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The Town ThaT was ThaT

is

Ipoh is on the cusp of development, but its direction isn’t clear. Conversations with stakeholders reveal a sense of commitment to retaining the

identity of a town that made its fortune and reputation in tin mining, but without a unified

vision for the city, how will Ipoh cope with modernisation? Who benefits and who doesn’t?

And will the city retain its unique heritage in the face of

increasing change?

Words by shermian LimPhotograPhs by Kevin teh

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Brilliant ideas have been conceptualised over many a pint of lager, and Ian Anderson’s quest to pre-serve Ipoh’s rich historical significance began just like that. The British Royal Navy veteran from Glas-gow recalls being pictured in a local newspaper 10 years ago, grumbling about the lack of concern over Ipoh’s heritage, while having a mug of beer. “So, peo-ple came to me and said, ‘Why don’t you do something about it?’” he recalls.

And he did. Anderson, who is now 75 and has long called Ipoh home, began collecting items related to the city’s history. They were placed under the care of Ipoh World, a non-profit organisation he founded that is currently supported by Tenby Schools, a private edu-cation institution based in Ipoh. The collection, which has grown to more than 7,300 items, includes a vast ar-ray of documents, contracts, city plans, artefacts from the city’s tin mining glory days, private collections of photographs sent by individuals, and even childhood stories that have been compiled into a book.

Ipoh World’s most recent major exhibition was held in May last year at Falim House—a beautifully restored, sprawling ’20s-era home that once belonged to a prominent tin-mining towkay—and ended that August, just months before the Ipoh City Council re-vealed ambitious plans for the city. Under the Ipoh Special Area Draft Plan, Perak state’s local government pledged to carry out “Entry Point Projects” that target various improvements, including the conservation of heritage sites, the redevelopment of idle land, the up-grading of the city’s infrastructure, and the creation of green spaces. The plan appears to be timely, encour-aged by the economic success of UNESCO heritage-stamped Penang and Malacca, and coinciding with the vision of Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir, to create a developed state by 2020.

Any news of development plans that could benefit a town is always a welcoming and heartening thing—or is it?

Between a rock and a tin placeThe Ipoh that we have come to be familiar with in the past 30 years is quite different from the Ipoh that was once the heart of a thriving economy, driven by a very lucrative tin-mining industry in 1800s Kinta Valley. Af-ter tin resources ran out around the ’70s, Ipoh transi-tioned into a state of small-town tranquillity, marked by a mass exit of residents and businesses into the sur-rounding suburbs, or out of Perak entirely; but an old-world charm remained. Locals don’t hesitate to return a smile and help visitors find their way around with genuine patience. The spirit of community still exists, as evidenced by bus drivers greeting passengers on a first-name basis. The food scene here is dominated by hawkers peddling local favourites—most notably tau foo fah, tauge ayam and Ipoh’s most high-profile ex-port, white coffee—in traditional kopitiams, despite the emergence of modern cafés around the Old Town area. Along Yau Tet Shin Street, the only street abuzz with evening activity, rows of fat, bright green pomelos—a beloved Ipoh citrus fruit that resembles a giant, unripe orange—hang from raffia string or on the shelves of bis-cuit shops. Many rows of colonial shophouses, out of which businesses operate, have withstood decades of dirt and grime on their weather-beaten walls, even as others have fallen into disrepair, abandoned or ignored by disinterested owners. Any Malaysian taking a walk through the Old Town would agree that the city’s vibe feels like a late-’80s predominantly Chinese town.

Yet, long-term Ipoh-ites will tell you that their city has changed dramatically, and not necessarily for the

better. Critics have voiced frustration over the lack of action by the Ipoh City Council to address the issue of buildings that have fallen down, or fol-low through with a well-defined town develop-ment plan that nurtures a local economy. Years of wasted opportunities, critics claim, have de-prived Ipoh of an economic revival that would also resurrect the liveliness of the city. Thomas Su, the MP for Ipoh Timur, credits the government for creating a programme to turn Perak into an educa-tion hub, but says it has yet to take off in Ipoh. Perak towns like Kampar and Teronoh, according to Su, have reaped the benefits of having major universities, UTAR and Petronas respectively, in their backyards. “But we could see more of this,” Su says. “Once you bring in an education centre, it will spur the local economy.”

Even immediate and viable opportunities for Ip-oh’s revitalisation have not been capitalised upon. M Kulasegaran, the MP for Ipoh Barat, recalls a devel-opment plan conceived in 2004 for Sungai Kinta, the river that runs through Ipoh. The riverfront was to be developed into a commercial and entertainment centre in three stages, bringing foot traffic via rail transit to shops, a park, kayaking and other water activities. “It was a very welcome idea,” Kulasegaran says. “In fact, I even went for briefings and all that.” Since then, nothing has happened and the riverfront remains untouched, except for multi-coloured plastic tree lights lining the riverbank in front of Kinta Riverfront Hotel, paid for by the hotel management themselves. Plans to spruce up Panglima Lane, an important tourist jaunt on Ipoh’s heritage trail, also met the same fate. Funding had been allocated years ago, but the local council has yet to spend the money on proposed streetlights and walkway improvements. Renovation efforts are currently being carried out by individual landowners to encourage new

ADDItIonAl ARChIvAl photogRAphS fRoM IAn AnDERSon/Ipoh WoRlD.

commercial activity there; but without a collective ef-fort, unchecked decay has set into parts of the lane.

Meanwhile, private developers continue to build high-rise properties on the back of a recent housing boom in Ipoh. These properties are tar-geted mainly at overseas investors and have cre-

ated a demand for land, including those occupied by low-income residents. Kulasegaran represents

a group of 60 Indian families living in Kampung Tai Lee, an area that was one of the first Indian settle-ments in the country. Now that it’s considered prime, inner-city land, “rubbish has become gold”. The owner wants it back, and set litigation in motion to evict the families years ago. The livelihood of these families, Kulasegaran says, is “centred in and around Ipoh”. Most of them walk or motorcycle to work, and they are the third or fourth generation of their respective fami-lies, living in an ancestral home that is more than 100 years old, with artefacts as proof of how people lived in that village back then. Although he admits it will be a tough sell, Kulasegaran is trying to push through a bill in Parliament to ratify Kampung Tai Lee with herit-age status, a move that will benefit a group of people caught in the crossfire of modern development.

Kampung Tai Lee highlights a key issue Ipoh faces in riding these discussions on development: whom does it really benefit? “There’s hardly any big investment that would be good for people that is worth talking about,” Su says. “But we have a lot of natural resources, caves and food—these are the things we can use to grow. We should be concentrating more on tourism, that is our niche, and it can be promoted better.” But Haji Ibrahim Seddiqi bin Talib, State Director of Tourism Malaysia Perak, believes that the board is doing what it can to promote tourism in Ipoh. Contrary to public percep-tion, Seddiqi says the state has been actively carrying

Previous spread Aerial view of Ipoh in the late ’60s.

top leftpanglima lane circa 1948: wealthy tin-mining towkays visited their mistresses who lived on this tiny street, earning it the nickname “Concubine lane”. It was also a hub of business activity.

top rightIpoh’s railway station in the ’70s: often nicknamed the “taj Mahal of Ipoh”, it was designed by Arthur Benison hubback, who also designed Kl’s old railway station.

above rightMajestic theatre in the ’50s: a developer who bought the land has demolished it, despite protests and a stop-work order from the Ipoh City Council.

top leftnew town police Station in the ’70s: its traditional kampung façade has been replaced with a modern design.

top righthan Chin pet Soo clubhouse, 1959: founded in 1893, the club was exclusively for hakka tin miners.

aboveIan Anderson of Ipoh World.

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out promotional activities and preservation efforts, in-cluding the controversial industrialisation of natural limestone hills in Ipoh’s vicinity. “Limestone that can be seen from the highway is for commercial purposes, and that’s okay,” Seddiqi says. “But we do preserve. We choose specific areas such as Gua Tempurung, Gu-nung Lang and [the] Lost World [of Tambun], we take care of those.” The board is also in the process of ap-plying for geopark status from UNESCO, a move that will boost services for recreational activities, homestay programmes and small vendors, creating what the state sees as real benefits to Ipoh’s economy. Although the limestone issue is up for debate, Su agrees on the her-itage point. “It is our heritage, and people come to see it. You can be a copycat as long as you’re a good one. It shouldn’t be that because Penang is doing it, means we can’t. I think that would be wrong,” he says.

setting up shopBut not everyone wants Ipoh to become like Penang. Rapid modernisation has a way of dredging up sen-timentality in the people who have personal ties to a city, but prominent Ipoh-born, KL-based architect Ng Seksan disagrees for other reasons. “Having heritage status will automatically bring in mass tourism and, if you’re not prepared, it can be extremely difficult,” says Ng, whose firm has worked on high-profile projects in-cluding KLPac, Avenue K, Zouk Club and the Sekeping properties. Cities need time to adapt, and Ng prefers to see an organic approach, letting Ipoh evolve on its own terms. “If you don’t have enough infrastructure for transportation and providing all the facilities, it will end up as a theme park, basically. Instead of selling locally-made products, hawkers will sell stuff from China or In-donesia to cope with the demand,” he cautions.

The ability to generate something thriving, inter-esting and unique to Ipoh is more important to Ng, which is why he started Sekeping Kong Heng back in 2008. A 20,000sqft parcel of land that included the locally famous Kong Heng coffee shop had been put up for sale, with plans for a high-rise to go up in its place. Ng, together with a few partners, including well-known Ipoh-based chef Julie Song and Ben Yong of the BIG Group, decided to purchase the land and devel-op it on their terms. Kong Heng coffee shop remains, serving as a front for Ng’s boutique hotel, Sekeping Kong Heng. Next door, Plan B has moved in, surround-ed by a cluster of craft shops and cafés with a distinctly modern KL vibe, complete with the prices to match. A permanent exhibition celebrating the late Yasmin Ah-mad is set to open this month, creating a buzz that has renewed interest from curious locals. Ng and his part-ners have also been conscious not to destroy the liveli-hood of locals whose businesses had existed before the purchase, even going so far as to create a new space for the barber to continue operating.

The development has received a positive recep-tion generally, though on the streets, town residents are puzzled at the renovations, or seeming lack

thereof. “They’re not doing any preservation to those buildings that are only just usable,” says Ian Ander-son of Ipoh World. “Round the corner is Plan B; for that, they’ve built a brand-new brick building with no character. But the other buildings will continue to de-teriorate.” Anderson credits Ng and his partners for livening up the place, but from a heritage standpoint, “they aren’t doing Ipoh any favours”. It’s a matter of opinion, and Ng sees the spectrum of restoration and preservation from a modernist angle. “If you look at Suffolk House in Penang, it is beautifully restored,” he observes. “But if the whole of Penang is restored like that, it will end up looking like Singapore—a new building in the old style, whitewashed over.” Al-though Ng believes in restoring certain parts of Ipoh, other buildings should be allowed to age gracefully, revealing a passage of time. “A building isn’t static. If a part crumbles in five years’ time, we’ll rebuild it. We’re always monitoring,” he assures.

Besides the building itself, there’s some ambivalence on the presence of a high-profile, upscale franchise like Plan B. Will this set a precedent for similar establish-ments to move in? It’s definitely a possibility, but Ng pre-fers not to see more franchises move into Ipoh. “I would like to see a more down-to-earth, local artisan kind of Ipoh, which is a bit more craft-based rather than busi-ness-based,” he says. “I think Ipoh should remain weird and one-off, so it doesn’t look like other cities.” Other chains are mostly confined to Ipoh Parade, the town’s main shopping mall, but the snags of development that Ng is wary of are already beginning to show even in the smallest ways. Along Yau Tet Shin Street, biscuit shops now stock candy and snacks imported from Taiwan, China and Sarawak, alongside a reduced selection of lo-cal favourites. A panhandler or two hang about on the intersection where two rival tauge ayam coffee shops

are located, illegally asking for fees when they “help” usher unsuspecting drivers into conveniently located parking slots. Snags or not, modernisation in Ipoh will continue, making it all the more crucial that stakehold-ers—state government, local council, residents, heritage societies and private developers—have honest and open discussions with one another, if they are committed to seeing Ipoh develop in a viable and sustainable manner.

lost in timeTo a city-dweller, visiting for a weekend, Ipoh still feels like a charming town full of friendly and helpful people that would inspire compliments and return visits. On foot, anyone with a bad sense of direction can easily go off-track, given how signs are often missing from street corners and road intersections. Depending on your reason for visiting Ipoh, wandering about, lost on the streets of a small, former tin mining town could be an advantage, allowing you to encounter fascinating details that shed light on the lives of Ipoh-ites. Walking along a street, with wholesale produce shops selling flour, bags of staples like potatoes and onions, dried sotong and other locally-produced goods, inspires a sense of won-der, as one observes a wholesale business conducted the ’80s way. “Are you putting that photo up on Facebook?” asks a middle-aged shop owner in Cantonese, amused that trays of sotong drying in the afternoon sunlight seem to be a Kodak-worthy moment. When queried about Ipoh’s development, the shop owner who doesn’t want to be named says, “It’s a good thing of course! But I don’t have the education for modern things.” He pauses momentarily, giving a slight shrug before returning to his business. “This will be my shop until I can’t do it anymore. After that, I think it’s up to our young people to start helping out.” 

top leftpanglima lane today. Apart from one or two active businesses, the street is relatively quiet and in need of repairs.

top rightMany buildings in central Ipoh, even along busy roads like Bandar timah Road, are in disrepair.

above rightEfforts to restore buildings to their former glory, like these pre-war houses along lau Ek Ching Road, are mainly carried out by private individuals with deep ties to Ipoh.

bottomIpoh’s famous fruit, the pomelo.

top lefttraditional kopitiams still dominate Ipoh’s food scene.

top right’80s-era buses dot Ipoh’s landscape, which exist alongside the newer perak transit fleet.

above rightIpoh town hall, an Edwardian-Baroque building built in the ’30s.

hometown herosMany individual Ipoh-ites have spent much time and effort to preserve and promote Ipoh as a cul-turally unique Malaysian city. See more of their stories on esquire.my