Penang heritage: China Street Ghaut

I took a walk along China Street Ghaut in Penang yesterday, so today's entry will be a nostalgic trip down memory lane for me. In fact, I was walking along Church Street Ghaut, Weld Quay, King Edward Place and Downing Street too. But I shall confine this entry to just China Street Ghaut. I haven't had the occasion to wander along this road for a very long time but I'm very intimate with this road which was where I had been walking around for almost 18 years of my life.

Nothing much has changed to the feel of this road except that many of the businesses there have folded. These photographs, taken on a Saturday afternoon, are a testament to that, but the deserted road added to the atmosphere and charm.

First of all, here is a satellite map of China Street Ghaut and its surroundings. I have captioned many of the landmark buildings.


I stood at the junction of Victoria Street and China Street Ghaut and took this photo of the Customs building. It's a nice building with an equally nice clock tower. I'd dare say that people sailing into Penang in the early 20th century would have treated the clock tower as a prominent landmark. It still is.


I moved to the centre of the road to snap the next shot. The Customs building is to my left and on my right is a row of buildings that had seen better days. The building on the far right is the Bangunan UAB. I believe until the early 1980s, the United Asian Bank was still operating a branch here. Then, it decided to merge with two or three of its other branches along Beach Street and this building has been deserted ever since.


Further down, you'll come to a building with a verandah on the first floor overlooking the road. Here is a snap shot of the intricate design beneath the verandah. It's of cement, not iron.


The Penang Premier Press was located here but the place is empty now. I took a peek inside the shuttered gates and tried to remember the hustle and bustle of a printing press during its heydays. You'd need a good imagine to succeed, if you haven't actually seen the place during its occupancy days.


I made an about turn to capture this garish building which now house the Wawasan Open University. Previously, this was the Boom Boom Restaurant and it added a lot of colour to Weld Quay with its rather risque evening shows. Further up the road, you can see the old Ban Hin Lee Bank building. It is now occupied by CIMB Bank. It's a very sturdy building. The bank's assistant manager in the 1970s, Teoh Beng Cheang, used to tell me that during the Japanese invasion of Penang, the staff sheltered in the strong room, safe from the bombs dropping from Japanese aircraft. Bombs went off all around but the building stood firm.


I decided to walk down towards the sea front and was confronted by this colonial pillar letter box.


It still bears the royal cipher of Edward VII (King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the seas, Emperor of India). This means that this letter box must have been erected here between January 1901 and May 1910. The letter box looks rather short and stumpy but that's because of the raised road level and the new pavement. The box's base is buried deep beneath the road.


And this is, of course, the Wisma Yeap Chor Ee. Like most of the other buildings along this road, it's totally unoccupied now. It had certainly seen better days. More recently, it was dressed up for Ang Lee's movie, Lust Caution, but after filming was over, it regressed back to its old, abandoned charm. As recent as the 1990s, it's main role was as a storeroom for Ban Hin Lee Bank's documents. Right in the middle of the city, on prime land, this was a storeroom!