Abu Siti Lane

We have observed Abu Siti Lane day after day from our window at the PP Island Hotel. Jim has booked at this hotel for past four years, since it opened. On our first visit we stayed for a month. The hotel is located on Abu Siti Lane, which is one way with a variety of Chinese business, a computer college, homes and an Indian coconut seller on it. The lane runs between Macalister Road and Burma Road

At 7am the coconut seller on the lane has only four cars lined up on the left hand side of the street. The lane is very slow with only a few cars on it until about 9:00am. Trucks deliver coconuts all day and night to the coconut seller. To serve the coconuts the top of the coconut is loped off with a machete and the top becomes a scoop for the coconut meat and a straw it placed in the coconut for the milk. The customers are out of their cars and lined to drink and eat the best coconuts in Penang. People also walk from blocks for their daily ritual. The drinker may be a near by employee running to the corner for a lunch break drink, or customer wanting a basket full of coconuts to take home. I love seeing the confusion this causes all day. It is especially bad from 5:00 to 6:30pm as the entire street slows to a crawl. At that time not only are people and their cars trying to leave for home from the many businesses in the area, but most of businesses are at least Twenty floors most more. Our Hotel has 10 stories. Our room is on the eighth floor.

Adding to the confusion of the street is the Ftz Group and a computer school. Some of the school parking is on concrete from the front door to the street. Four years ago the students would arrive on motorbikes around 9:00am, park and stay late. The bikes were neatly parked in lines to the streets. There may have been fifty bikes. Now the students have cars and this adds to the street confusion.

There is a municipal parking officer on a motorbike, wearing a yellow vest, who weaves in and out of traffic. He writes parking permits and tickets as cars park on the right hand side of the street. I think, this all looks a bit confusing.

My favorite store is at the end of the street, which is a piano store located in a Chinese shop-house that is painted hot pink and white. We saw a new shop house advertized as house with shop, four bathrooms and four bedrooms. The Chinese shop house is the traditional business and home. These shop-houses are side by side in long blocks and many of these are being demolished for high rises. This shop is such an interest to me is because it is a music shop. Penang is a very cultural city and there is a demand for pianos.

Here is a little note on the lane that we found on a Penang web site. Chines does not readily translate to English characters so often there are many different spellings of the same word. Such is the case with the name of the lane.

"Aboo Sittee Lane

Aboo Sittee Lane, or Lorong Abu Siti, is a road on the outer city of George Town. It was named after Abu Siti, the late 19th century leader of Bangsawan, a street opera, because his house used to be there. The name "Bangsawan", which means "nobility" is believed to have been given by Tunku Kudin. During an age where there was still no television, street operas and wandering theatres are a popular form of entertainment that drew a following not only among the Malays, but also the Chinese population.

The Bangsawan opera traces its roots among the Indian Muslims. Indeed Abu Siti was also known by the nickname Mamak Pushi. His Bangsawan troupe, the Kumpulan Pusi Indera-Bangsawan, was formed in the 1890's and staged a touring concert throughout Malaya and Indonesia.

Among the Chinese, Aboo Sittee Lane was known as Samseng Hang, or Gangster Alley, because it was where Chinese hooligans used to group there."