Pinang Peranakan Mansion: Explore its Culture and History
Penang is a wonderful mix of the new and the old, with sophisticated high-rise structures next to charming heritage shophouses. The great collection of colonial-era buildings in Penang must also be explored in order to fully immerse yourself in the local culture and history. While touring George Town’s street art and eating your way through hawker stalls is a good enough day spent in Penang.
Pinang Peranakan Mansion is a notable structure with a rich history in George Town. The mansion is now a historic house museum that takes visitors to a bygone age of Peranakan culture. It is an architectural marvel and is home to thousands of antiques and valuables.
Pinang Peranakan Mansion, a captivating structure that stands majestic in its distinctive green brilliance and on the original ground where it was first built, is situated amidst hawker stalls and shophouses along Church Street.
The Sea of Remembrance Hall, also known as Hai Kee Chan, was planned and constructed at the end of the 19th century. Chung Keng Kwee, a businessman from Kapitan China, and Penang, used it as both his home and workplace.
The Babas and Nyonyas, also known as Peranakans, developed into a dominant ethnic group in several parts of Malaysia, particularly Penang, as a result of the close coexistence of various cultural groups in that country. This blend of culture, customs, and lifestyle from diverse ethnic communities was absorbed together with the British colonial way of life and is still pervasive in Penang today.
Despite the fact that Chung was not of Peranakan ancestry, his Straits Eclectic-style mansion contains features of affluent Peranakan homes from the past. Today, you can visit his old rich residence and admire the beauty of a Chinese courtyard home with intricately carved wooden panels, English floor tiles, Glasgow marble pillars, Scottish ironworks, and furniture that is a mix of Chinese and European styles.
After Chung’s death in 1901, the home remained abandoned for many years. But there was still some hope for this old structure. A real estate entrepreneur bought his beloved mansion in the 1990s, painted it back in its original mint green, and brought it back to its former splendor.
The buyer, a passionate antique collector, filled the spacious halls of the estate with more than 1,000 priceless Peranakan antiques and artifacts from all over the world. Pinang Peranakan Mansion was meticulously restored over the course of five years before it was made available to the public.
The result of all the effort is that the mansion is now regarded as one of Asia’s top Peranakan museums.