Perspectives in Penang

WORLD reporter Sophia Lee is traveling through Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, and other Southeast Asian countries. She’s sending us regular reports of what she sees, feels, and does—Nellie Bly–style.

PENANG, Malaysia—The first thing I notice as I walked the streets of George Town, the capital of Penang, is the architecture.

The hotel I booked is an exquisitely restored bungalow with antique furnishings that reflect the 150-plus years of British colonization: linen-colored columns and pillars; spacious, open-aired porches with deep auburn armchairs; and multiple rows of timber-framed windows. Most of the guests are white, pink-and-wet-faced tourists in shorts and tank tops, whom the hotel owners welcome with complimentary barley-and-lemongrass tea and Ipoh white coffee candies.

But mere steps outside my hotel, the linear rows of terraced, ethnic-hybrid shop houses are not as elegant or well-preserved. Trash and broken furniture lay by putrid-smelling gutters right outside the porches, while hens and roosters poke and dodder about the debris. Because few of these residential spaces have air-conditioning, residents leave their doors and windows wide open, allowing blood-hungry mosquitoes to buzz in and nosy passers-by—like me—to peek inside.

In the morning, I spot old couples reading Chinese newspapers while slurping hot porridge, their skin glinting reddish sweat reflecting the incense-glowing ancestral tablet dominating their dining room. Several doors over, I hear a man yelling at his kids in Tamil. Later, I run into a Malay man with a white taqiyah walking out for his evening prayer. Colonial mansions may be the protected gems of this Malaysian state, but the soul and heart of Penang dwell in the shadows of these shop houses.

Of course, Penang is no rural third-world state of farmers and rickshaw runners (nobody rides rickshaws except for iPhone-snapping tourists). This is a highly industrialized and cosmopolitan state with its never-ending construction projects, drawing high volumes of tourists to its unparalleled food paradise and churning out the country’s third-largest economy. But there’s also something schizophrenic about its development: Within one block, I notice chic cafés—the kind selling overpriced lattes and fancy cakes that would fit right in one of Los Angeles’ hipster neighborhoods—situated right next to a shuttered space of crumbling blight, or an old-school noodle shop with traditional idols and daily tear-off Chinese lunar calendar. It all seems messy and hassled, like a tug-of-war between rapid urbanization and stubborn, deep-rooted systems.

That’s the second thing that stands out to me about Penang: Religion is no private business here. On my way to buy char kway teow (wok-fried rice noodles with cockles) and roti canai (flaky, griddled Indian dough), I pass by masjids on almost every street corner— a reminder that Islam is the official religion of Malaysia. Several times a day, loudspeakers blare out call to prayers, and rows of shoes line ledges outside the mosques while Muslim men bow in prayer.

But there’s room for other religious expressions, too. Indians in traditional clothing throng in bright-colored, ornate Hindu temples, while on every street I smell the acidic-sweet odor of incense smoldering on bright-red, ash-coated ancestral altars fixed outside homes and shops. The large population of the Chinese community in Penang (46 percent) is even more evident because of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, a nine-day Taoist tradition in which observers celebrate by going vegetarian for the whole duration. Yellow flags with red letters and man-sized dripping candles line the streets outside the temple, where vendors sell vegetarian foods such as bean-stuffed pastries, deep-fried curry puffs and turnip cakes, even meatless pizza and burgers.

Though there are many churches in Penang (mainly Methodist), the Christians I talked to lament that many believers only go to church out of habit or obligation. They say few Christians here have solid theological grounding, even if they’re active in good works. As a result, the churches are like weak saplings with shallow roots, so they have little power to fight the spiritual smog of idolatry and secularism in their hometowns.

And so the third thing I notice about Penang: If not for the suffocating haze from Indonesia’s latest forest fire, the island would look beautiful with its soft-white beaches, sapphire waters, tropical mountains, and multicultural treasures, befitting of its nickname as “The Pearl of the Orient.” I feel the same about the spiritual darkness here—it’s like the current haze that’s been deadly, blinding, and stinking to high heaven. The church has much to do here.