Half of the hoardes of local tourists that converge on this little village are a slowly dying breed . Ethnic Chinese who speak English every day at home and even dream in English . Such as muah .
But to hear them yelling at top volume to each other from between tables to across roads ( and these are just small roads mind you ) was quite a shock to the system since most of the people I see in Penang every day , converse mostly in Malaysian Mandarin nowadays .
The other shocking part was discovering that my Cantonese, is practically useless here as the townfolk converse in Hokkien almost exclusively . Either they simply cannot understand Cantonese or have no cable network subscription at home . Beats me but if you insist on trying , you might have to contend with puzzled frowns .
Some people may equate the dialect spoken here to Penang Hokkien , but the true blue Penang kia , begs to differ as the sing song intonation is just not there . Though not as " chor lor " as Klang Hokkien , he insists the Hokkien here is not Penang Hokkien .
End of discussion .
Anyway , the jetty where the tour boats land , is rather rickety and the town road is not so accommodating , thus I just cannot imagine how this place can possibly take more tourists in , later in the evening when the Firefly spotting tours begin .
