The Blue Mansion (Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion) - Guided Tours

This guide to the Blue Mansion in Penang Island follows Cheong Fatt Tze, a Hakka boy from Guangdong who arrived in Batavia with nothing and built trading houses, banks and shipping lines until he was called the richest man in Malaya. It traces his eight marriages, six of them business alliances, and lingers on the seventh wife, his favorite, for whom this house was built. You'll hear how a feng shui master laid out its five courtyards, thirty-eight rooms and rainwater channels, and what the indigo dye on its walls was shipped in from. Look up at the eaves as you walk through and watch where the rainwater is meant to gather.