Penang, Malaysia - March 12th

Followed the Andaman Sea from Rangoon down the Malay Peninsula to the island of Penang, separated from the mainland by 12 miles that is spanned by a bridge completed by the construction arm of Hyundai in 1984. It’s the fourth longest bridge in the world.

Overseas Chinese make up 24% of Malaysians but are a 44% plurality on this island. The rest are 41% Malay, 8% Indian, and a mix of everything else. It’s a laid-back place with pride in everybody getting along with everyone else. Penang has a well-developed business base with more than 40 electronics factories as well as a pretty fair tourist industry.

We toured the restored mansion (above) of an Overseas Chinese merchant who came to Penang in 1821 and achieved great success in the import-export business. He built this house, imported a Chinese wife, and was so successful that he soon installed his parents and moved the family business out of China. It seems he shared the same taste in fine china as Kathy Wicks (lower right above).

Following the custom of the time, the Baba dressed western-style and learned Malay and English; but his wife, the Nyonya, had to dress in the traditional Chinese style and spoke only Chinese, which she also taught the children. The house is still owned by the original family, although there was one intervening owner. They had formal portraits painted:

The portraits are in the traditional Chinese style in which great girth connotes great wealth and importance. Some artistic license may have been employed.

Next we visited the Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple complex. Lots of pagodas and golden Buddhas.

According to our guide, the temple at the apex is unique in the world in that different tiers employ three different architectures: Chinese for the very simple bottom levels, then Thai style for the middle tiers with the soaring doo-dads on the corners, and finally Burmese for the top layers with the balustrade balconies. As either James Thurber or Casey Stengel said (take your pick, no extra charge), you could look it up.

We will skip the pictures of all the gold Bhuddas as they were not that different than Bagan. But according to the local Buddhism, it is good luck to buy tortoises and donate them to live in the temple sacred pond. Consequently, the sacred pond is overflowing with tortoises:

Next, we visited the Wat Chaiyamaingalaram Buddhist temple, home of the fourth largest “Reclining Buddha” in the world. Yes, Penang has the world's fourth largest Reclining Buddha as well as the world's fourth longest bridge. Who knew?

Do you know what's behind the blue curtains below the Reclining Buddha? Ancestor ashes. This is a very prestigious burial place. Families pay other families thousands of dollars to relocate their ancestor ashes to another place and open up a spot. My ashes will be happy to be sprinkled over Court One of the Lauderdale Tennis Club.

Next stop was the reason Joani took the tour – a genuine batik printing, dying and sewing facility. Batik prints are made using a lost-wax negative-image dying process. In the final step, the fabric is placed in boiling water which removes the wax negative image (leaving it white) and sets the colors. Did you understand that? The artist needs to have conceptual skills far beyond the powers of mortal men. The pictures didn't turn out that well so you'll have to take my word for it.

On to Kuala Lumpur, to see the Petronas Twin Towers tomorrow.