Malacca Reminiscences

Book excerpt: Malacca Reminiscences My Story is a memoir of a resident of Malacca in the five decades after independence in 1957 of Malaysia from Britain. Most books on Malacca hark back to the fifteenth century and the era of Parameswara founding the Sultanate of Malacca, but very little on the modern events that have shaped Malacca to become very different from the sleepy hollow that it was. The book captures the spirit of such a modern and vitalized city that has gained world heritage status. While many tourists from overseas and other parts of Malaysia visit Malacca for a few days or a week, they walk the streets of the town without understanding the layers of history that are hidden under these streets. While describing the streets, the bridges, the foods and eateries, the antiques shops, and the nooks and corners of the town, I have woven bits and pieces of my experiences as a resident of the town, born and bred since the 1950s. It is not a memoir per se but a tapestry of the story of Malacca stitched with anecdotes of personalities and ordinary folk of the town in the last fifty years. A Malacca street like Heeren Street has many secrets to unfold, and every house or building along this famous street has a worthy story to tell. It would be impossible to dig into the details of every house, but the mansions of the rich and famous towkays will be told. In short, this book of about 150 pages will paint Malacca in colors that are different from the average travel book from Lonely Planet or Fordor, which are compendiums about cities but do not touch the heart of the matter. I have been influenced by the travel writings of Peter Jenkins and Bill Bryson, whose travel books breathe life into the places they write about. I invite you to view Malacca through the panorama that I have personally tried to portray about my city, Malacca. I have interspersed cameos of notable citizens of the city who have contributed to its development. Interesting snippets about my family and myself have been inserted in relevant chapters of the book. I have added some tables of statistics about people and places culled from my daily visits to the Internet. You will get an insight into how a new Malacca has arisen over the ancient town of the days of the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British. The new commercial heart of the town, Melaka Raya, and the adjoining malls of Dataran Pahlawan and Mahkota Parade are just a stones throw from the A Famosa Gateway. You will get an account of the stalled Gateway Island project, said to cost 40 billion ringgit, a small version of Dubais dazzling reclaimed island development. Napoleon is said to have derided Britain as a nation of shopkeepers. I will describe Malacca today as a city of hotels. This is not an overstatement, and my book will show you why.