世德堂謝公司 Cheah Kongsi Temple

This guide follows Cheah Kongsi in George Town from 1810, when Hokkien clansmen who had fled hardship in Fujian's Sek Tong village founded a hall that worked as the shadow government colonial Penang never provided, lending money, settling disputes and burying its own dead. Clansmen spent fifteen years and thousands of pooled Straits dollars raising the hall you're standing in, its roofline mixing southern Chinese temple craft with Malay and European touches.