More and More Malls in Penang
9 min read
Penang’s retail landscapeIn recent years, shopping malls, hypermarkets and departmental stores have been rapidly growing on both the island and the main...
November 2025
This November, Penang Monthly explores language, place and memory. As GTLF returns, we highlight Penang’s multilingual streets and the dialects that keep local history alive.
Cosmopolitanising Bahasa Malaysia
5 min read
Dynamism leads to cosmopolitanismAny language is a reflection of the society that uses it. Hence, any society that aims to attain an international cosmopoli...
1Care – A Careless Reform
6 min read
IntroductionAneurin Bevan (1897-1960), the UK’s Minister of Health immediately after the Second World War, once stressed that where medical needs exist,...
Visualising the Poverty Line
6 min read
What does it mean to be poor, really?That was the question photographer Stefen Chow asked when he started The Poverty Line. The undertaking is unusual for a p...
Civil Society and Pakatan Governments
6 min read
Interestingly, many individuals from nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) made the decision to join (then) opposition parties and contest in the 12th General El...
Penang – A Home for Malay Artists
6 min read
Abdul Rashid Razak with a painting on Mahsuri.Penang has attracted excellent academic, intellectual and/or practising artists by default because of educat...
Faces of Industrial Penang: Hamdan – Doer and Dreamer
6 min read
Tell us something about your background.My early years were in Penang. I left Penang Free School to pursue a degree in Economics from the University of Lond...
Epidemic Diseases in Penang, 1819
5 min read
“The principal Epidemic Diseases (on Prince of Wales Island) have been the small pox and cholera. The former recurs nearly every year, with more or less...
Microcredit, Macro-Goals
6 min read
Poverty eradication has always been a tall order, and approaches to do so over the years have been subject to much debate.You may have heard of Prof Muhamma...
What ’s The Deal When Government Gives Away Money?
5 min read
Speaking as a layman, I’m aghast that the government is giving out so much money these days, as if there’re lots more where it’s coming from...
Encore, Penang World Music Festival
5 min read
It wasn’t so long ago that Penang played host to some of the best international acts that the music world had to offer. This was at the Penang World Music...
The Thought Bazaar
3 min read
Carbon dioxide rockets shot up from makeshift launching pads, and their plastic bottle cargo parachuted down briskly to the ground. Every zipping projectile t...
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