One of the biggest changes this trip back to Penang was the apparent demise of many hawker food stalls aka street food. Certainly many of my high school haunts have disappeared - casualties of property development, rising incomes and perhaps the trend toward celebrating Penang’s (or rather part of Georgetown’s) status as a UNESCO cultural heritage site.
The trend is apparent in malls where many local chains or otherwise have set up serving the same types of (but alas) mediocre food e.g. Old Town, etc. It seems that Penangites have partially given up good food for air conditioning and wi-fi. Perhaps this is just a result of wandering the malls on weekends when street food stalls are more likely to be closed but I can’t help wondering.
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