相簿

The album

Every photograph the house owns, in one place — numbered, captioned, and openable at a touch. House photographs are real and untouched; anything generated sits in the last chapter and says so.

I

The street, the hall and the stair

No. 34 Jalan Loke Yew from across the road: a restored white shophouse with timber louvre shutters and ventilation slots above, a black-and-white striped awning over the shuttered ground floor, standing between a gold dealer and a paint and hardware shop. — PL. 01No. 34 from across the road — the white lot between the gold dealer and the paint shop.

The living hall: terrazzo floor, vaulted timber ceiling with black-framed clerestory, a wall of framed photographs, a teak lounge suite with marigold floral cushions. — PL. 02The hall, double height under the clerestory. The teak suite in marigold floral is the 1970s Malaysian sitting room done properly; the books are real.

The double-height entry hall: terrazzo floor, timber chick blinds, a round marble-top table, the stair rising along an olive-green wall. — PL. 03The stair, original and steep, as 1920s stairs are. The marble table catches the afternoon through the blinds.

A wall of framed black-and-white photographs of old Bentong above a dark cabinet. — PL. 04The photograph wall — the town keeps its own record inside the house.

The entry corridor: a marble-top round table with heliconia beneath the stair, timber-panelled doors, a red hanging on the long wall, and terrazzo running the depth of the house. — PL. 05The entry, looking through to the stair — a marble-top table, heliconia cut that morning.

A brass-on-timber plaque beside the front door reading 請勿吸煙 above NO SMOKING, with a fretwork panel over the doorway. — PL. 06請勿吸煙. The house asks in both its languages, and means it.

II

The rooms

The king bedroom: dark timber floor, blue-and-white floral bedding, ornate red-framed window grilles facing the street, a vintage Shanghai print on the wall. — PL. 07The King Room, street side. The window grilles are the original medallions; the Shanghai print came with the family.

The twin bedroom: two single beds under a three-panel Chinese painting of cranes and pines, warm lamplight, a high clerestory band. — PL. 08The Twin Room, back of the house — cranes and pines over the beds, and the quiet the light sleepers ask for.

The queen bedroom: teak wardrobe, dressing table with a green banker’s lamp, blue floral bedding on dark timber boards. — PL. 09The Queen Room — teak wardrobe, dressing table, the green banker’s lamp. The seventh sleeper’s futon lives on this floor.

III

The air well

The air-well courtyard: white ventilation-block walls in two patterns, timber chick blinds, a young frangipani through a circle cut in the deck. — PL. 10The air well. The restoration opened the roof here; the frangipani grows through a circle cut in the deck, and the house breathes through it.

IV

The kitchen and the long table

The back kitchen: a free-standing gas range beside a dark counter with a sink, white subway tile behind, a mesh-front cabinet against the far wall, and track lighting under a high vaulted ceiling. — PL. 11The back kitchen, where the gas range lives — the room that does the cooking.

The same back kitchen from the other end: a black steel bench along the subway-tiled wall, a folding drying rack, a laundry basket, and a roller shutter to the back lane. — PL. 12The same room, turned around — the drying rack, and the shutter to the back lane.

The kitchen: a monolithic polished-concrete counter with twin sinks, white subway-tile splashback, mesh-front crockery cabinets stacked with plates. — PL. 13The dry kitchen — a poured concrete counter, twin sinks, and everything a cooking family needs down to the chopsticks.

The dining room: a long table under the vaulted ceiling, four-panel Chinese botanical scrolls and six framed sepia portraits on the walls. — PL. 14The long table seats the whole house under the botanical scrolls and the portrait wall.

V

The four bathrooms, the terrace and the laundry

A bathroom with white subway tile, black-and-white patterned cement floor tiles, a concrete vanity, and a window of Chinese fretwork grilles with circular medallions painted red and blue. — PL. 15The finest of the four bathrooms keeps its Chinese fretwork window — circular longevity medallions painted red and blue.

A shower behind a black-framed glass screen, white subway tile inside, black-and-white patterned cement floor tiles, and three navy towels folded over a bamboo ladder rail. — PL. 16The second bathroom: black-framed glass, subway tile, and navy towels on a bamboo ladder.

Another bathroom: white subway tile to shoulder height, a wall-hung basin and mirror, patterned cement floor tiles, and a louvred window high in the gable. — PL. 17The plainest of them, and the highest — a louvred window under the gable.

The upstairs terrace wrapped in geometric perforated-aluminium screens, sunlight striping the floor through the slatted pergola. — PL. 18The terrace, wrapped in perforated screens that turn the low sun into stripes — the place for the gold hour.

VI

The town, as found

Real photographs of the streets the house stands in.

The shophouse row on Jalan Loke Yew with Bentong Gallery occupying Loke Yew’s former shoplots at Nos. 17–18. — PL. 19The neighbour: Bentong Gallery, in Loke Yew’s former shoplots at Nos. 17–18 — three free halls of the street’s own history.

The 1914 Chinese Assembly Hall of Bentong: an ornate cream-and-gold facade with Chinese lettering across the parapet. — PL. 20The Chinese Assembly Hall, 1914 — five minutes on foot, and older than the house.

A painted wall mural celebrating Bentong ginger on an old town shophouse gable. — PL. 21The town paints its own crop: Bentong ginger, famous enough for murals.

Chamang waterfall near Bentong: white water over broad granite ledges between rainforest banks. — PL. 22Chamang Falls, fifteen minutes by car — photographed, not imagined.

VII

Study frames, honestly

Generated impressions — the album says so plainly. They stand in until the town can be photographed in every light; none depicts the house itself untruthfully.

A shophouse street at first light, wet from night rain, lamps still on. — PL. 23Jalan Loke Yew at first light, as the fable sees it.

A five-foot way in raking morning light, columns striping the walkway. — PL. 24The five-foot way — the covered walk every shophouse lends the street.

Morning market stall: heaped old ginger under tarpaulin light, a hanging spring scale. — PL. 25The wet market’s old ginger, an impression of 07:00.

A kopitiam marble table with black coffee, iced coffee and kaya toast. — PL. 26Kopitiam marble, kaya toast, two kinds of coffee.

The air-well courtyard with a small twig nest set in the young frangipani’s fork. — PL. 27The courtyard again — but with the storybook nest the homepage keeps, the robin’s stage, added by hand.

A slate-green storm swallowing the light over old clay-tiled shophouse roofs. — PL. 28The four-o’clock storm arriving over the roofs.

A sea of clouds filling a rainforest valley at first light. — PL. 29The sea of clouds above the town — an hour’s climb, most clear mornings.

A rainforest waterfall in white sheets over dark granite. — PL. 30Falling water, the sound Bentong keeps behind every hill.

The free kampung hot spring at dusk: two steaming pools under one bare bulb. — PL. 31The kampung hot spring at dusk — free, unpolished, twenty minutes away.

A Musang King durian opened on newspaper at an orchard table. — PL. 32Musang King at the source, June to August, honestly.

Three rescued elephants in a shallow river at Kuala Gandah, keepers on the far bank. — PL. 33Kuala Gandah’s rescued herd at the river — a working sanctuary, not a show.

Alsatian half-timbered towers rising out of Malaysian rainforest mist. — PL. 34Colmar Tropicale — a piece of Alsace nailed to a Pahang ridge, played straight.

Two cable-car gondolas over unbroken rainforest canopy with cloud pouring between the ridges. — PL. 35The Awana Skyway riding over 130-million-year-old rainforest toward Genting.

The Sungai Benus at Janda Baik: clear water over boulders, a washing line across the river. — PL. 36The cold river at Janda Baik, thirty-five minutes and ten degrees away — the album closes where the guests cool off.

Chapter VII’s frames are generated impressions, marked as such wherever they appear on this site — the same rule as the sources page.