roof detail Khoo Kongsi Chinese clan house Penang Malaysia
after my recent shots from Budapest all a bit b&w or subdued colours, I decided I was in the mood for colour and this embellished roof made with tile and glass was wonderfully colourful, pity the sky was overcast.
The clan houses served as community centres for Chinese families far away from their homes. This was the clan house for the family Khoo from Hokkien.
I lingered a little longer than I had intended at this house. There was a massive rain storm while I was there, so I took shelter to wait until the rain would stop. A lady who was running a basic little cafe in one corner of the grounds beckoned me over and through a little mime and a mix of Malay, my three words of chinese and english told me I could shelter there during the storm. She told me a little about the clan house and put on a short documentary video for me. She told me she appreciated my interest in her clan house. It was one of those special fleeting encounters that is one of those wonderful aspects of travel.
Beautiful artwork, great story. I would imagine there are meanings to the ornamentation significant to this klan, there is an intense state of being present in the moment when traveling. I try to cultivate the same sense of awareness as much as possible in the daily humdrum cycle of life. A flower, bug, bird or random encounter/conversation can spark the same inquisitive and memory forming response if we let it.
This is incredible... such detail and colour it's amazing! You are making a book of these, aren't you... even a coffee-table book?! They are too wonderful to leave in a drawer
