THE PERANAKANBaba Chris Ong shares his passion in preserving and promoting the remarkable blended cultures of George Town.
George Town’s evolution to become a cultural destination has to be looked at in terms of what culture actually means. When UNESCO inscribed George Town as a world heritage site an important paragraph in the inscription was gleaned through but not absorbed into the consciousness of the local council state government or the place makers: the intangible cultural heritage of George Town was cited by UNESCO to be as important if not more so than the tangible physical heritage.ย
While the tangible material heritage can be easily restored and recreated, the intangible cultural heritage is another matter altogether when this cultural heritage is lost.
I am referring to the cultural heritage and religious festivals of the various communities. The resurrection of these practices has to be accurate , relevant and have the integrity of its original purpose and not just be a sideshow or a ride in a โDisneyโ world. When travellers think about George Town as a cultural destination, the first image that flashes across their psyche is street food and nyonya food, followed by street art murals!
The culture-seeker expects a lot more than what goes into their stomach or posing with a recent relic of street art first commissioned by Joe Sidek for the George Town festival โ while this in itself is clever and witty โ it is a recent foreign import.
When I think of George Town, I think of Francis Light, a 19th century entrepรดt, a melting pot of different races living and trading here on this island and the culture that they brought with them.
What is so unique is the multiracial blend of culture to create Straits Chinese, Jawi Peranakan, Mamakย and Eurasian tribes among the more well known blended cultures. A celebration of diversity, inclusivity, and coming together as a community. So there is much more than what is currently obvious to the traveller.ย
Being a sixth-generation Baba, I find it important to advocate for the narrative of my Anglo-Chinese-Malay mix, and carry on the cultural and religious rituals for continuity and to pass on these rituals to the next torch bearer with an updated narrative so that they can relate, identify and feel what these are all about. Rituals without sentiment become pointless and quickly become irrelevant.ย
At our hotels, we celebrate these rituals with our guests and provide an immersive experience for those who want to delve deeper. We have created video blogs, published images andย ย written about all these cultural rituals since we started business. I was keen to document as much as I can of how we do things and why we do them.ย ย There is a book in the final stages of production to document the cultural and religious rituals of the Straits Chinese community that I still observe, and carry out with all its fervour.
At George Town Heritage Hotels (GTHH), a monthly dinner where we share food and stories with our inhouse guests, is an immersive experience we have been providing since 2018 with the exception of the Covid period. In fact, our dinner in February 2020 ended with the power going off for the house and street, a suspected ominous sign then!
“At home with Baba Chris ” is as up close and personal as it gets with three hours of dinner, personal stories and conversation. It is interactive and explores different aspects of Peranakan culture. We have also curated nine annual exhibitions of my personal collection held each heritage day in George Town on the first weekend of July. Apart from these, we celebrate and observe the Pai Ti Kong, and Hungry Ghost month offerings at Seven Terraces where guests and neighbours are invited to participate. These are all on our YouTube channel under GTHH, our archive of both tangible and intangible heritage.
As a footnote, these cultural celebrations are overlaid with my foremost personal principles of creating beauty with integrity. The businesses are an extension of my lifestyle where I commit to preserve, restore and celebrate Straits Chinese culture as raison d’etre.
