Took this the day before I had a decent map of Georgetown, so I don’t even know where this building is—it was a Chinese school. I was just walking along (totally lost, I admit it) when this house loomed up, standing in a wide open lot. Banyan trees have grown up through the house, and there are even a few smaller trees starting up on the roof. It looked amazing. Penang is absolutely chock-full of grand 18th and 19th century buildings like this, one after the other, up and down the streets…many of them restored to their original dignity. No wonder the whole town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

I picked up a few romantic black and white postcards of old Penang at a lovely bookshop along Lebuh Chulia. Each evening I sit and stitch one of them. It’s been a nice way to make the mass-produced postcards my own. Thank you, Shaun Kardinal, for the inspiration!

This one’s for Kris, of an old fashioned trishaw in a narrow lorong (lane). I’ve written “A Streetcar Named Desir” on the back, and that’s not a typo. Desir is Bahasa Melayu for “the sound of leaves being blown by the wind.”

Related articles

• Chulia Street of George Town, Penang (lspeng1951.wordpress.com)