GEORGE TOWN, Sept 6 — He was a banker almost all his life before he decided he wanted to write. In 2008, he quit his high-ranking bank job and moved to Penang, Malaysia with his wife.
Today, author Keith Hockton not only writes books but has recently set up a publishing and distribution company, Entreport Publishing, with fellow Australian Marcus Langdon.
Living in Penang under the Malaysia My Second Home programme, Hockton first self-published a book titled Penang, an inside guide to the historic homes, buildings, monuments and parks in the state which sold out its first print run.
It was subsequently re-published by MPH and this year, Hockton published another book about the festivals of Malaysia.
The 55-year-old is extremely passionate about Penang’s colourful history and was fascinated by the many festivals celebrated in the country.
Here, he talks about his links with Penang and his journey in researching and writing Festivals of Malaysia. In his own words:
I grew up in KL as a kid so I was always coming to Penang with my parents for the holidays in the 1970s. I worked in Hong Kong one time and I was always coming back for business on a regular basis. And there’s always something about Penang that excited me.
My first book, the book on Penang… when I came back to Penang for a holiday in 2008, I was wandering around Northam Road, George Town, it was the buildings that fascinated me. I see these amazing houses but I want to know who built them, I want to know how that family made their fortune, I want to know where those families are now and that really inspired the first Penang book.
I met Marcus when we first arrived so we’ve known each other for five years. We conceived the idea of writing the festival book together. So, I then spent three years researching and writing that. It came out five months ago.
Another interesting voyage of discovery… the compulsion to write that book, also came about from having Chinese, Malay, Indian friends here. I think it was sitting with Chinese friends and watching a festival go by that I think is a Malay festival or an Indian festival and asking them what’s that all about and they said I don’t know. And when I sit with an Indian friend and watched a Chinese festival and when I asked what’s that all about, they replied I don’t know. I said really? But you are all Malaysians. They replied we are Malaysians but we don’t follow each other’s festivals.
When I eventually wrote about the festivals, we had to actually go back to the community again and say, here’s the list of Chinese festivals I have, is this the way it was done, was it perceived this way. I’m just going to give you an example on that, the Nine Emperor Gods Festival. There’s a temple in Burma Road and another one in Butterworth. One believed in the body piercing, the mutilation that took place and the guy in Burma Road doesn’t believe in that. So, I go, really, but it’s still Nine Emperor Gods and they said, yes but it’s different. So the perception of people’s ideas on festivals was very different.
Most people don’t know the stories behind the festival. Although they go to the temple or they go to the Nine Emperor Gods temple to watch it, they actually don’t know what’s behind that festival.
Also, a lot of those Malay festivals that used to take place in the 50s, 60s, 70s, even 80s, they have all disappeared or they are being slowly phased out because they are deemed not Islamic enough.
There’s Pesta Mandi Safar which is a Malay bathing by the sea festival and I had a Malay guy read through the festival. When he was reading through the Pesta Mandi Safar, he had the biggest smile on his face. Then when he stopped, he said, okay, you have to take that one out. I told him “I saw your face when you were reading it, you were really happy,” and he said “Ya”, and I asked, “So you used to attend the festival when you were a kid right?” and he said “Ya”, and I said “So it’s a good festival to have in the book” and he said, “Ya, but we are trying to phase it out because it’s unIslamic”.
A lot of the research is about going into those communities, about going into Orang Asli villages, going into Malay kampungs, talking to people and finding out what was important to them. It wasn’t so much what was important to me because I have an unbiased view.
It was frustrating at times but I think I was driven by its importance, it is important for locals because 20 years from now, 30 years from now, these festivals might not be here.
