Empowering the community to preserve cultural heritage

GETTING the communities to preserve their own culture and take ownership of it is a major aspect of George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI)’s work in safeguarding the living heritage of the historic city.

“We don’t wait for the historians and so-called experts to tell us: ‘This is your culture’. The community should be empowered to appreciate their own cultural heritage and preserve it,” says GTWHI community outreach officer Lim Chung Wei.

It is still an ongoing process, he adds, but he feels that the awareness of the importance of safeguarding their cultural heritage among the George Town communities has increased since the Unesco inscription.

“This year, the communities have taken more ownership of the anniversary celebrations and mobilised their members to showcase their cultural heritage,” he says.

In this year’s heritage celebrations, six places of worship in George Town including the Kapitan Keling Mosque, Kong Hock Keong Kuan Im Teng and Gurdwara Temple will hold “open houses” to introduce their traditions, rituals and festivals.

In “Walky Talky George Town” heritage trail, the communities of Chowrasta Market, Campbell Street and Penang Bazaar, once the golden triangle of George Town, will open their shops to visitors and showcase their “traditional trades”.

One not to be missed is the legendary Ais Tingkap, which is a thirst quenching concoction of iced coconut juice and sirap selasih (syrup with basil seeds) that has been on sale for some three generations. The stall earned the name that means Window Sherbet because the drink was originally sold through the window by the current owner’s grandfather.

There has definitely been an increased interest among individual communities to organise their own programmes and festivals to showcase their cultural heritage, says Lim.

“Unfortunately, many lack resources and the manpower to continue their preservation work but from what we can see, there is a growing interest in cultural heritage among the young here – every year the number of young people volunteering to work with the communities to collect and present their cultural heritage at the celebrations has been growing, so there is hope,” he notes, adding that with this year’s celebrations themed “Walk the Talk: Oral Traditions and Expressions”, GTWHI hopes more people will be inspired to preserve their cultural heritage, through its continued practice.

They have had some good news from their regular partner, the Penang branch of the Telegu Association of Malaysia, he shares.

“They told us that other branches of the association are now inter- ested in showcasing the Telegu cultural heritage in their own states.”

GTWHI’s hope now is that they can open tourists’ eyes to the full scope of George Town’s cultural heritage.

“We hope people can look at more than the wall paintings or historical buildings and houses when they walk around George Town. They should meet the people who are living here and talk to them and get to know their cultural heritage; George Town is a microcosm for Malaysia with its multicultural history, so it is Malaysia’s heritage too,” says Lim.