
Chew Jetty
Wooden stilt village of a Chinese clan built over the harbor water, linked by a single plank walkway.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Chew Jetty in Penang Island opens in 2006, when bulldozers flattened two nearby wooden jetties in days and the Chew clan watched, wondering if theirs was next. It goes back more than a hundred fifty years to the immigrants from Tong'an, near Xiamen, who built out over the harbor water because they couldn't afford land onshore. You'll hear how the same plank walkway that still runs the jetty's length once helped residents through the Japanese occupation of the 1940s, when fishing was tightly restricted. Look for the hand-lettered signs on a few doors as you walk the boards.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Yeoh Jetty 姓楊橋
Wooden clan jetty settlement built by Hokkien charcoal traders, now half swallowed by reclaimed land.
Tan Jetty
Wooden stilt village of a Chinese boatmen's clan, built over the harbor with a red temple to the seafarers' goddess.
Clan Jetties of Penang
Wooden stilt village of Chinese clan houses built over the harbor, joined by narrow plank walkways.
Lee Jetty
Stilt-house waterfront hamlet of a Hokkien boatmen clan, rebuilt here after a nineteen-sixties eviction.
世德堂謝公司 Cheah Kongsi Temple
Ornate nineteenth-century Hokkien clan house blending Chinese, Malay and European design.
Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi
Ornate Hokkien clan temple rebuilt after fire, with carved beams and dragon roof ridges.