Pretensions took a long weekend a couple weeks before Christmas and flew from Singapore up to the island of Penang in Northwest Malaysia. As her dad originates from Penang, P had visited Penang many times in her childhood (for extended family visits), but the trips got fewer and farther between as she got older. She had been up to the island once for business since then (about 3 years ago), but hadn’t been on a tourist visit for nearly 15 years.

Anyway, she decided to take this opportunity to view some of the historical bits of Penang, especially the Cheong Fatt Tze (Blue) Mansion and the Penang Peranakan Mansion. First, however, here’s a photo of the view from her hotel room on Gurney Drive, the famous eating and shopping street in Penang. This used to be a decent beachfront 20 years ago, but the Asian tsunami rather put paid to that.

This post is about the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion – the next will cover the Peranakan Mansion.

The Cheong Fatt Tze (CFT) Mansion was named after its owner, a Hakka businessman made good. Mr Cheong Fatt Tze was born in Guangdong in South China in 1840. In 1856, the second opium war caused widespread poverty and suffering among the Cantonese and CFT decided to seek his fortune in Southeast Asia. He became a shopkeeper in Java (Indonesia) and made the wise move of marrying upward and using the resulting wealth to fund his business ventures. He ended up with a vast trading empire, 8 wives, numerous children (only 1 inherited) and mansions in several ports, including Singapore, Penang, Guangdong, Hong Kong etc etc.

He became the consul-general in Singapore and also an important mandarin in the Manchu government in China. Incidentally, he also visited the States on an industrialisation study mission and was awarded a PhD in Law from Hong Kong. Yes, CFT definitely lived in “interesting times”!

The CFT mansion in Penang is a classic Chinese courtyard mansion (built around a central open courtyard), one of only 2 left outside China and definitely the best preserved. It was built between 1896 and 1904 by architects, builders and other craftsmen brought in from China. Sadly, P wasn’t allowed to take photos inside, so the photo on the right of the interior courtyard is from the mansion’s website.

The first thing that struck P about the mansion was its intense blue colour. During her tour of the mansion, the guide explained that this was due to the Indigo dye, which was imported by the British from India and sold widely in their colonies in Southeast Asia. Blue is considered an unlucky colour by the Chinese and would never have been used in China, but the British colonies of Penang and Singapore has fewer choices.

The other thing that P loved about the incredibly ornate exterior was the wonderful coloured mosaics that decorated almost every surface. She was told they were made from Chinese porcelain bowls in different colours that were broken by craftsmen and the shards then stuck together to make creatures and characters from legend. This is the side of the house, click on it to view a larger photo – it has a broken bowl version of a Chinese dragon and phoenix motif but there’s plenty else going on, including crabs and other sea creatures.

This is a closeup of another broken bowl mosaic showing a Chinese Lion and some flowers. There are more fruits and vines below.

This is a closeup of the roof which was lavishly painted and ornamented with more broken bowl mosaics.

The mansion was built explicitly to good fengshui principles. CFT acquired the road leading to the mansion and the servant’s quarters across the road, to ensure that noone would construct a tall building in front of his front door and obstruct his flow of Chi. Even the garden fence was ornamented with a repeated motif of Chinese coins (left) to bring fortune. Every door had Chinese sayings or Chengyu written on them in gold leaf caligraphy to encourage the safety and prosperity of the household. Whatever you may say, it certainly seemed to have done the job for CFT.

P loved the gorgeous lotuses blooming in the garden pond.

Inside the mansion was a real polyglot of material, including Art Nouveau stained glass, Scottish cast iron railings and floor tiles imported from England – all symbolising CFT’s great wealth.

However, the mansion was missing the traditional guardian lions outside the main door. According to our guide, CFT’s youngest son from his favourite wife inherited everything when CFT died. At that time (1916) he was only 2 and he lived for another 80 years with a gaggle of avaricious relatives waiting for his passing so they could profit from the sale of the properties. This was something like 1980 and one particularly greedy great nephew hacked up the stone lions and shipped them off to Australia for auction. He died from a heart attack 3 days later. Violate ancient taboos at your peril!

Incidentally, the CFT mansion is now a very exclusive bed and breakfast (cheapest room about US$121). Here’s a picture of one of the exquisite rooms from the B&B website and you can opt to stay there if you’re not afraid of ghosts! Book early ‘though as P understands that the rooms are very popular!

Stay tuned for Part 2 over the next few days!