Emilies of Emerald Hill
4 min read
Emily of Emerald Hill is a classic drama that traces the life, loves, travails (and recipes) of an overbearing Singaporean Nyonya trapped in her gilded cage.
City of birds
10 min read
OVER 200 YEARS have passed since Captain Francis Light of the British East India Company established Penang’s capital city George Town, and it would be fair to say that the city’s character has remained virtually unchanged.
Pluck, Luck and A Practical Mind
7 min read
Datuk Seri Kelvin Kiew, the outspoken chairman and president of Mini-Circuits Technologies Malaysia speaks to PEM about his humble beginnings and the formidable woman he credits for his success.
An Old Chung Ling Boy Who Thought Big
5 min read
Penang-born entrepreneur Loke Gim Tay balances business success with a deep love for Chinese art and culture, championing Penang's heritage while supporting artists across borders.
Raising Komtar
5 min read
The records show that the Komplex Tun Abdul Razak's (Komtar) tower at its completion in 1985 was the tallest building in Asia - and Malaysia of course.
Lim Chong Eu Revisited
16 min read
Those who worked with and knew Tun Dr. Lim Chong Eu share their recollections of Penang's former Chief Minister.
All that Rozz-matazz
7 min read
It has been five years since Rozz first lit up Bagan’s stage with his electric takes on classic torch songs and Broadway numbers. With undeniable panache, Rozz fluidly melds the worlds of the masculine and the feminine.
Life on the List
14 min read
ENOUGH TIME has now passed for PEM to start asking what the most significant and noticeable changes are, and what people have learned from the fact that George Town is now under global scrutiny, what measures are crying out to be taken, and what the future holds for this newly recognised treasure.
Lighting the way
4 min read
CAMBODIA IN THE early 1990s was not the investment location of choice for the “big guns” of the Western business elite, despite its proximity to the Asian Tigers.
The Winning Formula: Why Investors Choose Penang
17 min read
TO A FIRST-TIME VISITOR Penang can feel like it’s stuck in a time warp, caught between its colonial trading past and electronic manufacturing heydays; sandwiched between upper-tier cosmopolitan cities like Singapore and Shanghai and aspiring wannabes such as Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City.
What's Your Penang?
2 min read
A LONG TIME AGO, I was standing on a London tube platform watching rats scurry under the rails. Something caught the edge of my eye, a vaguely familiar beach scene on a giant billboard where the shapes of the rocks and the hills all triggered off tiny electric currents in me.
Rivers of Tears
4 min read
George Town’s built heritage is a great example of design moderated by cultural context. We notice this in the city’s morphology, the building typologies lining the streets, and the spaces between the public realm and private sanctuaries.