Penang Shopping Tips by tayloretc

Souvenirs, Arts & Handicrafts: Yahong Art Gallery Souvenirs , Arts & Handicrafts Review

This is one of the few art dealers that shows up in guidebooks for Ferringhi Beach, and it’s a good one. Besides a nice collection of antiques and jewelry (and higher-end souvenir handicrafts for when the sticker shock of the originals hits you), it also has a real art gallery, with a collection of original batik paintings by masters of the craft (Teng and his sons) and other contemporary Penang artists. You can get matted prints of some of the batik paintings, too (for when the sticker shock of the originals hits you).

There’s also a selection of batik cotton and silk fabric on rolls (as opposed to the tablecloths and clothes everywhere else).

The antiques downstairs probably aren’t all antiques, and they come from across Southeast Asia via “suppliers.” I’m not sure what they meant by that. The staff couldn’t tell me much about the couple of items I asked about (including the strange “monk on a tortoise” I ended up buying) but there are some interesting things down there, worth looking around.

Address: 58-D Batu Ferringhi Road, Ferringhi Batu

Phone: 8811251

Theme: Art

Bee Chin Heong, Praying Articles & Antiques: Chinese Chatchka Heaven

If you ever needed a life-sized and a half gold-painted Buddha, or 50,000 paper lanterns, or a dozen 6-foot-tall vases with a tree’s worth of artificial orchids, or anything else to decorate your home, restaurant, temple, town, whatever, in a Chinese theme, you need to visit this place. You probably need to visit it anyway, just to see what “excess” really means, and what “disparity” really means, because the rest of the area is an impoverished wasteland in comparison.

It’s a huge space that rambles across an entire city block (note the address), and is jammed with, gees, with too much of everything. In the photos, the egg-shaped carving is about 4 feet long; the gold-painted section goes back to the left perhaps 30 feet, and is packed; the statue outside the door shares the sidewalk with proportional stone dogs; and yes, the building is very pink.

You can buy just one of something, and I can’t believe they wouldn’t ship.

Address: 58, 58A, 60, 62, 62A, 62B, 62C, 62D Kimberley St

Directions: In Georgetown

Phone: 04-261 9346

Theme: Other

Souvenirs , Arts & Handicrafts: Hong Joo Souvenirs , Arts & Handicrafts Review

From the outside (and the inside) this looks like all the other pewter/corporate gifts/“Asian arts and crafts” shops along this stretch. The difference is in the proprietor, Tan, who uses that part of the business to fund his real interest, which is interesting and unusual objects – some of them authentic tools and artifacts from around Malaysia. He’s an enthusiastic collector himself, selling items he doesn’t have room to keep, and he’s curious and knowledgeable about his finds. Besides that, he’s at least a second-generation dealer, with items left from his father (a beautiful collection of old ivory, for example). And he was fun to talk to.

Not everything in the store is old – in fact most of it isn’t. But the new things appeared to me to be better-quality tourist items than you’d find elsewhere in Georgetown (that stretch of shops seemed to have many of the same types of higher-end tourist goods). The shadow puppets, masks, and some of the wood carvings were very attractive. I don’t know whether his prices are reasonable for the older items – I didn’t see anything like most of them anywhere else – but the prices for newer items were comparable to the places nearby, and were lower than for the same items in KL or Ferringhi Batu.

The shop can arrange shipping.

Address: 368-370 Penang Road, Georgetown

Phone: 04-2260529

Theme: Local Craft