A rehabilitated Sia Boey

I was passing along Prangin Road this afternoon and noticed that the barricades along this main road in George Town had been removed, revealing the restored Sia Boey which has been touted as the first urban archaological park in the country.

Intrigued by what I had been reading about this place in the past months, I decided to go take a look at the place. Luckily, I was able to find a nearby place to park the car. What I saw when entering from the northern entrance was a rehabilitated Sia Boey, not as a market but as a refreshing green park in the city. There was a waterway with clear water and Japanese carp were swimming in it.

But as we now know, this wasn't the original canal at all; not the canal that carried filthy water all the way to the sea. No, this was a closed off portion of the original canal that had been cleaned up. Unseen to visitors to Sia Boey, however, the murky water has been diverted into a parallel underground or covered-up conduit.

Several months ago, this project had attracted a lot of incredulity and controversy when pictures appeared of how fish was now swimming and thriving in what was once the murky waters of the canal. Could it really have happened that Penang had succeeded finally in cleaning up the infamously filthy Sia Boey canal?

Then it became known that in reality, the dirty water had simply been diverted into a separate conduit that had been constructed in parallel to this old stretch. There were accusations of a deception and the authorities were forced to clarify the situation.

Anyway, all this is behind us now and it is time for us to appreciate the good work that had been done to rehabilitate Sia Boey. Apart from the heritage Sia Boey building which used to house the old wet market and the fish pond running beside it, there is also a children's playground at one end of Sia Boey. It's a little green lung in the midst of the city and I am okay with that.