Photography by Ch'ng Shi P'ng.
For many Penangites, the Hill is a place for Sunday morning hikes, a slice of nature close to the city. But some people remember growing up on its slopes and still call the highlands home today.
From George Town, Penang Hill is a quiet presence, a thought that barely registers even as it looms in the background. It appears intermittently throughout the city: turn a corner and it’s there, grey and distant, like an old friend you run into briefly on the street. The crumbling villas that dot the hillside are a ghostly souvenir of colonial grandeur that has long since decayed, fading memories of a half-remembered empire.
But there are those for whom the Hill was – and still is – home. I meet Tan Boon Kuan and Goh Thiang Siang, Ah Siang for short, at the Penang Turf Club to hear stories about life on Penang’s highlands. Tan, an elegant man with a high forehead and arching eyebrows, is the child of migrants from China. He called Penang Hill home between 1954 and 1970 – living there first in a house called “Richmond” and later at a villa named “Southview”. His father worked as a caretaker for City Hall – which owned the bungalows – and as security guard and butler; he looked after the houses when they weren’t in use and made sure things ran smoothly when there was company. It is clear from Tan’s humour and easy way with words that he grew up in a family that regularly entertained guests.
Ah Siang is a caretaker himself, like his father and grandfather before him. He looks after a bungalow owned by the Penang Turf Club, “The White House”, where he was actually born. He supplements his income by growing flowers and vegetables in its garden, coming down from the Hill on a daily basis to sell his produce at the local market.
