Traditional Trades of Penang

Traditional Trades of Penang (8 October 2015)


Traditional Trades of Penang is a beautifully illustrated book by a young author Chin Yoon Khen. It details many of the traditional trades that you can find, particularly in George Town, many of which are facing extinction, as their practitioners are getting on with age. The book is bilingual in Mandarin and English, with another edition in Malay. It was made possible through a RM30,000 grant from ThinkCity.

Traditional Trades of Penang preserves within a single volume 54 different trades. They range from silversmithing to the making of Chinese dough figurines and more. I did not know that there are mahjong tile makers in Penang. I learn of a Mr Ooi Hock Chye who have been making mahjong tiles by hand. I am also happy to see that not every single artisan mentioned is of advanced age. Mr D. Kugan and Mr N. Doraisamy Maniam, the kavadi makers appear still quite young and have a few decades in front of them.

A fascinating aspect of this book is that you are taken behind the scene, to see how items that we often take for granted, for shaped. It is often a surprise that within the compact space of George Town, there could be so many artisans practising a plethora of trades. None of their products are mass produced. Every one of them is paintakingly created.

With the publishing of this book celebrating the various traditional trades, I hope that the general public will be made more aware of their existence, and will be able to lend their support. It would have been even more delightful if the author had included the contact details of each artisan featured in the book. I told the author Khen about this, and he said that it was a pretty rushed job, but he is working on a revision of the book that will include a map, address, location and captions.

Buying this book

Traditional trades of Penang is available on Amazon.



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