My Hometown Penang

Penang is one of the oldest city in Malaysia. Penang is an island, which located at West Peninsular Malaysia. It's also named as Pearl of the Orient. George Town is the capital. It was a main port for business activities in 1900 century. Chinese is the main race, who stay in this island. These Chinese were originate from South China. Peoples here are mostly English, and Chinese educated. One more tips, Chinese who are still staying in the island is pretty rich. Due to scarcity of the land, Penang houses are very expensive. These days people started to move to mainland, which included Prai, Bukit Mertajam, and Butterworth.

The main thing I would like to discuss in this blog is the culture in Penang. Penang's culture is very special. People here are pretty polite, and friendly. They like to observe too. Penang produces best street food throughout Malaysia. One thing that I found special about Penang peoples are the way they talk. They talk softly and politely. If they were Chinese, they add in a lot of English wording in their Hokkien sentence. (Hokkien is one of the Chinese dialect).

Example:
1. Wa (I) later ai ki (want to go) library and then ki (go) shopping.
2. Wa (I) suka (like to in Malay) ciak (eat) Chinese foo.
3. Later wa (I) cham (with) Sharon ki (go) watch movie.
(I found these sentence sound like Japanese, a lot of wa, but it's different meaning..keke)

Then they like to add some words at the end of sentence or middle of sentence. Words such as, leh, no, ha na, loh, and ko.

Here is the lesson to use those words.
1) Leh:
It should be always end of the sentence. It is something like "-eh" for Canadian. For example, No leh. Yes leh. Still got leh. It just make the sentences sound longer, and end smoother. Don't you believe so? Try to make one sentence by yourself.
2) no:
No is also usually use at the end of sentence. Say, si no (it means yes, although there is a "no" there). Sorry that I can't produce more example, as I seldom use this.
3) ha na:
This is to show your agreement. For example, someone ask you whether you are a slut, if you agreed, you say "ha na". It means yes, you are. Or if you were in a gossip session, someone said, that XXX is really a f*cker. You agreed, so you say "ha na, he is."
4) loh/ko:
Both of these are used at the end of sentences. You can apply it to 80% of your sentences. Simply say, there is still some balance "ko or loh". It just just like a sound's punctual sign.


Penang-lan, please correct me if I were wrong. Before I end this blog, just a brief for friends who didn't know my background. I was born in Penang. And I moved from island to mainland Butterworth at age of 4. And then I moved from Butterworth to KL at age of 11. And I have been successfully turn myself as friendly Penang-KL-ren since then.

** The above is my personal comment**