In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the fortunes of the Malaysian city of Malacca depended on the Chinese and Peranakan traders who inhabited the Chinese quarter of the city, located across the Malacca River from the Dutch Square and Saint Paul's Hill where the city's European overlords reigned. (For additional context on Malaysia's history, read About.com Asian History's take on Malaysia - Facts and History.)
Jonker Walk was where the main shops and clan houses could be found; Heeren Street was where the towkays, or Chinese tycoons, maintained their residences. (Our Malacca walking tour covers these streets handily.)
Today, Malacca's Chinatown - which radiates away from Jonker Walk, since renamed Jalan Hang Jebat - remains a major focus of any trip to this historic Malaysian city. This is perhaps the least boring old quarter in Southeast Asia, by turns heartbreakingly beautiful and exceedingly strange. This list condenses the best of Chinatown, covering both the odd and the awesome.
Read our top ten list of things to do in Malacca for an overview of the city's attractions. For more on the rest of the country, read our Malaysia Travel Guide, or check out our list of Top Ten Reasons to Visit Malaysia.
Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock is a narrow street that runs parallel to Jalan Hang Jebat. These two streets are the most famous in Malacca's Chinatown, if called by their historic (and proper) names: Jonker Walk for the latter, and Heeren Street for the former.
Known as "Millionaire's Row" in its day, Heeren Street counted some of Malacca's most prominent businessmen as its residents, as evidenced by the fine shophouse-apartments that line the street to this day.
The best-preserved home on the Heeren is the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum, a family residence built in the 1890s and re-established as a museum in 1985. The museum's richly decorated interiors and authentic antiques are intended to immerse visitors in the Peranakan lifestyle at the beginning of the 20th century.
A guided tour of the museum takes about an hour to finish. It's an hour well spent, though - the docent manages to tease the meanings out of the museum's numerous displays, creating an immersive experience that all but takes visitors back to the time when the Peranakan towkays ruled the Malacca economy.More »
As befits the spiritual home of Peranakan culture in Malaysia, the food scene in Malacca's Chinatown is heavily Peranakan-influenced. The nyonyas who devised Malacca's most famous dishes borrowed from both Malay and Chinese disciplines to produce something completely different: rich, milky laksa; hearty chicken pongteh; and cendol awash in gula Melaka, or Malaccan palm sugar.
Many Peranakan restaurants can be found right on Jonker Walk or thereabouts - notable outlets include Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Ball (4,6 & 8 Jalan Hang Jebat; location on Google Maps), Jonker 88 (88 Jalan Hang Jebat; location on Google Maps), and LW Nyonya Pineapple Tarts House (90 Jalan Tokong; location on Google Maps).
To know what culinary treats to try in Chinatown, peruse our list of Malacca dishes and where to find them; the vast majority of the outlets listed therein can be found in Chinatown.
Malaysia's long history as a multi-confessional state can be traced straight to Malacca, whose colonial masters long encouraged the numerous religious communities living in their midst to practice their respective faiths in peace.
Visit Chinatown's Jalan Tukang Emas to see this enlightened policy in action; the prominent non-Christian faiths in Malacca constructed their houses of worship no more than a hundred meters from each other along the same lane.
The biggest and oldest structure on Malacca's "Street of Harmony", the Cheng Hoon Teng Taoist Temple (location on Google Maps), was built in 1645; the Sri Payyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Hindu Temple (location on Google Maps) followed in 1781, and the last - the Kampung Keling Mosque (location on Google Maps) - was completed in 1868.
Malacca's fellow Straits Settlement to the north, Penang, possesses an equivalent "Street of Harmony" of its own.
Jalan Hang Jebat - better known by its historic name Jonker Walk - is closed to vehicular traffic on weekend evenings, as 200-odd itinerant sellers take over the streets and initiate the Jonker Walk Night Market.
The street market buzzes with activity, with a variety of merchandise, street eats and entertainments unfolding down the length of Jonker Walk. Malaysian street food can be found in abundance here: everything from cendol to pineapple tarts to kaya toast to Malacca's signature dish, chicken rice balls. And cheap clothes, electronics and other souvenirs abound - make sure you haggle to get the best price possible for your purchases.
Finally, Malacca's most talented buskers and street artists make a show of force here - visit the market to get your name done in Chinese calligraphy, or have your portrait drawn, or watch a strongman puncture a coconut with his fingers.
The Jonker Walk Night Market runs from Friday to Sunday, from 6pm (on Friday) or from 11am (on Saturday and Sunday) to 10pm.
Nothing looks out of the ordinary, when you see the short, pedestrian-only Lorong Jambatan that cuts through Kampung Pantai and leads up to a bridge that crosses the Malacca River... but superstitious old-timers call Lorong Jambatan and the Kampung Jawa bridge the "gate to hell" and the "ghost bridge".
The bridge's spooky history comes down to us by word of mouth from the families who survived World War II in Malacca. The Japanese invasion forces were ever distrustful of Chinese businessmen (who often sided with resistance forces); in nightly raids, the kempeitai (Japanese secret police) would drag selected tycoons from their beds, decapitate them in Lorong Jambatan, and line the Kampung Jawa bridge with their heads.
After the war, Chinese residents of Malacca painted the underside of the bridge red - the color of good fortune - in the hopes of calming the spirits of the dead.
Address: Location of Kampung Jawa Bridge - Google Maps
In the 19th century and well into the 20th, a few Peranakan matrons still practiced the grisly Chinese tradition of foot binding. Bound feet were a sign of femininity and privilege; only women who could expect to be waited on hand and food could so cripple themselves in the pursuit of fashion. Wah Aik Shoemakers was founded early in the 20th century to cater to Malacca's dainty-footed ladies, still numbering in the thousands before World War II.
While foot binding has completely died out in Malacca, Wah Aik Shoemakers still lives on, now catering instead to Malacca's robust tourist trade. The tiny silk shoes are still for sale here, as are the beaded shoes, or kasut manek, that Peranakan maidens used to embroider for their future husbands - but the buyers now tend to be tourists wanting to take a piece of Malacca history home.
Address: 56 Jalan Tokong, Malacca, Malaysia (location on Google Maps)
Jonker Street is the political home base for Malacca politician Gan Boon Leong, who was a professional bodybuilder in the 1950s. While Datuk Gan is mostly retired from politics, his presence remains in a pocket park at the street's geographic center.
A muscle-bound statue of Datuk Gan in his prime stands in the center of the park, flexing its pecs as it smiles. It's a strange, completely un-traditional monument in perhaps Malacca's most ancient high street, but it has a certain quirky charm. (That's undoubtedly the winningest smile in Malacca statuary.) Among locals, opinions are divided as to its presence; opponents console themselves with the fact that the statue stands right in front of the public toilets.
Address: Location of Gan Boon Leong Statue - Google Maps
Jonker Walk was where the main shops and clan houses could be found; Heeren Street was where the towkays, or Chinese tycoons, maintained their residences. (Our Malacca walking tour covers these streets handily.)
Today, Malacca's Chinatown - which radiates away from Jonker Walk, since renamed Jalan Hang Jebat - remains a major focus of any trip to this historic Malaysian city. This is perhaps the least boring old quarter in Southeast Asia, by turns heartbreakingly beautiful and exceedingly strange. This list condenses the best of Chinatown, covering both the odd and the awesome.
Read our top ten list of things to do in Malacca for an overview of the city's attractions. For more on the rest of the country, read our Malaysia Travel Guide, or check out our list of Top Ten Reasons to Visit Malaysia.
Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum - Peranakan Family Values
Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock is a narrow street that runs parallel to Jalan Hang Jebat. These two streets are the most famous in Malacca's Chinatown, if called by their historic (and proper) names: Jonker Walk for the latter, and Heeren Street for the former.
Known as "Millionaire's Row" in its day, Heeren Street counted some of Malacca's most prominent businessmen as its residents, as evidenced by the fine shophouse-apartments that line the street to this day.
The best-preserved home on the Heeren is the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum, a family residence built in the 1890s and re-established as a museum in 1985. The museum's richly decorated interiors and authentic antiques are intended to immerse visitors in the Peranakan lifestyle at the beginning of the 20th century.
A guided tour of the museum takes about an hour to finish. It's an hour well spent, though - the docent manages to tease the meanings out of the museum's numerous displays, creating an immersive experience that all but takes visitors back to the time when the Peranakan towkays ruled the Malacca economy.More »
Peranakan Dining in Chinatown
As befits the spiritual home of Peranakan culture in Malaysia, the food scene in Malacca's Chinatown is heavily Peranakan-influenced. The nyonyas who devised Malacca's most famous dishes borrowed from both Malay and Chinese disciplines to produce something completely different: rich, milky laksa; hearty chicken pongteh; and cendol awash in gula Melaka, or Malaccan palm sugar.
Many Peranakan restaurants can be found right on Jonker Walk or thereabouts - notable outlets include Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Ball (4,6 & 8 Jalan Hang Jebat; location on Google Maps), Jonker 88 (88 Jalan Hang Jebat; location on Google Maps), and LW Nyonya Pineapple Tarts House (90 Jalan Tokong; location on Google Maps).
To know what culinary treats to try in Chinatown, peruse our list of Malacca dishes and where to find them; the vast majority of the outlets listed therein can be found in Chinatown.
"Street of Harmony" - One Lane, Three Faiths
Malaysia's long history as a multi-confessional state can be traced straight to Malacca, whose colonial masters long encouraged the numerous religious communities living in their midst to practice their respective faiths in peace.
Visit Chinatown's Jalan Tukang Emas to see this enlightened policy in action; the prominent non-Christian faiths in Malacca constructed their houses of worship no more than a hundred meters from each other along the same lane.
The biggest and oldest structure on Malacca's "Street of Harmony", the Cheng Hoon Teng Taoist Temple (location on Google Maps), was built in 1645; the Sri Payyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Hindu Temple (location on Google Maps) followed in 1781, and the last - the Kampung Keling Mosque (location on Google Maps) - was completed in 1868.
Malacca's fellow Straits Settlement to the north, Penang, possesses an equivalent "Street of Harmony" of its own.
Jonker Walk Night Market - Cheap Shopping Thrills
Jalan Hang Jebat - better known by its historic name Jonker Walk - is closed to vehicular traffic on weekend evenings, as 200-odd itinerant sellers take over the streets and initiate the Jonker Walk Night Market.
The street market buzzes with activity, with a variety of merchandise, street eats and entertainments unfolding down the length of Jonker Walk. Malaysian street food can be found in abundance here: everything from cendol to pineapple tarts to kaya toast to Malacca's signature dish, chicken rice balls. And cheap clothes, electronics and other souvenirs abound - make sure you haggle to get the best price possible for your purchases.
Finally, Malacca's most talented buskers and street artists make a show of force here - visit the market to get your name done in Chinese calligraphy, or have your portrait drawn, or watch a strongman puncture a coconut with his fingers.
The Jonker Walk Night Market runs from Friday to Sunday, from 6pm (on Friday) or from 11am (on Saturday and Sunday) to 10pm.
Kampung Jawa Bridge - the "Ghost Bridge" of Malacca
Nothing looks out of the ordinary, when you see the short, pedestrian-only Lorong Jambatan that cuts through Kampung Pantai and leads up to a bridge that crosses the Malacca River... but superstitious old-timers call Lorong Jambatan and the Kampung Jawa bridge the "gate to hell" and the "ghost bridge".
The bridge's spooky history comes down to us by word of mouth from the families who survived World War II in Malacca. The Japanese invasion forces were ever distrustful of Chinese businessmen (who often sided with resistance forces); in nightly raids, the kempeitai (Japanese secret police) would drag selected tycoons from their beds, decapitate them in Lorong Jambatan, and line the Kampung Jawa bridge with their heads.
After the war, Chinese residents of Malacca painted the underside of the bridge red - the color of good fortune - in the hopes of calming the spirits of the dead.
Address: Location of Kampung Jawa Bridge - Google Maps
Wah Aik Shoe Store - Preservers of Chinese Traditional Footwear
In the 19th century and well into the 20th, a few Peranakan matrons still practiced the grisly Chinese tradition of foot binding. Bound feet were a sign of femininity and privilege; only women who could expect to be waited on hand and food could so cripple themselves in the pursuit of fashion. Wah Aik Shoemakers was founded early in the 20th century to cater to Malacca's dainty-footed ladies, still numbering in the thousands before World War II.
While foot binding has completely died out in Malacca, Wah Aik Shoemakers still lives on, now catering instead to Malacca's robust tourist trade. The tiny silk shoes are still for sale here, as are the beaded shoes, or kasut manek, that Peranakan maidens used to embroider for their future husbands - but the buyers now tend to be tourists wanting to take a piece of Malacca history home.
Address: 56 Jalan Tokong, Malacca, Malaysia (location on Google Maps)
Gan Boon Leong Statue - "Mr. Universe" Memento on Jalan Hang Jebat
Jonker Street is the political home base for Malacca politician Gan Boon Leong, who was a professional bodybuilder in the 1950s. While Datuk Gan is mostly retired from politics, his presence remains in a pocket park at the street's geographic center.
A muscle-bound statue of Datuk Gan in his prime stands in the center of the park, flexing its pecs as it smiles. It's a strange, completely un-traditional monument in perhaps Malacca's most ancient high street, but it has a certain quirky charm. (That's undoubtedly the winningest smile in Malacca statuary.) Among locals, opinions are divided as to its presence; opponents console themselves with the fact that the statue stands right in front of the public toilets.
Address: Location of Gan Boon Leong Statue - Google Maps
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