Culture!

This morning we had a very interesting half an hour or so listening to a talk by the granddaughter of a man whose house was used by Sun Yet Sen in 1910 when he lived in Penang for four months! Now those of you reading this who don’t know who Sun Yet Sen was – shame on you!! Let me enlighten you – Dr Sun, so called the Father of Modern China was a revolutionary who wanted to turn China into a republic and he was eventually successful, becoming the first president of China in 1923. He died two years later. Anyway, we were in the house that he used as a base whilst in Penang, having been exiled from just about everywhere including Singapore from where he travelled to Penang from. The house itself – 120 Armenian Street – has been preserved and we met the daughter of the guy that owned it when Dr Sun was using it. This is her photo. She was telling us that the good china has been stored away and only the everyday china is now in the cabinets! The house itself is one of the so called “shophouses” which have an air well open courtyard in the middle - open to the skies to let some cool breezes in and unpleasant odours out! At one time apparently, there were 37 people living there! And that’s the end of today’s history lesson!