Palanquin, chairs with poles borne on the shoulders of servants, carried the mandarins of old to the market places. Its evolution began sometime late in the nineteenth century when a man in Japan let wheels take the weight off his shoulders. The invention was called a jinrikisha, literally meaning person-powered vehicle. From this we get the word ricksha. When the bicycle was invented, the technology was applied to create the trisha, the three-wheeled taxi propelled by man.

In Malacca the evolution has continued. The driver has moved to the right so the riders now sit with their view ahead unobstructed. Also the decorations such as fringe, polished chrome trim, and primitive paintings on panels have transformed the trishas of Malacca into caparisoned carriages in miniature. Some of the more energetic drivers have added a car battery beneath the seat to power their big-sound stereos.

Wave down one of these and begin your ride through history accompanied by surround-sound music. After a few turns on the pedals, the trisha driver jumps off and pushes you up the incline toward the center of the arched bridge. The spires of a nearby church lean toward each other in their age like an elderly couple on a park bench. The twin towers are reflected on the surface of the river. Islands of hyacinth creep upstream at high tide as one of the purple-painted fishing fleet chugs downstream. Then, the trisha begins to coast down the slope, picking up momentum. The driver hops on, swings his leg over the bar, and begins pedaling again.

You pass a Chinese shop-owner stretching into her morning Tai Chi exercises, a dancer in slow motion. The trisha turns left and continues until you hear the clanging rhythm of blacksmiths' hammers pounding on red hot metal. The clanging of seventeen simultaneous Chinese conversations reaches a crescendo as you near a Chinese teashop. The waiter sings out an order to the cook, loudly in high tenor in order to be heard above the dim sum din.

Go down a short street past a mosque, a shrine, and a temple built for three diferent faiths and at least three different races. Malacca is many years and many races mixed together. It's as if the shards of fine china from Rotterdam have mixed with pieces of porcelain from China . Add in some chips of Chippendale, a few banana leaves, and some splinters from a deftly woven bamboo basket and the picture is more complete, for the Dutch, Chinese, English, Indians, and Malays have all left traces on the face of old Malacca.

Search for curiosities and you will find them. You catch sight of a barbershop with swinging glass doors that look like the entrance to a fancy cowboy saloon. You run across the cobbler who still makes the shoes for the tiny Golden Lotus feet; a few elderly Chinese women living in Malacca had their feet bound during their youth. You might be early enough to catch the morning vegetable market and find a woman dressed in the old local baba fashion with buttons connected by a golden chain that drapes down the front of the blouse. A shop nearby one of the many markets sells houses, cars, refrigerators and VCR's made of paper and destined to be burned at funerals so that the fire carries the essence to the loved one in the beyond. The trisha floats you past an abundance of antique stores and antique buildings.

In Malacca, colors and textures are as mixed as its history. You pass a surface that is an abstract pastiche of faded paint peeling into several layers of pastels, accented at eye level with parts of an old poster for a local brand of beer and a handbill from the recent past, its message already obscured. The wall tilts with age and bulges like sculpted canvas. There are mad mosaics of cracked stucco colored with mold and stains from rusted pipes.

On the facades of two-hundred-year-old Dutch houses can be seen the result of early Twentieth Century remodeling by the new Chinese owners. Corners, cornices, lintels, eaves, window and doorframes: the slightest architectural excuse was used for applying riotous rococo decorations. They were completed at a time when people were not timid about ornamentation. Stucco was fashioned geometrically, or as flowers, leaves and clouds. These intricate lines have been rounded and muted by countless coats of thick whitewash, splashed on over many decades. In some nooks, sapling trees now grow. Other buildings have wild ferns hanging gracefully down from the eaves at the edge of the mottled black and orange clay roof tiles.

You pass by a shop grinding fresh coffee roasted with corn. In another, Indian men grind spices for curries. Fumes of cumin, cinnamon, fennel and turmeric waft out across the five-foot walkway and into the street. At night the scent of durian fruit—with an estimated half-life of ninety years--hangs thick and heavy in the still air. The locals think it's an aphrodisiac. After one whiff, you might be surprised to learn that the fruit is not banned by any major religion.

At night, persuade your driver to pedal you to the fountain next to the clock tower in Red Plaza, the heart of old Malacca. Then float beside your driver into the shadows of the narrow lane flanked on one side by First Church and on the other by the front of Stadhuys, the old Dutch government building. The weighty Dutch walls on both sides close in, wiping out the light and seem to draw you away from the present. You feel that you have known this town for centuries. You imagine you are back at the market of old Malacca and riding on your palanquin, only this palanquin has three wheels.

You can find more about Malacca in two books by Wayne Stier, Time Travel in Malaya and the historical novel base in Malacca, Grains of Ancient Gold.

_______

Back to Cultural Vignettes