It started off fine, I guess. They weren't those over-enthusiastic Iwannaseetheentireislandtoday kind of tourists. So that was a lot of pressure off. But then again, the just never seemed particularly enthusiastic about anything. Taking them out for breakfast was a bit weird. They didn't want to say they wanted something they were familiar with like I don't know...McDonald's breakfast or something. But neither did they seem to be particularly keen on trying local food.
Next, we headed to the Pinang Peranakan Mansion. I'd been here once before with my friends, but we didn't take the guided tour that time. Admission to this place is RM10 for adults and RM5 for children below 12. The last time I came with my friends, we managed to ask for a student price but I think that has to be arranged beforehand. I absolutely enjoyed this place both times I'd been there. Although not everything is original to the house, the collections are quite authentic to the culture and era and the guides provide an entertaining commentary and explanation about the displays. Visitors are allowed to also walk around freely and take photos as they like.
Like anywhere else during the holidays, though, there are always horrible monsters called children-raised-by-lousy-parents. These are the ones you find stomping down the wooden staircases and jumping around the wooden upper floor while their parents ignore them until the rest of us scowl or the staff try to stop the kids. Then their parents just absently tell them "Stop it" which is doesn't actually stop them. Gosh I hate parents like that.
Next we went to the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. This was also on the list of places my friends and I wanted to visit on our own little heritage tour the last holidays but we always ended up not going. Why? First of all, the website it self already seemed a bit like those stuck up places that just aren't that great but seem to think they're awesome. This was even more confirmed by the fact that they did not want to give any form of student discount when we emailed them asking them about it, and they weren't very nice about it in their reply either. They also only have 3 tours a day and at other times, you can't go in. That made fitting it into our schedule a bit tough. Anyways, this time J, our friend from KL wanted to go. So we did. Everything about the place screams anal. There are like signs and people repeatedly reminding you that you're not allowed to take photos inside the building, once inside the waiting area, Emily and I went looking for someone who could tell us where we could buy some drinks...only to be shooed out by staff who didn't even bother being nice about it. I mean, it seriously felt so unwelcoming. They charged us RM2 for each bottle of water without any price signs or anything of that sort.
Tourists were repeatedly reminded not to take photos, and the staffs' light 'humour' that it would cost them RM250 to arrange a photo session to be able to take photos inside the building just became really annoying sales talk after like the third time. Seriously. Once the tour started, the annoying little tour guide who reminds me of a toad basically spent like a quarter of our 1 hour tour talking crap about the original owner of the place and painted what I thought wasn't a particularly flattering picture of his descendants who sold the place to the current owners who run this business.
We then moved to the screen dividing the waiting area from the rest of the house. One of the main carvings on it was that of Fuk Luk Sau who represent wealth, health and prosperity. The tour guide continues with her really misguided talk on Feng Shui, proclaiming that yin energy is BAD and yang is GOOD. (Anybody who knows anything knows that it's not a case of good or bad, it's A BALANCE OF BOTH!) But ok we shall not debate feng shui here. Point is..she was saying all sorts of crap like telling these tourists that to Chinese the most important kind of luck is wealth, that made me realise this it's morons like this that always puts all these weird ideas in foreigners' heads.
As we move along the tour which by now is already half over before we even enter the parts of the building that we're only allowed to enter if we pay RM12, she continues to give really twisted inaccurate nuggets of information, sometimes strangely telling stories about how awesome the original owner of the house was then dissing his descendants, and most annoyingly constantly reminding everyone that there are some rooms for rent and the place is available for rental for meetings, events...blah blah... At one point she was like "We don't cook for you. If you want caterers, we will only give you a list." First of all we were all tourists not interested in looking for a place to hold meetings, and second of all, if I were a person looking for a place to hold my corporate events and she spoke to me like I'm such a moron? I'd just cross the place off my list.
The upper floor was pretty bare. There were hardly any displays or furniture up there save for one room. The rest had been turned into what looked like conference rooms. The cut and paste porcelain work? She couldn't even explain to us what they depicted. All she kept going on about was how unique they were and how they had to hire people to restore them. She basically gave some crap answer to a tourists who asked her what the scenes depicted were about.
It was all just really annoying. There was nothing to see there, you can't take photos and they've basically removed anything worth taking a photo of anyway, the staff were all annoying vultures just waiting to tell you not to take photos or touch anything and to remind you that you can take photos for RM 250 and they have 16 expensive hotel rooms and the upstairs is for rent for corporate events. ugh.
For all the same kind of architecture and all, I would definitely go to the Pinang Peranakan Mansion. We also visited the Khoo Kongsi which wasn't all that much but we were allowed to take our time to enjoy the displays and appreciate the intricate carvings and paintings. For similar stuff, you could also visith the Yap Kongsi and probably any of the other clan houses.
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