Opening door to a historic past

Opening door to a historic past

THOSE interested in Dr Sun Yat Sen’s legacy should not miss the chance to visit an exhibition at the ground floor of Kongsoon House on Beach Street in Penang.

Titled ‘Sun Yat Sen’s Penang Conference: A Centennial Celebration’, the exhibition is being held on weekdays from 8.30am to 7pm until May 30. Admission is free.

Organised by the Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) and supported by Penang Min Sin Seah and Sun Yat Sen Penang Base, the exhibition is sponsored by OCBC Bank Malaysia Berhad which owns the premises.

When it opened in 1914, the three-storey Kongsoon House was said to be the “best fitted and most imposing” business premises in Penang.

PHT president Khoo Salma Nasution said it was the premises of Goh Taik Chee & Co which was reputedly the first Chinese company to import goods directly from England and Europe. The company was a wholesale store, a ship chandler, and supplier of mining, engineering and industrial machinery.

Khoo said Goh, who was a business and community leader of his time, was a follower of Dr Sun. Goh was also a public official and a Justice of Peace. He died in 1919 at the age of 57.

“A philanthropist, he was the first Chinese in Penang to be awarded the Order of the British Empire for donating and distributing rice in response to the food shortage during the First World War.

“He was also a founder of two Chinese schools and president of the Penang Chinese Anti-Opium Society,” Khoo said in her speech during the opening of the exhibition yesterday.

The exhibition is a continuation of the International Centennial Celebrations of Sun Yat Sen’s 1910 Penang Conference which began in July last year with the premier of Road to Dawn at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei and the 22nd Joint Conference of the Sun Yat Sen and Soong Ching Ling Memorials.

“This exhibition is part of a larger exhibition titled ‘Sun Yat Sen and Soong Ching Ling: Their Life and Legacy’ which was organised by Min Sin Seah and PHT under the auspices of the Penang State Museum from November 2010 to February this year.

“It is also held in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Huanghuagang Uprising (April 27, 1911) which was planned during the ‘Penang Conference of 1910’,” Khoo said.

The exhibition was launched by OCBC director Tan Siok Choo.

“The Kongsoon House building is an OCBC Bank property and we are delighted to offer its use to the PHT in support of this commendable effort.

“We hope the public will find the venue an experience in itself while they attend the exhibition to learn more about his significant historical journey in Malaysia,” Tan said.

~News courtesy of The Star~