The Weight of the Unspoken
4 min read
Everything is okay until it is not. People greet each other pleasantly until they turn to killing the other. Just like that, everything can change.It is the s...
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.
Mothers At Work
7 min read
Many mothers are finding creative ways to balance family and work. Through freelancing, part-time jobs or starting their own businesses, they trudge forward to...
The Hefty Sacrifices Homemakers Make
7 min read
Thirty-nine-year-old Caroline Teoh is armed with a master’s degree in Business Administration and worked as a financial advisor in a multinational company...
Dedicated to Tickling Funny Bones
6 min read
Justin Heyes.Executed well, comedy is as much an art form as music, dance, theatre and visual arts, requiring passion, inspiration, thoughtfulness and rel...
The Th’ng Tok: Dishes of the Long Table
7 min read
The kitchen bustles with activity in the days leading up to a th’ng tok event. The cacophony of knives cutting, slicing and chopping suffuse the atmosphere with the promise of a grand feast.
Innovations in Traditional Food Manufacturing
4 min read
In Chinese families, a bowl of hot herbal soup and a saucer of premium soy sauce are an almost-daily tableau on the dining table. Despite being traditional foods, manufacturing them has seen many rounds of innovation through the years, involving cutting-edge technologies.
Kenduri in Kelantan: Collective Feasts to Commemorate Life's Many Events
7 min read
SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL, human beings have felt the need to commemorate special occasions—be it as individuals or communities. We celebrate the universal experien...
Penang Food at a Crossroads
11 min read
For a long time, I wondered how I, for whom street food is at the core of my culture and eating habits, can find a diet that satisfies my cultural taste buds while still meeting present-day healthy eating guidelines.
Appreciating and Defending Penang’s Glorious Local Food Supply Chain
6 min read
Grocery shopping at wet markets as an innocent longstanding lifestyle scarcely received any notice in international news until early 2020 when Western media began targeting “wet markets” at large, once it was discovered that the Covid-19 virus likely emerged from the wildlife market at Wuhan.
Will the Market for Art Ever be the Same Again?
7 min read
BRICK-AND-MORTAR art galleries are hugely impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic because of the lockdown and the consequent economic crunch.Poster of We...
A Malaysian Artist Under Lockdown in Italy
8 min read
My front door is open, the sun is shining, the birdsong is loud and amazingly, an enormous swarm of bees has just flown by. A dark cloud that hummed so loudly that I thought a big, slow-moving tractor was driving past.
Opening Art Up – An Island-wide Welcoming of the Public into the Studio
7 min read
It was a weekend not to be missed for art lovers and aesthetes. Open Studios Penang – a festival that celebrates the paint and brush, and the artists behi...
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