If Malaysia is a melting pot, then Melaka or Malacca is its cultural melting pot where six hundred years of warfare and ethnic marriages have formed the core of what has evolved in the modern nation.
Haunted by ghosts of past battles, Melaka is well worth a visit, even for visitors who typically overlook cultural destinations, if only to sample the various unique local cuisines and glimpse the layers of history beneath the outer shell of the city. town.
Story
Present-day Melaka reflects its tumultuous history: a multiracial population of Malays, Indians and Chinese call this historic city home. In particular, the Peranakan and Portuguese communities still thrive in Melaka, a reminder of the state’s long experience with trade and colonization.
Heritage Sites
A scenic drive through the oldest parts of the city begins in the flower-filled gardens and courtyards of the villas in the Portuguese Quarter and then continues past the buffalo horn roofs of the swanky trophy houses in the Chinatown. It ends with a meander around the beautiful civic architecture of the historic Dutch Square, dominated by the fine stonework of the Stadhuys . The oldest Dutch building in Asia, this sturdy but finely carved structure began life as the Governor’s Residence and is now the Melaka Historical Museum.
The Church of Christ , on the other side of the square, echoes the splendor of the Stadhuys and has a particularly interesting roof structure: when viewed from the inside, you can see that not a single screw or nail was used in the huge wooden structure, a seemingly impossible look. feat that surely is a testament to the devotion and piety of the Dutch carpenters.
The Dutch rulers of Melaka consecrated the church before the pulpit was finished, prompting the then-pastor to find a new way to ensure that the rear ranks of his congregation paid attention. He asked the carpenters to tie ropes and tugs to a chair and then when it was time for his sermon, he ordered his sextons to lift him up into the air. The arrangement was perfectly practical, except the pastor found it difficult to terrorize his witty enough congregation, with his tales of hell and damnation, while suspended in such a strange contraption.
A few years before the British left, they painted all the buildings in Dutch Square a very unsympathetic salmon pink, for the sake of conservation, if not aesthetics. In a only partially successful attempt to remedy the horrible result, the color was later deepened to its current rust red hue.
A Famosa and Porta de Santiago
Porta de Santiago is the only gateway to A Famosa (the famous one), a great fortress built in 1511 with mosques and dismantled tombs, commissioned by the Portuguese with slave labor.
The Portuguese lack of architectural scruples was matched by that of the British, who blew up most of the fortress to pieces during the Napoleonic wars. It was only the intervention of Sir Stamford Raffles, then a young Penang official on sick leave in Melaka, that saved the Porta de Santiago from destruction.
Templo Cheng Hoon Teng
The Cheng Hoon Teng Temple (or “Temple of Clear Clouds”) in Jalan Tokong, Malacca, is the most venerable and perhaps the largest Chinese temple in Malaysia.
Founded sometime in the 17th century, the building was used incongruously by Chinese community leaders nominated by the Dutch as their court of law, with people sometimes being sent to their deaths for trivial crimes, as was the practice at that time. moment.
After the recent renovation of the exquisite golden calligraphy (in the cao-shu, or grass style) on the columns outside the main hall, they form a glittering invitation that draws the visitor to the slightly striking but strikingly fashionable central altar, which is dedicated, perhaps appropriately in such a war-torn place, to the Goddess of Mercy.
Temple of Poh San Teng and Pozo Perigi Rajah
The Poh San Teng Temple was built in 1795 near the vast Bukit China Cemetery, so that the Chinese community’s prayers for their dead would not be blown away by strong winds or sent back to earth by rain.
Inside the temple is the oldest well in the country, the legendary and deadly well of Perigi Rajah . After Malacca was conquered by the Portuguese, the Sultan of Malacca fled to Johore. From here he sent undercover agents to poison the well, killing 200 Portuguese reinforcements who only days earlier had gotten off a boat from their home.
The Portuguese did not learn from this disaster and were killed again in numbers by well poisonings in 1606 and 1628 carried out, respectively, by the Dutch and Acehnese. The Dutch were more cautious and, after taking over, erected a fortified wall around the well.
St paul church
The Church of San Pablo was built in 1520 by a Portuguese merchant named Duarte Coelho, who survived a violent storm by promising God that he would build him a chapel and renounce traditional vices, brothels, and alcoholic beverages if he survived the ordeal.
After the Dutch took over, they renamed the chapel to St Paul’s Church and worshiped there for over a century, until they finished building Christ Church at the foot of the hill, after which they abandoned the Church of San Pablo. After periods as a lighthouse and as a gunpowder store, San Pablo fell into decay and sadly has never been restored.
Dutch cemetery
In a six-foot-under-door crash, in 1818 the British began burying their dead in the Dutch cemetery , which now contains many more British than Dutch graves. It has no particular aesthetic appeal and is interesting only as a witness to the very early average age at which the occupants succumbed to the city’s many wars, crimes, diseases, and epidemics.
