Map of Singapore to Malacca
1 Malacca – Where West Meets East
An express bus makes the five-hour journey from Singapore to Malacca almost every hour. Passengers arrive, buy their tickets and the bus leaves. Of course I am running late and my frustration grows as the taxi slowly edges its way through the heat and humidity of the crowded streets. Nervous and sweating I run for the bus, jump aboard and slump into the last remaining seat as it moves away. You guessed it, ‘The Seat of Death’, right up front and opposite the driver. I reach around for the seat belt that may save my life and my heart sinks when it isn’t there. In the possible event that we are travelling faster than the vehicle in front, I imagine myself splattered all over its huge windscreen like some giant insect.
Map of Singapore to Malacca
I have taken this same journey forty years earlier and remember driving up the Malay Peninsula through endless rubber plantations with the monotony only broken by quaint Malay villages, with their wooden houses built off the ground on stilts and the children playing in the dirt yards. Well, now we have the monotony of driving on a new divided highway stretching in a straight line through endless palm oil plantations, without a quaint Malay village or any laughing children in sight.
Malacca has many cultural layers that are reflected in the people, their languages and the variety of traditional customs. From the Malay fishermen who first frequented its shores to the Malay sultans who ruled over an empire, from the Chinese, Indian, Javanese and Arab merchants who developed it as a major trading port, to the Portuguese, Dutch and British traders and then the colonial masters who followed them.
For me, Malacca is characterized by the narrow two-storey Chinese shop-houses, squeezed side by side, which line the streets of the town’s historic district. With clay-tiled roofs, wooden shuttered windows, and walls decorated with painted plaster reliefs, each shop-house has a sign over the door in gold Chinese characters on a black lacquered background, announcing the owner of the building or its function. Built on a long narrow floor plan, the shop-houses have an open stairwell in the centre of the building which allows air to circulate across the cool tiled floors. Walking the streets of the historic district I can see that many of these buildings now house shops filled with antiques and oriental treasures waiting to be discovered, others have been converted into museums, restaurants or boutique hotels and each has a fascinating history to tell.
Chinese shop houses, Malacca
I choose to stay in a small heritage hotel in one of these converted shop-houses. Entering it I cross a floor of Portuguese tiles which is magnificent in its colour and detail. The foyer is decorated with blue and white Chinese porcelain, carved rosewood furniture and antique brass lamps. The stairwell has a magnificent feature of green porcelain tiles depicting a Chinese dragon and my upstairs bedroom overlooks a delightful garden courtyard filled with the scent of frangipani.
It is Friday night and in a custom as old as Malacca itself, the citizens come out in the cool of the evening to promenade along Jonkers Street and enjoy the sights and sounds of the night market. People come for the coloured lights, for the aroma of spicy food cooking on the food stalls, for the sidewalk bargains, for the entertainers and the snake oil salesman, but most of all to see their friends, fellow citizens and perhaps to meet someone special. The sidewalk stalls encroach as far as they can onto the road, bringing the crowd into physical contact as we squeeze past each other in the narrow street.
The pungent odours of frying garlic, sambal terasi and goodness knows what else fill the air. I find a restaurant specializing in my favourite Nyonya food, sit at a table and am then ignored by all the waiters. Finally, they indicate I have to order my food from the dishes on display at the entrance. For those who don’t know, Nyonya cuisine is a delicious fusion of Chinese and Malay food, and is specific to the Straits Settlements of Malacca, Penang and Singapore.
When I made my hotel reservation I was told they were fully booked for Saturday night. As there are usually last-minute cancellations I was not particularly worried, but I should have been. Malacca has become a popular domestic tourist destination, especially at weekends, and every hotel is fully booked. As I approach other hotels looking for a room, huge tourist buses suddenly pull up and disgorge their passengers, who promptly form a long queue at the reception desk. Finally I find a small seedy-looking hotel with rooms available. The rather surly man at the front desk is certainly not interested in conversation. Happy to have found a room for the night, I wonder if the other guests may be more interested in renting its rooms by the hour. Of course the next morning I am confounded when the front desk is run by a very amiable lady and her rather attractive young daughter.
Parameswara, the Sumatran prince who founded Malacca in the fourteenth century, formed the settlement at the base of a hill that could be easily defended, next to a river that allowed access to the hinterland, and opposite some islands that provided excellent fishing. Over time the settlement grew to become a regional trading centre. Malays brought forest products down the river such as timber, bamboo, rattan, gums and resin, and the Orang Laut (Sea Gypsies) brought cargoes of fish and sea products such as pearls, tortoise shell and shark fin from across the archipelago, all of which could be traded for rice and other goods brought from Java.
Arab traders arriving in China informed the Imperial Court of the new settlement of Malacca and in 1404 the first Chinese Treasure Fleet arrived here after visiting ports in Java and Sumatra. Parameswara saw an opportunity to gain Chinese protection from his rivals in the region and readily agreed to Malacca becoming a vassal state of the Ming Empire. In 1409 the second Chinese Treasure Fleet stopped in Malacca on its return from a voyage to India. Parameswara received the fleet with as much honour as his small city state could offer; in return Admiral Zheng He bestowed on him a pair of silver seals and an official headdress, girdle and robe. The Chinese admiral also erected an inscribed stone tablet acknowledging the city’s wish to be treated as a subject state of the Middle Kingdom – ‘in order to excel and be distinguished from the barbarian domains’.
From 1409 to 1433 all the Chinese Treasure Fleets stopped in Malacca on their voyages to the Indian Ocean, making the port its regional base and last port of call before returning to China. Ma Hun, an interpreter on the fourth voyage, described the warehouses the Chinese erected on the north side of the Malacca River:
Whenever the treasure ships of the Middle Kingdom arrived there, they at once erected a line of stockading, like a city wall, and set up towers for the watch drums at four gates; at night they had patrols of police carrying bells; inside again they erected a second stockade, within which they constructed warehouses and granaries and all the money and provisions were stored in them. The ships which had gone to various countries returned to this place and assembled; they repaired their vessels and marshalled the local goods and loaded them in the ships; then waited until the south wind was perfectly favourable. In the middle of the fifth month they put out to sea on their return voyage.
I find the Zheng He Cultural Museum which displays the history of the Chinese Treasure Fleets and their interaction with Malacca on what is considered to be the site of these early warehouses described by Ma Hung. One of the staff at the heritage hotel encourages me to visit the museum and she gives me a wry smile when on my visit I discover she also works here.
With its political survival secured, Malacca’s future now depended on trade. For this it had an ideal location, a protected anchorage that lay midway between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Traders only required a single voyage from east or west with the appropriate monsoonal winds to reach Malacca. Chinese traders arrived with the north-east monsoon in January or February and the Indian, Arab and Persian traders arrived with the south-west monsoon between April and August. Cargoes were bought and sold as the traders waited for the winds to change direction so they could embark on their return journeys. Spices were the most extensively traded world commodities and in the bustling markets – pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, sandalwood and camphorwood were exchanged for gold, silver, metal objects, beautifully glazed porcelains, Chinese silks and intricately patterned Indian textiles using colours and dyes known only to their craftsmen.
By the end of the fifteenth century Malacca had become one of the greatest trading ports in the world. At any one time there were hundreds of boats at anchor in the harbour, loaded with goods from all over the region and its markets were crowded with traders and merchants.
The province of Gujarat lies on the Gulf of Cambay on the coast of north-western India. The region became Islamicized in 1297 when it was invaded by the forces of the Sultan of Delhi. Gujarati merchants were known as men who understood merchandise, who were steeped in the sound and harmony of it, and quick and diligent in their trade. It was said Cambay stretched out two arms, her right arm towards Aden and her left arm towards Calicut and Malacca. The region was a centre for cotton growing and the Gujaratis held the secrets necessary to prepare colourful dyes such as indigo blue and madder red. Great quantities of Gujarati cottons with their rich designs and brilliant colours were loaded at Cambay and were one of the favoured trade items throughout the archipelago. The Sunni Islam that these traders brought to the Malay world was already adapted to Indian conditions and was not the harsh, less tolerant Islam from the deserts of Arabia.
The Portuguese chronicler Tomé Pires describes when the first Portuguese ships reached Malacca in 1509:
When Diego Lopes de Sequeira arrived before the port of Malacca, there was at that time … according to what is truly stated … a thousand Gujarati merchants in Malacca, among whom there were a great many rich ones with a great deal of capital, and some who were representatives of others; and with the Parsee [Persians], Bengalese and Arabs there were more than four thousand men here, including rich merchants and some who were factors for others.
The first Europeans to establish themselves in Asia were the Portuguese when they captured the Indian city of Goa in 1509. They came seeking ‘Christians and spices’ and their trading Empire expanded across Asia and flourished for the next hundred years. To become the Lords of Malacca would allow the Portuguese to control the trade between Europe, India, China and the Spice Islands. Today, the people of Malacca barely give me a glance but in 1509 the Portuguese attracted great curiosity. As the first ‘white people’ to arrive in the Malay world they drew crowds that wanted to touch them to see if they were real. The chief Portuguese factor, Ruy de Araujo, led a delegation of nine Portuguese ashore to formally meet the Sultan of Malacca and present him with gifts, which included a length of crimsondyed cloth, three pieces of printed linen, four pieces of red velvet, a length of coloured satin, a large mirror framed in gold, a sword with a gold-plated hilt, a dagger, a lance and six flasks of French perfume. The Sultan was well pleased with these gifts and gave orders for the Portuguese to be taken to a building near the harbour where they could store their goods and begin trading.
The Chinese and the Javanese merchants of Malacca were ready to trade with the Portuguese for their European goods. But for the Arabs and the Gujarati Indians it was a different story. News of the Portuguese atrocities committed against their Muslim brothers in Calicut, Goa and on the high seas had preceded their arrival in Malacca. The leader of the Gujarati merchants warned the Sultan and his advisers of the dangers and began to foment opposition against the Portuguese. At the Sultan’s court there was intense debate between those who favoured peaceful trade with the Portuguese until their intentions became clear and those who favoured a pre-emptive strike against them. In the end a plot was hatched to attack the Portuguese when they were busy ashore receiving a shipment of cloves from some Javanese traders. After the attack the Portuguese regrouped, and Sequeira learnt that sixty of his men were either dead or seriously wounded and that another twenty including Ruy de Araujo were being held hostage. About this time, Diego Lopes observed a fleet of ships emerging from behind Cape Rachado and he made the sudden decision to return to Goa, abandoning his men held hostage ashore.
The Portuguese Admiral, Alfonso de Albuquerque, needed time to muster a fighting force able to take Malacca by storm, and in 1511 he arrived off the city with a fleet of fifteen vessels and a force of 700 Portuguese and 300 Malabari soldiers. A single volley from the fleet’s cannon was enough for Sultan Ahmad Shah to release the Portuguese prisoners. After a six-week siege, the Portuguese prepared for an all-out assault on the city and floated a large junk they armed with cannon towards the city to attack from close range. Routed by heavy cannon fire and fierce hand-to-hand combat the Malay fighters retreated, until the Sultan fled and the city surrendered to the Portuguese.
The position of the Malacca River and its bridge has probably not changed in thousands of years. Where once there were trading vessels moored to its banks there are now tourist boats travelling up and down the river carrying visitors to this historic city. Standing on the bridge, I have a Portuguese map of Malacca from 1535 in my hand which shows the fortress built by the Portuguese to protect the city on one side of the river and on the other side is the Bazar dos Jaus (Bazaar of the Javanese). Here rice, spices and other goods unloaded from their junks were sold every day. As described by the Portuguese:
They carry much rice, meat of cow, sheep, pig and deer dried and salted, many chicken, garlic and onions. They also bring hither many weapons for sale, that is to say, lances, daggers and swords, worked with inlaid metal and of very good steel … They bring their wives and children on these ships and there are some mariners whose wives and children never leave the ship to go ashore, nor have any other dwelling, but they are born and die on the vessels.
The Javanese living in Malacca also built or repaired ships using their skills as carpenters, metal workers and caulkers. They were also employed in making weapons, and as gunners and bombardiers:
The men are rather short, thickset, and not well built. However the women are light-complexioned and good looking, with beautiful bodies and a love of music, and they take care of themselves very well. The men are naked from the waist upwards, have their hair pushed back, and have their beards shaved. They always carry krisses and scimitars, and are brave warriors.
The Portuguese fortified Malacca, building a wall and a moat around the Mount and Malacca became legendary throughout the Far East, considered impregnable, it became known as ‘A Famosa’ (The Famous One). Today, the Santiago Gate is the only surviving remnant of the Portuguese fortifications that once encircled the city. Passing through the Gate I walk up the Mount towards the ruined church from where there is an unsurpassed view over Malacca and the Malacca Strait. The combination of this exertion and the oppressive tropical heat forces me to find a shaded place where I might find a breeze coming off the water. Resting on a grassy patch on the western slope of the hill below the ruined church, I look out over the river and the Strait of Malacca. The grey humidity of sky and water seems to merge, but in the distance I can see the dim outline of container ships and oil tankers in the main shipping channel. Somewhere further in the hazy distance is the coastline of Sumatra. This narrow strait still carries the highest concentration of commercial shipping anywhere in the world, and for a second millennium trade continues to pass from East to West and from West to East through its narrow confines, although now bypassing the port below me, which was once the greatest trading port the world had ever seen.
The missionary priest Francis Xavier arrived in Malacca in 1545 to establish a Jesuit mission and the Church of Our Lady of the Mount was completed by the Jesuits in 1590, its whitewashed walls standing as a landmark for ships sailing the Strait of Malacca. Its massive walls are now covered with a patina of lichen and moss as it has stood without roof or windows for hundreds of years. Tombstones line the interior walls of the ruined church from the former Portuguese, Dutch and English rulers of Malacca. The oldest is the Portuguese tombstone of Francisco Gonsalez and his wife Magdalene Trinidade who died here on 5 February 1568. At one end of the church and below some protective bars lies the entrance to the crypt where the sacred body of Francis Xavier was interred before being transferred to the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, where he was later sanctified as the patron saint of India and the East. A white marble statue of Saint Francis Xavier now stands in front of the ruined church. A popular tourist spot with a view over all of Malacca and the Malacca Straits, the church attracts tourists and buskers. When I was there its ancient walls echoed to the strains of ‘Guantanamera’ sung by a Portuguese Eurasian folk trio, although they sing it like a Malay song with the words ‘Guan tanah merah’.
It was Antonio van Diemen, then Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Batavia, who made the decision to attempt to capture Malacca from the Portuguese, writing:
We have from time to time seriously considered the capture of Malacca from the Portuguese, our hereditary enemies, not only for the expansion of trade, but to strengthen our influence and prestige over the neighbouring Indian monarchs and princes.
In June 1640 the VOC amassed their forces off Batavia in readiness for their third attempt to capture Portuguese Malacca. The fortress was immensely strong with thick walls and defensive bastions. Considered impregnable, it had over a hundred heavy cannon and an ample supply of gunpowder to defend itself. An almost continuous artillery duel took place between the two protagonists. The Dutch estimated they fired 40,000 cannon balls against the fort but were unable to break through its massive walls. At the end of July the Dutch were reinforced by a fleet of forty boats and 1500 men from the Sultan of Johor and their combined forces attempted to storm the fortress from the north of the city. There was still no way to force an entry through its massive walls and finally the Dutch were forced to lay siege to the fortress in what became a war of attrition. The siege lasted five months and the defenders of Portuguese Malacca were driven to eat cats, dogs and rats before being forced to surrender.
From the Mount I walk down the hill to the Dutch Square which is dominated by the crimson coloured Stadthyus and the Gereformeerde Kerk, now known as Christ Church. Built between 1660 and 1700, the Dutch Stadthyus (City Hall) is a focal point of historic Malacca, it was the headquarters for the Dutch East India Company officials and today is the Museum of History and Ethnography. Looking up from the square, its three floors, massive walls, large windows and arched doors are an impressive sight. A balcony faces onto the square and I can easily imagine the Governor, surrounded by flags and his aides in their official uniforms, addressing his troops or the local populace. As the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, the Stadthyus included the Governor’s Residence, the home of the Chief Merchant, the Secretaries’ office, a chapel, a dining room, a guest house, servants’ quarters, a prison, the trade office, warehouses, courtyards and a detached bakery. Its massive whitewashed walls, high ceilings, arched corridors and cool red-tiled floors sheltered the ‘Compagnie’ officials who lived and worked there from the tropical heat outside.
The Dutch capture of Malacca was followed by a period of persecution of the Portuguese mestizo population which had remained in the city. Churches were destroyed or desecrated. Catholics were not permitted to have their own cemeteries and priests were forbidden to administer to their flock. However, the Portuguese Eurasians would not give up their traditional beliefs and rituals and the residents formed the Irmaos de Igreja (Brethren of the Church), a secret brotherhood of laypeople that ensured the continuance of Catholicism in Malacca by holding secret masses in the jungle outside the city. A French Jesuit priest bound for China describes religious freedom in Malacca in these terms:
There are mosques for the Moors, a temple dedicated to the idols of China, in short the practice of all sorts of sects is allowed by the Dutch. The only one banished is the true religion. Catholics are obliged to go far into the interior of the forests to perform their Devotions.
The most powerful tactic of the Portuguese Eurasians was to appear in masse to celebrate Easter Day, staging a huge procession, singing religious songs, praying loudly and making it impossible for Dutch troops to break up such a holy assembly on such a holy day.
The War of Spanish Succession created an alliance between the Portuguese and the Dutch in 1703, resulting in a softer stance towards the Portuguese Catholics in Malacca. Land was granted to a Dutch Catholic resident and Saint Peter’s Church was built in 1710 replacing the Catholic churches destroyed during the Dutch capture of the city. The Archbishop of Goa sent the first priest allowed to celebrate Mass with the Catholic faithful in seventy years.
Colin Goh from the Malacca Heritage Society kindly takes me to the ruined chapel built by the Brethren of the Church, who had kept the Catholic faith alive in Malacca during so many years. We then visit Saint Peter’s which has the date 1710 inscribed on its bell tower and after the Brethren of the Church agreed to merge with Saint Peter’s, their symbol of the Rosary is displayed over its entrance. The interior of the church is paved with patterned red tiles of Portuguese origin and I discover memorial stones in Portuguese dated 1736 and 1775 set into the church floor.
St Peter’s Church, Malacca
After 500 years there is still a Portuguese presence in Malacca and many pride themselves on attending the church of their ancestors. The Eurasian community known as ‘Kristans’, live in a seaside settlement on the outskirts of Malacca. They speak an archaic form of Portuguese dating back to the sixteenth century, known locally as ‘Christao’, which is no longer spoken in Portugal. The houses in the settlement are simple single-storey dwellings facing onto unpaved streets. Proud of their place in history, the street names in the settlement reflect those that are written into the Portuguese history of Malacca, such as Albuquerque, Teixeira, Sequiera, D’Aranjo and Eredia. Every year the Portuguese square comes alive with their distinctive music and dance in the celebration of the Festival of San Pedro – the patron saint of fisherman.
I plan to visit the settlement on Sunday to attend a morning service in the local Catholic church and then join in the activities around the Portuguese square as families relax and celebrate their holiday. Unfortunately Sunday is a lost day. I do not leave the hotel room. My only movements are sudden desperate lunges from bed to bathroom. Soaked in sweat, every bone in my body aches. I am too hot with the air-conditioning off and too cranky when the wall unit bangs and rattles just over my aching head. I drink my way through all the water and soft drinks in the mini-bar as I try to replace body fluids. I love Malay food and yesterday I’d eaten my way from one side of Malacca to the other. I don’t know if it was the seafood laksa, the kankung fried with sambal terasi (a pungent fermented shrimp paste), the ice in the ais cendol or the freshly squeezed sugarcane juice, but Malacca, we have a problem.
Still fragile, I take a taxi to the Portuguese settlement on Monday morning, only to find the square deserted and the restaurants, bars and community centre closed. The only sign of life is the sound of children’s voices from the nearby Catholic school and a couple of stray dogs sniffing around the square. Standing alone in the centre of the square, with the midday sun burning a hole in the top of my head, I look at the banners and posters still hanging in the street and realize I have missed the Festival of San Pedro by only a few weeks.
The buildings around the square look shabby compared to the newly built Hotel Lisboa standing on the seafront. Built in modern Portuguese architectural style, its two-storey buildings overlook a central plaza with a fountain. Again, not a person can be seen. The weekend guests have departed and the front desk is deserted.
I stroll along the seaside promenade in front of the hotel, where two ancient cannon point out over the Malacca Strait as a reminder of an earlier time. The Festival of Saint Pedro had promised the blessing of the fishing fleet. Today there are only two solitary fishermen, standing waist deep in water patiently working the shallows with a net attached to two bamboo poles. They bend and scoop, bend and scoop, collecting small fish or shrimp to be turned into dried whitebait or sambal terasi – although it may be a while before I try that again.