The City That Endures
Though the annual celebration has been postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing lockdown, the story behind how this 235-year-old port turned capital of Penang is one worth revisiting
We revisit Georgetown’s historically significant
Any Malaysian worth their salt knows of Georgetown; while synonymous with gastronomical delights and the atypical tourist attractions, it’s the city’s historically significant architecture that has survived the passage of time as well as its cultural diversity, which continues to flourish centuries down the line, and has rightfully earned its title as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2008. Coincidentally, its anniversary falls on the 7th of July—a regional public holiday dubbed the Georgetown Heritage Day. So, to commemorate one of the defining parts that make up our nation’s identity, we’ve compiled a list of the city’s most significant highlights.
1785
According to Joe Sidek, festival director and the ‘father of Georgetown Festival’, the city had already been cosmopolitan in the late 1700s, which was “far earlier than Kuala Lumpur itself” as it was first established as a trading port by British explorer Captain Francis Light, who, on behalf of the British East India Company,
formed a pact with the then Sultan of Kedah, Sultan Muhammad Jiwa Zainal Adilin II, for the cession of Penang Island in exchange for British military aid. And in what seems to be a serendipitous play of events, Francis Light finally set foot on present-day Esplanade, a waterfront location in the heart of the Georgetown, alongside his entourage on the 17th of July, 1786.
“Being exposed to so many cultures at the time, including our exchanges with said cultures, plays a huge part in our heritage as well as the success of Georgetown Festival,” Sidek comments. “We speak so many languages it’s unreal. Dialects upon dialects—and the thing about being a multicultural cosmopolitan means retaining our sense of self. We’re not aiming to be the next Taiwan, or even Singapore. We don’t have high-rise buildings, we don’t have huge, newfangled cultural centres like Shanghai does, which are ten times bigger than the Sydney Opera House!”
“And I find Georgetown, even Malaysia as a whole, the most amazing canvas [to host a festival] because there’s already a story in it,” he continues, his childlike wonder infectious. “And we certainly don’t lack in that department—we’re a living, breathing testimony of how history has literally shaped a community in more ways than one!”
OF WAR AND LIBERATION
The city has seen its fair share of the world’s ugliest— in 1914, the Battle of Penang took place when an imperial German navy cruiser sank two Allied warships off the coast of Georgetown, resulting in the death of 147 French and Russian sailors.
Then, 30 years later, Japanese warplanes descended, having strafed and bombed Georgetown during World War II in the early 1940s, wiping out the Allied air squadrons defending the port. The British army ordered a withdrawal from Penang, and according to a news article published in the UK by the Northern
Times on December 20th, 1941, evacuated the European population while leaving the local residents to a brutal period under the Japanese Occupation, during which the island was renamed as Tojo-to.
The Chinese population of Penang, as well as those in Singapore, faced the horrors of hostile systematic purging, which was also known as ‘Sook Ching’ to the locals back then. Where they were not only massacred, but the women of Georgetown were forced to work as comfort women by the Japanese as well.
THE FIRST CITY OF MALAYA
Prior to the country’s independence, the British regained their foothold by the end of the war, and in 1957, Georgetown was declared a city by Queen Elizabeth Ii—which actually made it the first city of the nation before its autonomy.
And one of the more prominent traces of British colonialism is the Jubilee Clock Tower. Built in remembrance of Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee and 60ft in height, each foot represented
the years of the queen’s reign. An interesting tidbit about the clocktower, according to the locals, is its slightly tilted angle due to the WWII bombings.
THE 2000S
Due to the repealed Rent Control Act of 1966 in 2001, which acted as a safeguard for low-income residents as well as the smaller businesses that resided in the colonial-era buildings built before January 31st, 1948 from sudden rental hikes, the locals moved out as a consequence, ultimately leading towards the disrepair of many of the city centre’s historical buildings.
It was at this time, coupled alongside the public’s vocal negative reception towards the city’s decline, that further propelled a political upheaval in the 2008 State Elections as Pakatan Rakyat (now known as Pakatan Harapan) was voted into power. Then, in that very same year, on the 7th of July, Georgetown was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site alongside Malacca, which aided in the city’s efforts in restoring both the buildings and the people who resided there as well.