Enlisting Penang into World Heritage List, of course, is good news to me. As a South-East Asian, I am deeply rooted to the culture and society we live in. We are basically immigrants from other countries like China, India, Indonesia and other regions around the world that came over in the past 150 years. Our society forms a rich diversity in which we have cross marriages of Indian-Chinese, Indian-Malay, Indonesian-Chinese and Asia-Western. This cultural bongings cross overs created different form of changes in relation to food culture, living styles, religions, values..etc and created a unique icon in which we deemed ourselves Asians. We preserve our own unique identity and even morph ourselves to stand out globally.
Penang, a small city has also recorded many such beauty seen from immigrants coming over from Southern provinces of China. The food from Penang has adopted to the flavours locally, varying differently from those outside the region. At the same time however, Penang recorded and maintained many cultures and customs that might not be practice in China anymore due to the raise of the Cultural Revolution in the 60s.
But one thing for sure raises our eyebrows when looked upon pre-enlisting as World heritage Cities.
It is not a matter of politics, economics or for the sake of tourism. Yes you can boom everything up for the sake of enriching your nation's needs. But are you ready for such enlistment? There are much chapters involved in which are you able to protect and preserve your unique identity. Is the local ready to accept their role in preserving their own uniqueness? Will things be lost along the way due to pressure from tourism and economics?
You also need to consider how much money you have to fork in in restorations and preservation of such identities. There are also intangible things to consider. Will it be lost along the way? I believe that the current generation in which I am born in, most of us cannot even speak our own dialects, or relate things to it with ease.
Start with bring awareness. There are many things not needed to be rush. Especially heritage. Do proper plannings. do proper research. Find your own strengths. Find your own identity. We do not need another over-commercialised site listed. We do not need another city falling in into the hands of pure capitalism.
And if you are really ready and decided, and you know you can really shows the colours and beauty of your beautiful city Penang, yes by all means do so! I will be proud as an Asian to see it listed!
source: the star malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is hopeful that Penang and Malacca will be accorded World Heritage Cities status.
Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said the status was mostly accorded to places in Europe and non-Asian countries and thus Unesco might tend to compare Penang and Malacca with these places.
“I hope Unesco will not compare us to places like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Pyramids. We have asked Unesco to look at us in the Asian perspective. We hope Penang will soon gain the status, followed by Malacca,” he said.
Dr Rais added that Malaysia had proposed to China for Asia to have its own version of “Unesco” to accord such status but the matter has not been decided upon as the Eastern Ministers of Culture have yet to meet.
He said it was timely that Penang was the venue of the 20th Malaysian Film Festival just as it was vying for the status. The festival will be held at Dewan Canselor Tunku Syed Putra in Universiti Sains Malaysia on Aug 4.