Wednesday, 24 October, 2018

Penang, A Malaysian Vacation

Posted on Tuesday, 8 September, 2015Sunday, 20 August, 2017 by Zheluo Cai

Penang, A Malaysian Vacation

We spent a week on Penang, the western island state of Malaysia. It was a belated follow-up of our first honeymoon, 31 years ago. Parts of the island had been transformed beyond recognition, but thankfully Georgetown’s quaint old quarter remained intact. What struck us immediately are the super-high condominiums that have sprung up around northern Georgetown and stretching along the Ferringgi coastline; nearly all of them over 30 floors.

We spent a day moving around Georgetown’s World Heritage site, and saw some beautifully restored homes, at least their exteriors, the vibrant art scene accommodated in old terraced houses, and savoured the island’s famous dishes like chendol (iced dessert with cooked beans, local brown sugar and fresh coconut milk), laksa (spicy noodles with sardines, lemongrass and onions), and char kway teow (local fried noodles). The constant sea breeze kept the slight haze, due to forest fires in Indonesian Sumatra at bay, while the overcast skies, brought some respite to the humid and hot season. It was a free and easy trip that ended far too soon.

A Hat Shop

A Hat Shop

A Chinese Club's Ornate Doors

A Chinese Club’s Ornate Doors

A Local Products Shop

Wallpainting Penang2

Wallpainting Penang2

Super High Condos

Super High Condos

Apparel Shop

Apparel Shop

A Home's Ornate Doors2

A Home’s Ornate Doors2

Wallpainting Penang

Wallpainting Penang

Arty Shop

Arty Shop

Ferringi Beach Penang

Ferringi Beach Penang

A Home's Ornate Doors

A Home’s Ornate Doors

A Batik Painting

A Batik Painting

Credit: Zheluo Cai

Tajik is a general designation for a wide range of native Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin, with current traditional homelands in present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Not all Tajiks speak a variety of modern Persian. They may speak any one of the extant Iranian languages. For example, the Tajiks of China are actually Pamiris and speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages and are distinct from more western Tajiks. They are concentrated in the Oxus Basin, the Farḡāna valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both banks of the upper Oxus, i.e., the Pamir Mountains (Mountain Badaḵšān, in Tajikistan) and northeastern Afghanistan and western Afghanistan (Badaḵšān, Kābol, Herat, Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif, Ghazni and other urban regions). Historically, the Tajiks were initially agriculturalists but urbanized rather early in ancient times as indicated by their role in the history of what later became Greater Khorasan. Several surviving ancient urban centres of the Tajik people include Herat, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand, and Kabul.

Planetary Nebula NGC 2438.
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel López, IAC. NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star billions of years old whose central reservoir of hydrogen fuel has been exhausted. About 3,000 light-years distant, it lies within the boundaries of the nautical constellation Puppis. This image of NGC 2438 highlights a halo of glowing atomic gas over 4.5 light-years across, extending beyond the nebula's brighter inner ring. Similar haloes have been found in deep images of other planetary nebulae, produced during the earlier active phases of their ageing central stars.

The current flag of Myanmar was adopted on 21 October 2010. The new flag was introduced along with implementing changes to the country's name, which were laid out in the 2008 Constitution. The design of the flag has three horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a five-pointed white star in the middle. The three colours of the stripes are meant to symbolise solidarity, peace and tranquility, and courage and decisiveness. The white star that symbolised the Union of Burma.

The Elgin Marbles are a collection of Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of Phidias and his assistants in c. 447 to 438 BC; originally part of the temple of the Parthenon. From 1801 to 1812, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the surviving sculptures and transported them to Britain. The half not removed is now displayed in the Acropolis Museum. In Britain, the acquisition of the collection was not supported by some, and the Earl's actions was likened to vandalism. Following a public debate in Parliament and its subsequent exoneration of Elgin, he sold the Marbles to the British government in 1816. They were then passed to the British Museum, where they are now on display in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery.

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