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By Kee Thuan Chye.  Kee Thuan Chye returns in his mind to the village his great-great-granddad built. Sungai Bakap, after being bypassed by development, has lost much of its past glory. But the Kee family home is still there, reeking of history and other fragrances, waiting for another turn in its fortunes. Its spirit can still be awakened.
THE HAMLET of Sungai Bakap used to be on the North-South trunk road, and when it was, it steadily flourished, together with its neighbours Simpang Ampat and Nibong Tebal. But it went off the beaten track when it got bypassed by the new expressway. That took away whatever economic glory it had been reaping until then. Now it is back to being a virtual sleepy hollow.
As faded in glory is the Kee family homestead that used to be the fountainhead of the hamlet. In its heyday, it was the hallmark of Chinese industry and tradition, reflected in its six huge houses and ancestral hall laid out in a com-pound surrounded by 12-foot-high walls. I sometimes think of it as a ready set for a period Chinese swordplay movie. If you have never seen it, you might want to take a trip there.
The double-storey houses still stand, linked together in a terrace, but their original sheen has somewhat diminished and their insides have been worn down by time and neglect. Staircases and floorboards have given way to decay. Walls are flaking but the exterior was recently given a fresh coat of pain. The antique furniture that used to take pride of place in all the six houses have all been carted away by descendants to decorate their own homes or to be hawked to antique dealers. Remnants can be seen only in the ancestral hall.
 The houses, built in the late 19th century, were dedicated to the six sons of Kee Lai Huat, the patriarch who came from China in 1853 and worked hard to become a sugar cane plantation supervisor before earning enough to buy his own land to grow his own sugar cane and eventually prosper. With a couple of friends, he built up Sungai Bakap and oversaw its development.
Kee Teik Thye, who happened to be my great-grandfather, was his second son. So the second house was allocated to him and his progeny. But if I had ever harboured any hope that the house would come down to my grandfather, then my father and eventually me, it would have been in vain. The whole estate was committed to a board of trustees. It still is, which doesn’t help me in fulfilling my dream of leaving the rat race and doing nothing except write for the Penang Economic Monthly.
I spent a considerable amount of time there as a child. It always awed me when I visited from the island. Entering the homestead was like entering a different world, a world protected from the outside by the surrounding walls. Even today, I still feel that whenever I step inside the compound. The glory may have faded but the place still reeks of grandeur and history – even though the smell that first greets me these days is that of moss, bird droppings and unwashed floors.
My childhood memories are of my grandfather spitting all over the house as if it were the fashion of the day. I had to be careful to avoid the phlegmatic puddles on the floor. I never knew why he did that until I visited Shanghai just a few years ago. Then
I realised that he never got over the bad Chinese habit that is still evident in China today, even in its metropolises.
When he passed away, the wake was like a festival that lasted seven days. The rituals performed were plenty and elaborate, keeping as closely to tradition as possible. The most exciting of these was the kong teik ceremony at which paper mansions, Mercedes cars, maids and a myriad of material possessions were burnt to accompany him to the netherworld. My young mind computed that it was a waste of effort and resources to turn to ashes these nicely crafted replicas, but my mother warned me to keep that insight to myself.
 My grandfather’s coffin was the hugest I had ever seen. It was elaborately designed and curved at the ends. It was so heavy that poles had to be run through metal rings by its sides. And on the day of the funeral, it took at least 20 men to carry it at any one time. As it was considered untraditional to place the coffin on a motorised vehicle, it had to be carried all the way to the cemetery, a few miles away. The number of hernia cases rose dramatically that day.
Those were the days. Still, I wouldn’t have traded the toilet in my home on the island for the one in the Kee house which was located right at the back, in an open courtyard. I couldn’t imagine anyone daring to go there in the dark of night, emergency notwithstanding. In fact, night-time was a prospect I invariably dreaded. Every nook and corner of the house was dimly lit, the bedrooms upstairs were eerie, and the cavernous master bedroom was never occupied. I never knew why. Even in the daytime, I dared not venture there. If you imagined that the windows would creak if you pushed against them, your imagination would become reality.
 The one thing I enjoyed immensely was the village cinema, which was owned by the Kees. Each house received a share of complimentary tickets so I had my fill of being enthralled by black-and-white adventures and romances on its magical screen. I recall the exploits of Captain Kishore, an Indian matinee hero who rescued maidens tied on railway tracks, saving them from becoming pulp under the crush of oncoming trains. Once in a while, a bangsawan troupe trod the boards. Or a Chinese Opera company. In one performance, the stage illusion of a spirit rising from a dead body looked so real, it gave me nightmares for a week. But I loved the drama and the spectacle of the productions, and it was perhaps this early exposure to such wonders that sparked my love for the theatre.
As I grew into my teens, my visits to Sungai Bakap became fewer and farther in between. Each trip would, however, not be complete without me partaking of the town’s famous chai koay for breakfast and the roast duck rice at the other famous shop for lunch. My memory of how they tasted then persists, so whenever I go back now to try and re-live the experience, I’m usually disappointed. Perhaps my memory is flawed by the romantic notion that things were better in the past.
This notion sometimes triggers a crazy idea in me – how wonderful it would be to restore the whole homestead as closely as possible to its former glory, somewhat like what has been done with Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and Suffolk House–but more. Why not make it into a cultural experience?
 The six houses could be converted into a complex comprising a boutique hotel, restaurant and teahouse. Its compound could have a garden landscaped in the style of the late 19th century. New buildings could be erected around the homestead to house a cinema, theatre, shops selling chai koay and roast duck and other foods, art gallery or museum. In totality, they would form a showcase of Malayan culture of the period.
Visitors to the homestead would be making a virtual return to the past. They could witness re-enactments of rituals retrieved from the ashes of time; experience what life might have been for the coolies and the gentry; watch bangsawan-style pageants tracing the role of the coolies and telling some of their stories and those of concubines and mistresses; go into a den and get a taste of opium… er, just kidding. There could even be a service providing courtesans for hotel guests… again, just kidding.
It could become a film set. In fact, it was one in 1991, as a setting for parts of the French film Indochine, which starred the delectable Catherine Deneuve. I’m glad to report that the second house, the one that was originally given to my great-grandfather – in short, the house I can lay claim to (but not get any wealth out of) – was the one chosen as the backdrop. I visited it sometime after the shoot and was delighted to see this note, written by one of the crew, pasted on the door of one of the rooms downstairs: “Ms Deneuve’s Room”. The kitchen at the back of the house had also been dressed for the shoot, painted in bold reds and greens so as to show up strongly on film. I imagined Ms Deneuve standing in front of the huge stove smouldering with romantic passion as the strains of the soundtrack steadily build up to a crescendo and her paramour hands her a saucepan. I imagine now other thespians gracing that space and creating new moments, new illusions for viewers all over the world.
Yes, all that could happen again with the resurrection of the Kee homestead as a cultural village. People from far and near could flock to its attractions. Producers of period TV-dramas, series, even feature films could make this their location instead of going all the way to Hengdian, China… well, unless they needed a replica of the Forbidden City.
What a lovely dream it is eh? Of course, it would take vision and enterprise to make it come true, but wouldn’t that just be in keeping with the vision and enterprise that Kee Lai Huat displayed when he first came to Sungai Bakap and made something out of it? I read somewhere that the Kee homestead is a Penang cultural treasure. If that is so, leaving it to wither away in an almost-forgotten corner of the state would make such a claim meaningless. Contrarily, restoring it and reviving what it represented would be keeping that cultural treasure alive. If that can be done, it will be a fitting tribute to the patriarch who started it all; and, more importantly, a much-needed acknowledgement of a part of Penang’s history. _
Kee Thuan Chye is an actor, playwright, stage director, journalist and author. ** Reproduced with permission. This article first appeared in the July 2010 issue of the Penang Economic Monthly. This 11-year old magazine published by the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) is being overhauled and commercialised. This endeavour is in response to the growing insight among Penangites and Penang lovers that the downward trend in the state's fortunes cannot be succesfully reversed unless they themselves get seriously involved. The goal is to inspire positive action among readers towards attaining a "Penang Renaissance".
 For more information, please visit the Penang Economic Monthly site or contact the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) at 604-2283306.
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