Melaka Revisited
It was a
young Malay man in his early thirties, donning a songkok, who picked us
up at our parents’ place at Taman Sentosa that morning in early December, 2022.
He would be the Grab driver to bring us to the Red Square, where the iconic
clock tower stood in the middle of old Malacca town. I Chun, Ethan and I were
back in Melaka visiting Papa and Mummy- I hadn’t been back here for almost half
a year, while I Chun and Ethan last saw my parents face to face when they
visited Singapore three years ago, just before the pandemic. Papa wasn’t
driving nowadays, fortunately however, Grab offered a convenient alternative for my
parents to get groceries and meals (when Mummy wasn’t cooking) and of getting into
town (when Mummy was line-dancing!) Today, it was our turn to Grab into town.
Along the
way, Ariff (not his real name) and I struck a rather lively conversation in
Malay. He had initiated it, asking me where I was from and what I was doing in
Melaka. Although he had picked us up from a house in a residential area, we
obviously couldn’t pass off as locals. Almost all local families would possess
their own set of wheels, I thought. Another giveaway was our destination-
perhaps the most popular tourist spot in Melaka. After learning that I lived in
Singapore, Ariff commented that workers earned good salaries there. I retorted
that yes, that was true, but the cost of living in Singapore was high as well.
I had no answer to Ariff’s response, which came after a brief pause. `Sini,
harga barang tinggi jugak, tapi gaji rendah’ (Here, the prices of things
are high too, but salaries are low). I had been following the political
developments in Malaysia recently, which had involved a rather divisive and
bitterly fought election, culminating in a change of government. As I was also aware of the political
sensitivities involved and a clear split vote mainly along ethnic lines, I
chose my reply carefully. “Hopefully will improve”, I said in English.
Interestingly he seemed to concur, “Yeah, hopefully improve”. “We will see,” he
continued in Malay. “The government must achieve its KPIs… or we’ll change it
again!”
When Ethan
was seven years ago, all of our immediate family in Singapore had come to
Melaka for Lenny and Jean’s wedding, putting up at Philea Hotel Resort in Ayer
Keroh. Outside `wedding hours’, we had chartered a van to bring us sightseeing
and shopping, and our good driver’s tour itinerary inevitably included a stop
in the Red Square area. This hot tourist spot comprises a mix of Portuguese,
Dutch and British buildings and monuments, reflecting Melaka’s colonial
heritage in that chronological order. This time round, Ariff had dropped us off
at the exact same spot that we had visited in 2015. Camera-totting tourists,
local and foreign, thronged the square, and we duly joined in. There was the
famous clock tower and a fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria. Nearby was the
Stadthuys (State-house) building which was built by the Dutch, painted red by
the British and currently serving a new lease of life as local government
offices. These colonial monuments served
as a good background to photos of and for Ethan, who in typical teenage fashion
was relishing his visit to this very `Instagrammable’ vicinity!
I Chun,
Ethan and I had chosen late morning to begin our tour programme, after enjoying
breakfast in the comfort of home with Papa and Mummy. Now, the noon sun was
baking the concrete pavement, and rather uncomfortably, our bare heads.
Therefore, procuring a hat at a nearby souvenir shop was deemed a necessity to
supplement the umbrella that I Chun had brought along. After buying the
wide-brimmed hat, I Chun didn’t stop there. Attracted by the wide variety of
goods, she ended up buying a wind chime and collection of other souvenirs for
friends back in Singapore. But now, it was time to get back to more purposeful
shopping. Ethan always enjoyed donning traditional clothes for the annual
Racial Harmony Day at school, and we thought that a departure from the usual
Chinese-style clothing with round collar would be refreshing. I Chun had
fortuituously spotted a shop selling Batik apparel while in the Grab car, just
before it had dropped us off. We retraced our steps to the shop, which was
nestled amongst a row of single storey shophouses along Jalan Laksamana, which
led into the Red Square.
It was a quaint shop with few customers present when we entered. From the enthusiasm of the Indian uncle who appeared to be in his sixties, I surmised that business was probably just as quiet. I guess that he was happy to quickly sell us a few items of colourful batik clothing (which I must admit were quite attractive), bundling us together with the clothes to his equally smiley wife who was working the till. Having lived in Singapore for more than thirty years now, I must say that I miss the quaintness of such small roadside shops that have been all but decimated out of existence by Big Retail. For sure, we have small sundry shops, motor repair shops, those selling hardware, and boutique shops that open out into the street in touristy areas such as Chinatown, but the quaint shops in Melaka and other Malaysian towns have an air of authenticity surrounding them.
Roadside
clothes store selling attractive batik clothing
More shopping was now in order, but I Chun wanted it at Big Retail! So, it was time for Google Maps. Whipping out my trusted Samsung, I reflected that the adage of the times for the itinerant tourist would be `Have Maps will travel’. With that, I led our party of three on our trek through the historical vicinity of Melaka town with the ultimate objective of its hallowed shopping malls. Essentially, the path entailed rounding St Paul’s hill, giving us an opportunity to take in the sights enroute.
Extract from Google Maps:Our trek through old
Malacca from Red Square to the Shopping Malls
Our first stop was St Paul’s church and the statue of St Francis Xavier that stood at the top of St Paul’s hill. I Chun chose to stay at the bottom, while Ethan and I tackled that steep climb of some hundred winding steps to those monuments. Greeted at the peak by the statue of St Francis Xavier, I told Ethan of the interesting tale of its appearance, as I could remember it. St Francis was a Spanish Catholic priest and missionary who had upheld the `God’ aspect of the `God, Guns and Glory’ mantra of Melaka’s European colonizers, and who had been buried temporarily in St Paul’s church, before being exhumed and relocated to a more permanent burial spot in Goa, India. Being a holy figure, St Francis’ right arm had been dismembered to serve as a relic. That was all quite routine, if not for the striking coincidence that I pointed out to Ethan- the statue that was erected in his memory was also sans a right forearm, apparently broken off by the fall of a nearby tree during a thunderstorm, a day after it had been consecrated!
Ethan enjoying
the sights and scenery on the top of St Paul’s Hill
Ethan
photographed the inscription at the base of St Francis’ statue and in turn, I
photographed him, with the rich history and lovely scenery of St Paul’s church
and hill in the background.
After a
quick round of the church, we rejoined I Chun at the base of the hill and
continued our walk. Next up was the Santiago Gateway, which was one of the
entry points to the Portuguese fort of `A Famosa’. Following the Anglo-Dutch
treaty of 1824 when the British had obtained Malacca in exchange for Bencoolen, they had duly undertaken to destroy the
famous fort. Thankfully, Raffles had interceded to retain some of the
Portuguese constructions, notably the Santiago Gateway. Here, Ethan was
delighted with more photos for Instagram, which I Chun snapped while I waited
to get out of the heat. I didn’t have to wait for much longer as we had soon
arrived at Dataran Merdeka. This was the field where Tunku Abdul Rahman had
first announced Malaya’s independence in 1957, after coming back from a
successful round of talks in London.
We also remembered the field clearly from our last trip to Melaka in 2019, to celebrate Papa’s 80th birthday. Audrey and Ethan had been squatting and posing on the field for photos. That was the last time we had visited Melaka prior to the pandemic and in a sense, it was fortuitous that we and our larger family of relatives in Melaka could gather in a celebratory mood, right before the arrival of the coronavirus and the darker world that it brought with it.
Our next stop was the H&M clothes store, which we were relieved just to enter, to escape the afternoon heat. After getting some clothes- a few shorts and jeans, we were restless for the next shop. Looking outside H&M though, the surrounding shops appeared dark and unlit, in fact the corridor and escalators were just as lifeless. Comparing this to the more lively atmosphere of 2019, I surmised that the economy wasn't doing well.
Our shopping fortunes were looking up though, after receiving directions to the Parkson Mall, connected to our current building via a nondescript overhead bridge. Though looking somewhat less populated with shoppers compared to the last time we were here, at least this looked like a mall! So we had our fish and chips at a fast food outlet, yogurt ice-cream from Yole and some more shopping done here.
Apparently, we were not done with our shopping for the day. Ethan had some orders of chewing gum from his classmates, which we felt was best bought at a good supermarket. So, we soon found ourselves in another Grab taxi on the way to Aeon Shopping Mall, which was actually quite close to Taman Sentosa.
Being at Aeon (formerly known as Jusco) brought back some more pangs of nostalgia. Every time we visited Melaka in years gone by, Jusco was invariably the shopping haven to go to. Whether it was last minute shopping for CNY, visiting the arcade to entertain the very young Ethan or just needing some groceries or take home for dinner, Jusco was the place. I asked Ethan if he remembered the place (he replied in the affirmative) and walked with him to where the arcade still was, although much renovated since the last time.
Our visit to Melaka was a short one, but we were happy to see Papa and Mummy in person again. We were glad to revisit Melaka town, to see the places that made our day in our yesteryears. And we knew that we would experience that same joy, that same sense of nostalgia and comfort, the next time we found ourselves here again.
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