By ET 
The young girl in the photo on the left is Ah Ghim. Twelve years my senior, she took care of me when I was little. Diminutive, gentle and kind, she came from a working family living on one of the famous Chinese Clan Jetties of George Town, also known as Weld Quay.
The photo on the right was taken when we reconnected in Penang after I moved back there. I learned that she had already established herself as a seamstress for at least 8 ballet schools designing and sewing dresses for budding ballerinas on the island. Her own children have all grown up and carved out successful careers supporting Penang’s heritage.
Life wasn’t like that when she was growing up. Ah Ghim’s home was built on landing jetties, for loading and unloading goods from wooden barges. As an entreport of the Straits Settlements in the 1890’s, Penang was the bustling center of the British in the East, their Pearl of the Orient.
Long before the word entrepreneur became romanticized with tech, it referred to anyone who assumed most of the risks of starting a business, any business. There was the legitimate kind like trading in tin, rubber or spices; and the more seedy type which was also well known in the area.
Back then, people HAD to be enterprising – or they could risk missing their next meal.
During her childhood, some clans made a living from trading charcoal and firewood. At the early age of six, she was helping her parents to collect cockles and other shellfish at low tide to sell.
Her big break came when my mother hired her as an ‘au pair’. Caring for two small children, which later became three, her life changed completely as a live-in nanny. She stayed in a house with a street instead of planks over a muddy pier. Among other things, she would speak fondly of the food which my father brought home after dining with his bank’s big clients, the ‘towkays’ and big-time developers of Penang.
At one point she left to join a factory for better pay when Penang started to industrialize but she returned shortly after because she found the routine too rigid. That was when she learned to sew.
While she cared for my brothers and I, staying with my family and learning to sew allowed her to launch her dressmaking business later, which endures till this day.
Today, when ballet schools in Penang need new costumes for a show, they know they can rely on Ah Ghim – how she has been called since I was three.
For ‘Penang Lang’ – as Penangites call themselves in the local vernacular – being enterprising is in the blood, whether it is the third generation street food vendor which Penang is well-known for, or the famous local brands of biscuits, snacks and sauces, or the engineering talent that is driving the MNCs, SME companies and technology hubs that Penang is renowned for now.
The Pearls of Penang are not only the pristine white beaches and the food; it is her enterprising people that make Penang what it is.
Alex