Yin Oi Tong 仁爱堂

Tides and waves of history had swept away the cinema theatres as I had mentioned in my earlier write-up on my blog entitled Xin Ba Lai. The same fate might have happened to the traditional Chinese medical halls. The moving out of the Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂], a two-century-old traditional Chinese medical hall from George Town to Paya Terubong due to dwindling profits served to highlight the plight of the trade. This news was published on June 2009 by several local Chinese and English dailies and it had prompted calls by some non-government organizations to preserve its present premises as a museum on the trade.
Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] has been operated in George Town of Penang for 214 years old. It was founded by a Chinese immigrant, the late Mr. Koo Suk Chuan[古石泉]. Its business covered the manufacturing, the processing and the distributing of the Chinese herbs and medicines in this region to Singapore, southern Thailand, Medan and Sumatera.
Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] has occupied the present site of the three shop lots, each three-storey high, at 82A-C, Penang Street for the last 124 years. Business was good then especially when Penang Island was made a free port in 1872 as it had become a shopping haven for the tourists from all over the world. Imported goods were cheap then as they were tax free. I still remember I used to come home from Penang in 1968 with a bottle of cod liver oil sold to a local traditional Chinese medical hall at Nibong Tebal, the profit of which was enough to cover my bus fare from Nibong Tebal to Butterworth. It was of little wonder that people at that time liked to go to Penang for a shopping spree.

When the free port status was removed by the Federal Government of Malaysia in 1970s, the business and the livelihood of the people of Penang Island was badly affected as the island had lost its glamour as a tourist attraction.

The business in George Town was further deteriorated, like rubbing salt into the wound[伤口上撒盐], as many families occupying the pre-war houses in George Town area were uprooted and relocated elsewhere after the Rent Control Act 1966 was repelled in 1997. Due to this further decline of the population staying in George Town, the business volume of Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] was shrinking considerably from year to year until the tenant found it difficult to sustain its business and had decided to move out of the building which is owned by the Cheah Kongsi [谢氏福侯公公司] by June 30,2009.

According to the Executive Member of the Penang State Government, Mr. Chow Kon Yeow, it would be a big loss if the medical hall has to move out of the building. “It’s a waste that a living heritage has to become history and a memory,” he said.

Mr. Chong Yit Leong, the proprietor of Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂], shared a similar view. He was willing to stay on as the core tenant and help to transform part of the buildings into a museum if all the parties concerned have agreed to preserve the heritage.

“We’re willing to donate our artifacts to the museum,” he said. Mr. Chong Jit Leong is indeed a generous, compassionate and easy going man. I have known him since 2000. At that time he was instrumental in the formation of the Amitabha Buddhist Society of the Penang State. He was later elected unanimously as the Chairman of the society. I had the privilege to participate in some of the activities organized by the society; the most prominent one being the Dharma Propagating Assembly of Master Jing Kong[净空法师弘法大会] held at Kek Lok Si Temple of Penang[槟城极乐寺] on September 9 & 10, 2000.

Would you believe if I tell you that I had known 'Yin Oi Tong' [仁爱堂] for almost half a century?

About fifty years ago I followed my father to Penang Island. He brought me to the Yin Oi Tong Medical Hall to make a remittance of some amount of money back to China for my paternal grandmother and my maternal uncle to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year. At that time I was rather puzzled with the ‘dual function’ of the medical hall; to sell Chinese herbs as well as to remit money. Later on I came to understand that Yin Oi Tong[仁爱堂] had played an important and special role as an unofficial banking and financial institution for the commoners like my father and many others who would like to remit money back to their relatives in China.

To my mind, no matter what would happen to Yin Oi Tong [仁爱堂] in future, it had already achieved its historical mission and established itself as a trademark of integrity, credibility and reliability in the hearts and minds of the older generations of the Chinese immigrants.

Xin Ba Lai
新峇来
(Parit Buntar)

Struggling, elbowing, pushing,pulling,squeezing and bulldozing through the crowd of the would be passengers to board a bus from Nibong Tebal to Xin Ba Lai was not an uncommon scene during those days of the sixties. Those would be passengers were mostly the cinema maniacs intending to enjoy a show at a cinema theatre at Xin Ba Lai.

If the enthusiasm and energy of those folk were to be directed at rugby training, Nibong Tebal could have emerged as a world-class rugby team on those days to beat the All Blacks Rugby Team from New Zeeland.

(Please watch this video clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4LNjNXt1yM)

Unfortunately I was among ‘those would be rugby players’ of Nibong Tebal mentioned.

For your information, people living around the Krian District usually acknowledge Parit Buntar as Xin Ba Lai[新峇来]. It was formerly named as 'Xin Heng Kang' [新兴港] by the Chinese residents living there. Later on a new Police station was built in Parit Buntar. So, the residents in this region conveniently renamed the place as Xin Ba Lai [ New Police Station, ‘Xin’ literally means ‘New’ in Teochew dialect, ‘Ba Lai’ denotes the Police Station]. As Parit Buntar occupied a strategic position at the northern part of Perak, it was chosen to be the administration centre of the Krian District. The bus terminal of Parit Buntar had become the transit for the neighbouring towns of Nibong Tebal, Tanjong Piandang, Kuala Kurau, Bagan Serai and Taiping.

Two new theatres, the Cathay and the Capitol cinema theatres, were built at a walking distance from the bus station. The theatres were keen competitors for the viewers in the region.

Once in a while either one of the theatres would be screening a prime show on a Chinese opera film. Chinese residents of Nibong Tebal would be flocking to Parit Buntar by public transport to watch the day shows, especially during the weekends. My mother and her friend would bring along their children to join the crowd.

During those years of the sixties, Huangmei[黄梅调]opera films were in the main stream of the Mandarin film industry; they were very popular among the woman folk. I was equally crazy about the shows that I always followed my mother or my sister to watch the shows at the theatres in Parit Buntar. At times we even crossed the River Krian by ferry from Parit Buntar to Bandar Bharu to watch a film show at Li Hwa Theatre. Sometimes, when we had missed a ferry trip, we had to pay extra money to cross the river by boat so that we did not miss any portion of the main show.
The ferry service was provided free for the public. The ferry was pulled by a steel cable on both ends at the river banks. The service was terminated after the tragic accident occurred on September 13, 1972. Twenty seven people were drowned when the ferry capsized. Later on, a concrete bridge was built across the river to replace the ferry service.
Cinema show business was hard hit and came to an abrupt end in the late eighties or the early nineties with the invention of Video Cassette Recorder(VCR) and later the VCD and DVD players. Any viewer could watch any film show at anytime, for any amount of times, at home with his family members at a relatively low cost; the cost of buying a copy of VCD or DVD.

As a result of which, Cathay Theatre at Parit Buntar and Li Hwa Theatre at Bandar Bharu had turned into "birds' houses" rearing swallows to get bird nests for sale while Capitol Theatre had been converted to a food court. The old town of Parit Buntar has lost some of its lustre after the existing bus terminal and the market in the town had been relocated elsewhere. Luckily the development is on the periphery of the town. The emergence of a new township on the south and the fast development of the housing schemes and shop lots on the north near the location of the Engineering Campus of the Science University of Malaysia, still pivot the old town as the centre point of the development of Parit Buntar as a whole.