the Multimedia Super Corridor became a reality, although now it also has a reputation of being a Silicone Valley of a different sort – with health care centers promoting breast implants.

There are so many facets to Penang that I could go on and on. But suffice it to say that while you can take a Penangite out of Penang, you can never, ever take Penang out of a Penangite.

This article first appeared in Ebridge Malaysia, a newspaper dedicated to Malaysians living in North America. It can be found in the website . A pdf version resides here.