The Street of Religious Harmony

Last week, stories swept the news about anti-American attacks in the Middle East and North Africa. When we first considered moving to Malaysia, a moderate Muslim country, I will admit that I was a tad concerned about what the atmosphere here towards Americans and Christianity would be. Thank goodness, I've found this country to be overall tolerant of various religions. Well, it's against the law to proselytize to Muslims, and we weren't allowed to bring over goods made in Israel. But other than that, it's a Freedom of Religion kind of country, a remnant of England's multi-century rule over Malaya. Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling, nicknamed The Street of Harmony, in Penang's historic George Town is an excellent example of this. As you stroll down the street (dodging motor scooters and trishaws), you'll find a mosque, Chinese temple, Hindu temple and an Anglican church. All are evidence of the waves of immigrants who shaped Penang.

St. George's Anglican Church

Major renovation completed in 2011

St. George's Church, the oldest Anglican church in Southeast Asia, surely must have made the early British colonists feel quite at home. Completed in 1818, it is the one and only church on Malaysia's official list of 50 National Heritage Treasures and received government money for its recent restoration. Surprisingly, the congregation is mostly local Chinese, not Westerners as I had assumed. They no longer open the many windows that line each side of the building during services, but I can just imagine what a lovely crossbreeze would have come through in the pre-air-conditioning days. The docent here is very well informed if you have a chance to chat with him. Once again, I came off as an idiot by asking if the church bell is real or just a recorded sound.




Kuan Yin Temple is Penang's oldest Chinese Temple

Kuan Yin Temple, also known as "Temple of the Goddess of Mercy" as well as "Temple of the Hokkien and Cantonese Communities" (Kong Hock Keong), is hard to miss due to the massive plumes of incense smoke curling away from enormous joss sticks out in front. Construction on this Taoist temple began in 1728. It was built according to feng shui principles and originally dedicated to Ma Chor Po, the patron of the seas. In the mid-1800's the growing Chinese community began to splinter. Instead of everyone being united at the Kuan Yin Temple, each group tried to outdo the others by building the most opulent clan temple in town.




Small stand selling offerings for Taoist temple on one side of the street. Tiny, yellow Hindu shrine on the other corner.

Flower garlands, milk and coconut halves left at the Hindu shrine by both Chinese and Indians.

Selling flower garlands for the Hindu temple and shrine on this street.

Chinese goods for sale near the flower garland stall

Eventually, you'll reach Kapitan Keling Mosque, built in 1800, after which the street is named. This was my first time inside a mosque, and our Muslim guide was open to answering the many questions my group asked.

Kapitan Keling Mosque

Rows of prayer rugs line the prayer hall.

Across the street from the mosque, you'll see the back side of Sri Mahamariamman Temple.

Sri Mahamariamman Temple - Penang's oldest Hindu temple

The front of the temple faces Lebuh Queen (Queen Street) in Little India. It started out in 1801 as a simple shrine for the Indian community that was enlarged into a temple in 1833. Alas, we arrived here just after it had closed for an afternoon break between morning and evening prayers. So, we did not have a chance to go inside. I guess it's an excuse for me to head back!

Many goddesses adorn the facade over the main entrance.

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Did Dr. Seuss Visit Penang?

When I leave home to walk to school Dad always says to me,
"Marco keep your eyelids up, and see what you can see."
But when I tell him where I've been, and what I think I've seen,
He looks at me and sternly says, "Your eyesight's much too keen.
Stop telling such outlandish tales,
Stop turning minnows into whales."
Now, what can I say when I go home today?
                  From And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street
                  by Dr. Seuss (published 1937)

Oh, how I used to love this book as a child. I remember lying on my bed, turning the pages to look at Dr. Seuss's outlandish illustrations and enjoying the story Marco embellishes about what he sees on his way home from school along Mulberry Street. Growing up in a quiet Houston suburb, I never saw anything more exciting than a golf cart rolling down the lane. My children cannot make the same claim. No need to invent sights to behold because, unlike on Mulberry Street, anything is possible in Penang. Sometimes I wonder if Dr. Seuss ever had the chance to visit this city. Perhaps it would have inspired him.

Walking home Friday, my daughter exclaimed, "Watch out for the cow, Mama," as we strolled through the school parking lot. Cow? We're in an area filled with homes, condo towers and beach resorts. There are no pastures nearby. Why would a cow be here? But she was right.

Does Penang have leash laws regarding cattle?

Then came another cow on a leash. It seems that the school parking lot was the perfect place to graze. Whatever! If my story ended here, I'd still claim it was worth telling people.

Nom, nom. Can't talk. Eating grass.

Next thing I knew, I had to jump off the sidewalk as a man on a motor scooter zipped by on it. This is actually not all that unusual here. He pulled into the parking lot and gave a ride to the two cowboys.

A little further down the road, I came across what Dr. Seuss might call  "a broken down wagon".

Even in Penang, you don't normally see this on the road.

They were busy tying flowers onto the posts. Like Marco in the story, I guess they thought their cart was a little too tame. My two younger kids didn't seem the bit enthralled by the sights we had just seen.

After a while, my middle school child was a bit past due for arriving home, so I headed back to the school to find him. (This is when I started seriously considering getting him a mobile phone.) Aha! No "Rajah with Rubies", but the cart was completely decorated.

A flower bedecked chariot is something to see, sitting aside on Mulberry Street. 

But now... I don't know... It still doesn't seem right...

But it'd look simply grand with a great big Drum Band!

A band that's so good should have someone to hear it.

A large crowd gathered behind the cart.

People were streaming from the nearby hotels over to the cart. They were mostly Indians, but I saw Chinese and Malays, too. Many people had thumbprint-sized red dots on their forehead, much bigger than the bindis I'm accustomed to seeing on women. Looking around on the internet, I'd guess it was a tilaka symbolizing the third eye. But I really don't know and don't have a way to confirm it.

At this point, my oldest kid finally emerged from the school.

Clearly this cart was "really too heavy a load for one beast." It needs two cows at least. Ahhh, now the cows make sense. The cart started to make its way onto the busy street, followed by the crowd, drummers, and someone blowing a whistle rhythmically.

Say! That makes a story no one can beat (when I say that I saw it on Mulberry Street).

But then there came an "awful traffic mix-up."

It takes Police to do the trick,
To guide them through where traffic's thick!

A few uniformed guards stepped out in front of the procession, halting traffic where necessary. You can imagine how quickly the cross traffic flew when they saw what was coming down the road towards them. Stopping at red lights was not an option!

Confetti started popping out. Not dropped from airplanes as in Dr. Seuss's story but shot out of hand-held cardboard tubes instead. There was a even a Chinese boy running behind them — but no magician or man with a 10-foot long beard that I could see.

I was almost home and...

I swung 'round the corner and dashed through the gate,
I ran up the steps,
I felt simply great!
I had a story that no one could beat
(and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street).

Everything excites me and makes my heart beat! But what exactly did I witness? I don't know. My girl thought maybe it was a funeral procession because of the large portrait on the cart. Were the fireworks coming from the nearby Hindu temple that night a coincidence? Unlike poor Marco with his unimaginative father, you can see anything on Jalan Mulberry. 

Now that's a lot of Body Piercing! Thaipusam in Penang

That is not a shirt. It's multiple body piercings.

Warning: This post is not for the faint of heart. But if you've already looked at the first photo, you might as well proceed.

Back in Austin, I knew quite a few people with body piercings where I used to work. On the tamer end of the scale was anyone with multiple ear piercings or belly button rings. The lovely receptionist had a few rings going through her eyebrow with a thin chain connecting them to the piercings on her earlobes. During meetings, I could sometimes hear the clack-clack-clack noise of another coworker running the tiny barbell in her tongue back and forth across her teeth. One man had pierced his belly button, nipples and nether regions (although no one independently confirmed the last one). Are you thinking that I worked at some club or bar? Nope! It was a biotech company.

Anyways, these people had absolutely nothing on the rows and rows of body piercing I saw at Penang's Thaipusam festivities. It was quite a sight. In the picture above, all those silver urns covering the man's torso and arms have been hooked directly into his skin. Dozens more hooks covered his back. The man would occasionally stop and lean forward, pulling the ropes taut to add more discomfort (to put it mildly). From the front, I could see he had at least eight sets of chains and hooks draped across his face.

Thaipusam is one of Penang's biggest Hindu celebrations and also a public holiday. This being the multi-ethnic country of Malaysia, it overlapped with the the last day of Chinese New Year as well as the Islamic observation of Prophet Muhammad's birthday. Thaipusum marks the triumph of good over evil when Lord Murugan received a spear and defeated an evil demon.  I first heard of it when I was researching our trip to Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur which has an even bigger crowd for the occasion.

The festival starts in Little India with a beautiful, silver chariot carrying a statue of Lord Murugan along an all-day, 10-kilometer pilgrimage to the Nattukkottai Chettiar Temple on Waterfall Road. To symbolically cleanse the chariot's path, devotees walk ahead of it smashing coconuts on the road. I didn't go to this part of the celebration, but a friend who witnessed it tells me that a mini bulldozer followed the chariot, pushing the shells aside to literally clean up after the symbolic cleansing. Apparently, coconut smashing can only occur during approved times.

Hubby and I joined in on the activity closer to the temple. As we approached, I could hear the loud music and rhythmic drumming. The scent of incense and savory spices from the snack stalls mingled in the air. It was definitely a festival atmosphere — lots of people and food, souvenirs for sale, and Angry Bird balloons. Those birds are popping up everywhere.

Numerous companies and families set up booths along Waterfall Road to offer drinks and nourishment to the devotees. HEB was a major sponsor. No, not the Texas grocery store chain. I'm referring to the Hindu Endowment Board.



Intel's Thaipusam booth.
I bet they don't have this at their Santa Clara, California headquarters.

Forget your offering of milk and sweets? No worries. Pick some up here.



Beautiful sidewalk chalk drawings lined the road, too.

All along the road, devotees of Lord Murugan carried kavadis, or physical burdens, to offer up to him as penance, thanksgiving, or in supplication. The simplest kavadis are urns of milk carried upon the head. Others kavadis are tall portable altars decorated with peacock feathers. They are balanced upon a man's shoulders and hips and then connected to him with hooks piercing his skin.




Woman with milk urn on her head in front and a two giant kavadis behind her.



 I wanna see your jaw dropping, eye popping, head turning, body shocking peacock kavadi.

The biggest burden is the multiple body piercings. Sometimes a spear representing Lord Murugan's weapon threads its way in one cheek, through the tongue, and out the other cheek. The piercings are done in front of a public crowd in Little India before the pilgrimage begins and removed after the offering is made at the temple.

I am truly amazed by how devoted these people are. It makes my promise to give up chocolate for Lent kind of lame in comparison. But hey, that's just how I roll.

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Kuala Lumpur: Temples and Caves


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Kuala Lumpur: Temples and Caves

Batu Caves is the type of experience that captures why I like to travel. It offered me a window into a world so different than my everyday life, and it ramped up my urge to explore other cultures.  Back in the 1800s, an Indian trader came across these limestone caves. Thinking that the entrance resembled a vel, the divine spear of the god Lord Murugan, he built a temple to this deity inside the cave. A few centuries later, the complex has grown and become one of the primary Hindu sites in Malaysia. Next month, over a million people are expected to attend the temple's Thaipusam festival which will apparently feature much mortification of the flesh.

The caves are a mere 8 miles north of Kuala Lumpur, and it makes for a quick 2-3 hour excursion, including the drive there and back. As we headed up the highway, something gold and glittering caught my eye in the distance.  Lo and behold, it marked our destination.

World's largest Murugan statue

This 140-foot-tall statue of Lord Murugan, a popular deity with Tamil Hindus, marks the beginning of the 272 stairs leading up to the Temple Cave.

Statues atop the entrance gate

We started ascending the steep staircase, grateful for the broad landings so we could stop and take in the views. We even had a little entertainment off to the side.



Bananas, chips, peanuts — pretty much anything would suffice

The first large cave had numerous Hindu shrines inside. It also had a couple chickens. Well, chickens and monkeys. Make that chickens, monkeys and pigeons. And people — I must not forget the people.

From the Temple Cave, you can take even more steps.

We decided to head up one more level and found that the next cave opened up to the sky. Monkeys scaled the almost vertical walls, using nothing more than thin vines to pull themselves upwards.

Inside the shrines, Hindu men and women were lined up for some reason. Perhaps a blessing of some sort? The man on the right was preparing leaves inside a bowl. Periodically, the man in the center of the picture would emerge from the room with another bowl and put a dab of its contents — ash, maybe? — on the worshippers foreheads. The solemn ritual brought to mind the same devoutness and prescribed motions of a Catholic mass. The people waiting in line reminded me of Catholics heading to the altar for communion.

Afterwards, we headed back down the stairs, skipping the Dark Cave tour and the museum-like Cave Villa. Following the crowd, I couldn't help stopping to snap a picture of the 50-foot Hanuman statue that stood over the entrance of Ramayana Cave.

Noble monkey

It was a fascinating experience that revealed to me how little I know about Hinduism and made me want to learn more. And all those stairs burned calories, too!  Something for the mind and something for the body. It's a win-win situation.

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