About a year after I started working in Malaysia, my boyfriend and I, eight months into our relationship, decided to take our first small trip together🎒
Our destination: ✨Penang✨
It was recommended by my kind senior colleague, T-san, who told me, “Penang is a wonderful place.”
We boarded a long-distance bus at the TBS Terminal in Kuala Lumpur, which must be the largest express bus terminals in Kuala Lumpur🚍🚏
Speaking in Color: A Joy in Penang
My boyfriend is Malaysian Chinese.
In Malaysia, those who look Chinese but grew up mainly speaking English and Malay, distancing themselves from Chinese traditions, are often called “bananas” — yellow on the outside, white on the inside.
He speaks English and Malay fluently, working at the front desk of a hotel where English is his daily language.
Still, he wasn’t a typical “banana.”
He held a quiet pride in his Chinese heritage, following Taoist beliefs, and cherishing the culture that his ancestors from Fujian Province had passed down to him.
After about five or six hours, we arrived in Penang.
We first headed for our hotel in George Town, the heart of the island and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The town was a living collage of colonial architecture and vivid traces of Chinese culture brought by "Fujian" immigrants in the 19th century.
The salt-tinged breeze, the fierce sunlight, the colorful street art on old walls — everything we saw somehow stirred something deep inside me.
George Town
A litttle far some walk from around the center of George Town, We also visited the "Clan Jetties", historic water villages built by Fujian settlers.
Along the weathered wooden piers, old houses clung to life over the water.
(Unlike Malacca, where Chinese culture had blended into the unique Peranakan identity, Penang had preserved a more direct, unfiltered link to Fujian traditions.)
In one of the small shops, my boyfriend started speaking with the locals in simple Chinese.
His sentences were a little broken, and even I, a total stranger to the language, could sense his hesitation.
But he looked happy, trying to bridge the gap between language and roots.
When Words Fade: Fireworks Over Penang
On the evening before our last day, we had a small argument in our hotel room — a real exchange of heated words in English.
I don’t remember what started it, but I do remember that he said “family” several times during the argument.
That one word echoed with a weight that came from somewhere deeper — the kind of unspoken importance that Chinese culture places on family.
And then, as if cutting through our stubborn words, a low booming sound rumbled from outside.
He lifted his head suddenly, his eyes lighting up.
“Chinese New Year fireworks!”
Being a hotel man, he knew the building well.
Without hesitation, he led me to a side door leading to an outdoor emergency staircase.
He pushed open the heavy metal door, and there — an explosion of countless lights filled the black sky.
I’ve always loved fireworks.
Not just the dazzling lights, but the forceful sound that pounds deep into my chest and sweeps everything else away —
language, emotions, even thought itself, for just a moment.
The next day, we made our way to "Batu Ferringhi" by a local bus trip around 30 minutes from the hotel.
"Batu Ferringhi" is a Penang’s famous north-western beach resort with wide white sands and rolling surf.
We walked barefoot along the shoreline, picking up small shells at the edge of the waves, we had fun and rest together at the beach side.
There was no trace of our argument left.
The Penang sun and sea breeze had quietly washed them all away.
Batu Ferringhi