Hurrah!!!!!! This entry is my 50th in this blog. Okay shall we start crapping of something nice?
For those who don't know, I am a Penangite. I lived and bred in Penang, one of the Pearl of Oriental. I don't know whether she is a pearl, but she is the food heaven for me and most people from Malaysia. Although some people outside Malaysia denied that, I dared them to go eat and compare our foods with theirs. Penang is a State; yes it is. We have our own Penang flag and her state songs.
People that I came across often have the same reactions when I tell them I from Penang.
"Ahhhh"
"I kinda figured it out"
or even "You have the same attitude as etc etc."
and etc etc.
What make us so different from other Malaysian? Okay I am going to list again!
We extremely loved our state. She is the most beautiful place ever, despite Sungai Pinang....
We not only loved our state desperately, we missed and loved our Penang foods. How can you find a good and cheap wan tan mee for only RM3 (AUD1)? Why do we need to go to restaurant and have a Rm15 wan tan mee, when I can sit at the road side and have RM3 wan tan mee, that is even more delicious! In food we are all Penang-sided, what my housemates like to call it. No other place have the better food than Penang. Char Kuey Teow and Hokkien Mee (Prawn Mee for other people) is always the prime product of Penang? Penang is excellent in all kind of Hokkien and Chinese foods!
For those who don't know, I am a Penangite. I lived and bred in Penang, one of the Pearl of Oriental. I don't know whether she is a pearl, but she is the food heaven for me and most people from Malaysia. Although some people outside Malaysia denied that, I dared them to go eat and compare our foods with theirs. Penang is a State; yes it is. We have our own Penang flag and her state songs.
People that I came across often have the same reactions when I tell them I from Penang.
"Ahhhh"
"I kinda figured it out"
or even "You have the same attitude as etc etc."
and etc etc.
What make us so different from other Malaysian? Okay I am going to list again!
We extremely loved our state. She is the most beautiful place ever, despite Sungai Pinang....
We not only loved our state desperately, we missed and loved our Penang foods. How can you find a good and cheap wan tan mee for only RM3 (AUD1)? Why do we need to go to restaurant and have a Rm15 wan tan mee, when I can sit at the road side and have RM3 wan tan mee, that is even more delicious! In food we are all Penang-sided, what my housemates like to call it. No other place have the better food than Penang. Char Kuey Teow and Hokkien Mee (Prawn Mee for other people) is always the prime product of Penang? Penang is excellent in all kind of Hokkien and Chinese foods!
This make some of us cheapskate. WHY? Well we can get so cheap and good foods, why don't we follow the trend? People will start complaining when the food price rocketed high up to Rm3... Hawkers who sell their foods at Rm4 and above, they better be bloody damn good, else they are doom to earn nothing! Don't get me wrong. Some place, they sell the foods at Rm15 and people are queing up for that road side stall. Why? I have no idea. I never been there before, too far and expensive....
We also take our food very seriously. Food is the prime topic we talked about, when we are outside. Where to find the best place for Char Kuey Teow, and at the same time, it is not too far. Penang is so small, as compared to other state, still we do not like travelling. We don't see the point of going to some places, that need to take about 1hr drive....
Okay then they say we have the same attitudes. Being the small state, Penangites are more friendly, happy-go-lucky, and etc etc (I hope). We are closer to each other, because Penang is a small island. We are definitely not as Materialistic as other people (mostly from the capital). Sorry KL people, not that I condemn you people or anything. You people should know it yourselves! One of my distance relatives, actually throw her mother to an old folks home, and never talk to her even until she passed away... That poor distance-granny of mine suffered for about 1 year, and the people who visited her are us, the distance grandsons and granddaugthers from Penang... Her own grandkids don't even care about her... How sad? I condemn those people.
Once you got us into talking about Penang and her foods, we wont able to stop. We will continue until the next day and we can still miss it, even we just came back from Penang.
Some people said we have similar styles as well. They said most of us are Ah Beng and Ah Lian. (some kind of cheapskate style or something). Well, Penang was swarm with those people ages ago. But the time before I left Penang, it is getting better. And not all of us are Ah Beng and Ah Lian.... I missed Gurney Plaza and now the latest mall just open in Penang is Queensbay Mall. I did not get the chance to go there.... Huhuhu.....
Another thing is that we have our own Penang dialect! Penang Hokkien. No other Malaysian could speak like us in Penang, not even Taiwanese. We are definitely proud of our own dialect, and this dialect make us closer to each other.
Lastly, Penang will always be in every Penangites mind and thought. Everyone of us will dream, think and talk about Penang all the time. No matter where are we, and when is that. Not everyone like to go away from Penang, and to those who did, they will find someplace similar to Penang!
PS - I rewrite this blog. Because some error in publishing, and it deleted my first entry.
PSS - the beautiful picture of Penang is from Jason Lim (a proud penangite!)
4 comments:
Hey! Thanks for the mention, lol. If you want more beautiful Penang pictures you will be able to find it in my archives or even the travelogue link in my blog under the title 'My Hometown, Penang'.
Yea, i agree with you. We take pride in being a Penangite and extremely proud about Penang because we are different in our own way.
Penangites are scattered all around the world due to various factors but we continue to preach and boast about about Penang wherever we go. It's amazing!
All my Penang friends who are overseas/outstation agree that their classmates tend to label them as being overtly defensive of Penang whenever others criticise something about Penang. They will tend to hear Penangites preaching a lot about Penang as well.
And Penangites are always the ones who misses home the most!
Yeah. Well good luck in preaching about Penang when you are in UK!!!!!!
Still Penang will always be in our heart! Shitty eblogger that day...deleted my entry.... The first one is way better than this one.....
hi hi!!!
Your entry captured my feelings for Penang!!!
It's not a privilege to be a Malaysian but surely a privilege to be a Penangite!!! Say we are narcissist or whatever! BUT WE LOVE PENANG!!! It can only be true that we are unique!
We may have a big population of Ah Beng and Ah Lian but only KL has the exception of having better dressed people and slightly more global people due to the fact that they are the capital!
Imagine Penang being the capital? Hong Kong and Singapore and Japan are great cities due to the fact they have shores, they are islands and they are developed due to the fact the are strategically placed! I see the potential with Penang but thanks to our air-head government, they chose a slump called Kuala Lumpur to develop!!! British used us, Malacca and Singapore as their port when they conquered us and they were smart!!! The only wrong move is they gave back Penang to Malaya then! Should have taken care of us like how they did with Hong Kong!!!
Penang will always be dear to our heart!!! Food, Culture and People can't be seperated! Food defines People's Culture and surely we are best at it!!!
Way to go mate!!!!! I actually left out about the British colonial stuffs quite a lot. Thanks for reminding me!
I totally agreed with you! If Penang were given some independent, she will definitely flourished!!!!! Instead of some place that might sink soon.... Hahaha
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