Soaking in some heritage

History has shown us that man reacts the same way when confronted with certain aspects of life. Things they fear, things they don’t understand, things they disagree with – all end up dead. Man kills em. And since I had a whole day off from work, I too turned to my most basic human instinct to kill. Time, that is.

A friend invited me to go to a trip to the Cheong Fatt Sze mansion and I agreed. This famous and huge mansion located in Penang is supposedly built by a renowned Chinese figure. In it, houses many antiquities as well as history. Surprisingly, born in Penang and living here for the past 30 years, I have never heard of Cheong Fatt Sze nor of his mansion. Kinda makes me wonder is it really that famous? Either that or have I been drunk most of my life?




The entrance to the mansion















The mansion.








Anyway, we got ourselves there and paid the RM12 ticket for the tour. The outside of the mansion looked kinda like my grandmother’s home, but a hell lot bigger. Being a local Chinese myself, I wasn’t really impressed. Not with the outer architecture anyway.





Free bookmarks. Now I can use it to mark my pages if I decide to read a book. Yeah right.







We made our way in and saw a group of tourists huddled around an old overweight lady. She was the tour guide. She was yapping away on who Cheong Fatt Sze was and how after his death the fortune he amassed was squandered away by his children. There’s a lesson to be learnt here; spend your money before you die or people will spend it for you.

As she was talking about history, those who are less attracted on the past and more interested in the present started to wonder around. Then suddenly, the overweight tour guide aunty (OTGA in short) somewhat shrieked at them about not being allowed to roam around. She said that the mansion is a private property and we are merely visitors. Also, we are not allowed to take pictures of the inside. WTF? No pictures? Do they think we have photographic memory? Or are they afraid that people will renovate their houses to look like my grandmother’s?

Apparently, OTGA says that it is impolite to take pictures of the inside of other people’s homes. Just like you wouldn’t want someone to take pictures of yours. Well lady, I don’t charge people twelve bucks to come into mine and if I did, I won’t mind them taking pictures. Heck, I would even pose for them.

Furthermore she says that there are sophisticated and sensitive electronic equipments around. Yeah right - My DVD player has more electronic components than what is needed to run this place.

Back to the tour. After about twenty minutes of story telling, we were brought to the courtyard just behind the entrance. Here we listened to Feng Shui tips. (I know all the Feng Shui I need to know. Money, good. No money, no good.) Apparently, the drainage system at the courtyard twirls around the mansion through underground pipes before being flushed out slowly. How much truth in this is anybody’s guess, unless you have x-ray vision. And If I had x-ray vision, I certainly would not be wasting it by looking at underground piping of some old house. There are many many other things which I would rather look at if you know what I mean.

Ironically, even with all the Feng Shui practiced, Cheong Fatt Sze’s family actually went broke after his death. Guess the “chi” tree isn’t like an apple tree. The fruit does fall far from the tree.




Picture of the courtyard. My friend's camera accidentally took a shot of it.












View of the courtyard from upstairs. My friend really need to repair her camera.






We proceeded further (like about 10 feet) to a place I call the picture gallery. Here there are a few photographs, and the main attraction was of the 7th wife of Cheong Fatt Sze. The wife he loved the most. OTGA informed us that he had eight wives altogether. Well, at least the guy knows how to have fun. But does this mean he will also have eight times more headaches than most men? At that moment, I had mixed feelings of envy and pity for him.

After that we were brought upstairs and on the way up, I saw an Ang Moh stole a few shots with his camera. Unlucky for him I wasn’t the only who saw it. One of the staffs of the mansion saw this and questioned him on his action. Rather rudely if I do say so. I ignored the small commotion and joined the others.

Upstairs, we were brought to the balcony where we were shown some elaborate artworks made up of pieces of colored porcelains. After that, to a small room with some artifacts and a bed. It didn’t really sparked any interests for me. It kinda looked like an old run-downed museum.

View from the balcony. Local drinking holes.

OTGA then led us to another courtyard and then, out of the mansion. Where we were told to sayonara ourselves. Well, not with those words exactly, but you get my point. My friend and I took some photographs and left. By the way, this mansion also doubles as a hotel, charging at a five star hotel rate. I couldn’t help but feel that it looked like those brothels you see in those olden Hongkie movies. Feeling disappointed, we decided to go and have a treat at the waterfalls, near the botanical garden.
I don’t know what it’s called actually. So we just called it fruit ice since it’s a combination of fruit and er…. ice. Although it looks disgusting but it tastes great and it costs only three bucks each. Overall, it saved an otherwise uneventful day.








Ugly looking fruit ice. Tastes much better than it looks

An ingenious east meets west device. A bamboo toll bar (or whatever it’s called)

A rickshaw. How people travelled when they wanted to get to their destination faster.

A trishaw. Basically a rickshaw with a bicycle attached.
Advantages to the occupants
- fresher air
Advantages to the trishaw peddler
- safer than a rickshaw, as he is now seated at the back and have a higher chance of survival if any accidents occurs.

Hello, baby

Sitting at home with utterly nothing to do and too lazy to go anywhere, I decided to ponder “What’s missing in my life?” Do I need a new TV? How about new clothes? New underwear? Hmm… Since it was the end of the year, I could splurge with my bonus. That means it don’t have to be something dirt cheap. Then it hit me. A brand new sexy slim hand phone! Yes. With one of those new smart phones, I would be complete. I could kill hours away, just fiddling around. At the very least with this new gadget, I can play by myself instead of with myself.

Like any self professed geek would do, I Googled around for the latest phones. Checked on forums for pros and cons. Checked with friends. Checked with shops. I won’t be bragging to say that the amount of homework I did far surpassed our government’s research before making any decisions. Finally, I had my eye on the new Nokia N85. Yes, there were mentions of it being not so reliable. Having bugs here and there and being prone to freezing up. I scoffed at those unlucky bastards for getting bad sets. Not me, I’m not gonna be one of them. I refuse to think that I would be one of those in the statistics of owners of deviated phones. Anyway, very few people reported on any issues faced.

I called up a friend who owns a hand phone shop and made my order. Can’t believe my luck. I was just in time as there’s only one unit left. So he kept it for me and in a few days time, I went to collect the phone.

When I first opened up the box, I saw this black shining device, glimmering under the light of a man made fluorescent lamp. As I caressed the smooth surface of the phone, I thought “Baby, you and I will have fun together”. How I would be the envy of society. How we would go every where together and spend every waking moment next to each other. Just like having a gorgeous girlfriend. Only much cheaper and with way less bitching.

Took my new baby home and started to charge the phone overnight.

The next morning, I woke up even before the sun was up. Crawled my half asleep body to my phone and switched it on. As I waited for the booting up, my palms sweated from the anticipation. When the prompt for a password appeared, I hastily keyed it in. Then I waited. And waited. And waited. WTF? It froze? It froze up on the very first startup? That’s like getting a cramp on your very first hump. So ok, I thought to myself that “accidents” do happen. So I restarted it. And again, it froze. After a few attempts, I finally got into the main screen. The graphics were superb. Clean and crisp. So like a fat guy in an all you can eat buffet, I got greedy. I wanted more. Pressed the menu button and again, the damn thing froze. What is happening? Am I now part of the statistics which I was so sure I would not be? Am I now one of those bastards which bought a phone which would not work? If I had taken up yoga and being more flexible, I would have kicked myself right in the balls.

Having nothing better to do, I tried to scour the net, looking for others with the same dilemma as me - maybe they have a solution. Man was I shocked. Previously, my search through the net before my purchase simply consists of “N85” or “N85 features”. But this time, I added words such as “suck”, “shitty” and “crappy”. Loads and loads of websites were returned from my searches and it really got me down.

What now? What do I do with this piece of expensive technology that doesn’t work? If we weren’t in the 21st century, I could have turned it into a paper weight. But now, everything is going paperless. I calmed myself down, and went to find the friend who sold me the phone. Passed it to him, and he promised me he’ll get it fixed. Then I went home to my old phone. Now I know why men do not leave their aged, wrinkled wives. They’re dependable. Yes, good old faithful still waits for me.

A few days passed, and my friend informs me that the phone is fixed. All it needed was just a firmware upgrade. Just a firmware upgrade? Heck, that’s like a brain transplant for electronic equipments. What kind of a phone would not work on its original software? Anyway, I didn’t care, as long as my baby’s fine. So I went to collect my phone and true to my friend’s words, the phone works.

For the next few days, I was glued to my new “precious”. Fooling around with the GPS, sending messages and figuring out how to work the other nifty features packed into its tiny body. Everywhere I went, my phone went with me. Ahh.. it feels good to have something new shoved next to my left butt cheek.