<![CDATA[Petaling Street, the 'Chinatown' of Malaysia's capital, bets on its heritage for a modern revival]>

Kuala Lumpur's downtown Petaling Street area, the landing point of many Cantonese and Hakka settlers from China during the tin rush of the 1800s, has long been popular among tourists for its namesake market, Chinese and Indian temples, hawker food, and budget hostels. For the Malaysian city's denizens, however, the area has been plagued by the impression that it is seedy and unsafe, and that it has lost its local character due to an influx of immigrant workers.

Valid or not, this perception may be slowly changing. A slew of trendy cafes, restaurants, and bars have opened in the area in recent years, attracting a younger crowd and more families. One establishment that has experienced these transformations in a very short time is Ho Kow Kopitiam.

Ho Kow Kopitiam commands a perpetual crowd during peak dining hours. Photo: Emily Ding

Before, it was a traditional kopitiam , one of a dying breed in Malaysia as younger generations decline to continue the business of their elders. Now, it's been updated with an Instagram-friendly modern-vintage aesthetic, and employs more than 20 staff " most in their early twenties " when it previously employed one.

In adapting to the demands of the modern market, Ho Kow Kopitiam partnered with a private company, Hup Zhong Fu Heng. "Our mission is to gather all heritage businesses and buildings in the area and help them rebrand and rebuild their vision," says Hermes Mah, one of its partners and founder of nearby cafe Leaf & Co, which opened in 2016.

Next, the group is planning a collaboration with a Chinese pastry shop that dates back to 1909. It is also looking to open more eateries of its own, such as the upcoming Starch, a Western-food restaurant. Its name is a play on the Cantonese name for Petaling Street, Chee Cheong Kai " a callback to a time tapioca factories occupied the area.

Ho Kow Kopitiam's old spot also recently got a facelift. Walking along Lorong Panggung, colloquially called Kwai Chai Hong in Cantonese, or "Little Demons Alley" " possibly a reference to the mischievous children that used to run around there, or the gang members that were rumoured to operate in the area " you can't miss the block of four pre-war shophouses that have been repainted a dazzling yellow and refitted with striking blue windows and doors.

Pictures of Ho Kow, the 76-year-old patriarch, and his family on a wall in Ho Kow Kopitiam. Photo: Emily Ding

Now, that same laneway has a new bridge and a new welcome arch, built with salvaged roof tiles and wood from the shophouses.

There are murals that purport to hark back to the lives of the early Chinese settlers " a man playing the erhu, children playing marbles, a sex worker waving out a window " complete with QR codes that take you to audio recordings that imagine the scenes.

All of this is the work of Bai Chuan Management, founded by five friends who invested 1.6 million ringgit (US$386,614) of their own money, and received a 94,000-ringgit grant from Think City, a local organisation that promotes urban rejuvenation anchored to a place's community and history.

One of them is Coco Lew, 44, who has a long-standing connection to Petaling Street. She opened a toy shop in the neighbourhood 17 years ago, continuing her mother's work. "When I was growing up, I would follow my mother here. She came to buy toys so she could resell them," she says.

Three of Bai Chuan Management's partners, from left: Javier Chor, Coco Lew and Zeen Chang in Bubble Bee Cafe. Photo: Emily Ding

Two years ago, she also opened Bubble Bee Cafe, one of six other revamped shoplots Bai Chuan has leased on Petaling Street itself, in addition to the four shoplots on Lorong Panggung. Signs outside call for food-and-drink tenants, but due to the steep rent of 15,000 ringgit per month, just two other tenants " a cocktail bar and a dessert bar, which will launch in a few months " have been signed up.

"When we started restoring these shoplots, we thought, 'Wouldn't it be nice if we could bring back the glory days of Chee Cheong Kai?'" says Zeen Chang, another of Bai Chuan's partners. "Malaysia has such a prominent Chinese population compared to other countries like the United States, yet their Chinatowns are so much more ... glorious. I keep using that word."

She clarifies that it is not just Chinese culture they want to promote, but also Malaysian culture, in keeping with its multicultural fabric. "Even back in the old days, it's not as if there weren't other races who were already around," Chang says.

In fact, though the Petaling Street area is widely known as "Chinatown", the local Chinese community has twice resisted proposals to officially name it as such. Dr Yat Ming Loo, assistant professor at the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China, wrote in a 2012 paper that the label "Chinatown" symbolised a kind of unwelcome ghettoisation; in the Malaysian context, local Chinese are a large minority, making up 23 per cent of the country's population.

Many Chinatowns around the world in downtown areas are trading centres that have also developed as tourist attractions. In Southeast Asia, home to most of the world's overseas Chinese, Bangkok's and Singapore's Chinatowns have seen an influx of modish dining and drinking spots in recent years, earning them descriptions in the news such as "hipster haven" and "bohemian".

Still, the Lion City's Chinatown was recently embroiled in a debate over whether it's veered too far away from its roots, while Chinatowns in the US " in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles " have also come under sharp scrutiny for "high-fashion makeovers" that have priced long-time inhabitants out of the area.

In Kuala Lumpur, it may still be too early to tell how these new developments will change the Petaling Street area. For now, there seems for the most part to be a cautious welcoming of the area's rejuvenation. Daniel Lim, a senior programme manager at Think City, says some gentrification is inevitable, but "while it brings money and people, we need to find a balance and be sensitive to the tangible and intangible heritage that contributes to the sense of place and community that's already there".

The newly revamped Lorong Panggung near Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: Emily Ding

However, Bai Chuan's restoration efforts have attracted some criticism that Lorong Panggung has been "Disney-fied", despite the group's best intentions. "At first, I felt some regret. It's a passion project and I've put in all this personal money. I wasn't ready for all the condemnation, all the people telling me I had 'killed the culture'," Chang says. "But later, as more people came, many of them told us they liked what we have done here, and ... let's just say I don't feel so sad any more."

It's what happens when the approach to heritage conservation is ad hoc, and there's no real way of enforcing local council guidelines for heritage buildings that are not designated national monuments; it comes down to one's personal will and capability to contract a conservation expert. Whatever the imperfections, though, vendors in the area agree that Bai Chuan's revamp of Lorong Panggung has brought in more business.

"We're seeing a lot more Chinese people coming here, both locals and tourists from Taiwan and China. And hopefully, in time, other people will also come. I think this area will become another tourism hotspot in Kuala Lumpur," says Koo from Ho Kow Kopitiam, especially with the expected 2020 opening of the Four Points by Sheraton hotel.

In fact, the beginnings of Petaling Street's revival can be traced back to at least 2016, when speakeasy-style cocktail bar PS150 and Chocha Foodstore, a restaurant serving modern Malaysian food with eclectic influences, opened for business in restored shophouses, maintaining their heritage appeal.

Inside the back-lane courtyard on Lorong Panggung are murals purporting to depict life as it was in old Chinatown. Photo: Emily Ding

Recently, architect and Chocha co-founder Shin Chang headed the effort to revive the old Rex Cinema " which dates from 1947, has gone through two fires, and lived secondary lives as a karaoke outlet and a backpackers' hostel " into a cultural community space.

"Like Chocha, we're trying to keep some of the Rex Cinema's original features intact. It isn't about building something new," says Beatrice Leong, the project's curator. The three-storey building is still under restoration, but RexKL has already hosted pop-up events such as film screenings and bazaars this year, with more lined up.

When it officially launches in September, it will be home to an independent cinema, a museum, a community radio, a library and bookstore, a food court, and a rooftop bar. "We want to bring different communities together through art and culture," she adds.

As in other Chinatowns, these new developments pose the question of gentrification and its effects. "I won't deny that RexKL is gentrifying the area, but we try to be very conscious about how we're coming into the community. The pop-up events are a way for us to ease in, to say, 'Hey, we're coming in, but we want you to be involved'," Leong says.

"We want to bring the young and the old together. We want to have collaborations between the new entrepreneurs coming in and the local traders here."

An exhibition space in RexKL. Photo: Emily Ding

Some worry that these changes to the Petaling Street neighbourhood will displace traditional businesses that find it difficult to adapt to new realities, and pander too much to consumerism. But for others, the possibilities are exciting. Looking back now, Koo says leaving Ho Kow Kopitiam's old home turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though it was only possible with the support of its long-time customers.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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