It must feel both a blessing and a burden for the owners of shophouses to be granted the Unesco World Heritage title. You can hardly demolish the over hundred years old buildings and renovating according to all the conservation rules is costly. Under the Komtar Octopus you can see the abandonded premises of a boutique hotel and restaurant which were totally reconstructed with extreme care and went bust already before the pandemic. Some artisans with precious skills can still be found working in plain sight like the carpenter making mother of pearl intarsia furniture.

When in George Town it is hard to say, where Chinatown really is. With 42% of the population and being economically the most active ethnic group the Chinese are everywhere, as can be witnessed by all the their shops and the Chinese signs and letters. Many Chinatowns all over the world, as last seen in Melbourne, are delimited by typical arches. Here they can be found at Campbell Street, where I was staying anyway, in the lovely Italian run boutique hotel 'Campbell House'. But this is definitely not the only Chinese part of town. The area around Campbell Street has been called 'New Chinatown' by historians, since it was settled by later immigrants from China in the 1880's. Previous arrivals used to stay closer to the coast, where the Kongsi, then clan houses, can be found or the Pinang Peranakan Mansion. Completely by the sea were the Hokkien people living in the clan jetties.