In `Too salty’, two Tamil labourers attribute their lack of hair to ingesting too much salt. Formerly, salt was important both for preserving food as well as a condiment. Sacks of salt were unloaded on jetty at the end of Jalan Green Hall then stored in its godowns.

The Tamil name for this area was Uppuvearan Teni or “Salt Traders’ Street”, a reference to the salt trading activities carried out here at this area.

Less background detail is evident in the famous shoe designer, for this piece is intended as a celebration of the young native of Penang who became an internationally know shoe designer. Jimmy Choo began learning his craft at the nearby Hong Kong Shoe Store, before leaving to study design in London.

The figures portray a delighted customer, admiring her new shoes, the quite satisfaction of the master shoemaker and the unalloyed pride and happiness of the designer.

Muntri street, where this pieces is located, was named after the Orang Kaya Menteri of Larut, Perak Ngah Ibrahim, and records the inter-racial and commercial trading links between the Orang Kaya Menteri or Ruler of Larut, and the predominantly Chinese towkays (employer) of Penang who controlled the mining and smelting of tin ore.

In Hokkien, Goh Kah Kee means five foot way, the shaded walkways reputedly designed to shelter pedestrians from the tropical sun and torrential rains. `Mr Five Foot Way’ is a generic name for the many itinerant small traders and hawkers who set up their stalls in these five-foot ways.

An occupation that draws uni riots between rival secret societies. One of the most intriguing aspects of these riots is that both sides were multiracial, with the Muslim Red Flag association and the Hokkien Toa Peh Kong Society united against the Muslim White Flag and the Cantonese Ghee Hin.

The most serious riots broke out in August 1867 at Lebuh Cannon area. In order to put down this unrest, the alarmed colonial authorities called in reinforcements from Singapore, and cannons were fired near the site of this sculpture, leading to today`s names of Lebuh Cannon and Medan Cannon. It is said bullet holes from this time can still be found in the walls of surrounding buildings.

The `Bullock Cart’ sculpture is located on Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling, one of the four major streets in the original grid pattern laid out by Francis Light. The Bullock Cart Wheel sculpture captures two different historical insights of Penang. Firstly this stretch of road was used until recently for parking bullock carts, while the ½ - cent Straits Settlement coin is an allusion to a stingy person, who perceives the coin to be as big as the wheel of a bullock cart.

This popular piece is composed of five separate figures occupying adjacent columns that support a `Five-Foot Way’ or shaded walkway, designed to provide shelter from the tropical sun. The figures represent an Indian dhoby wallah carrying a laundry basket, a Chinese amah, a young child, a coolie and an English planter, and provide a snapshot of early George Town`s multiracial composition.

Continuing with the theme of cane or `Rotan’, this sculpture is attached to the wall of a cane furnishings shop, and poses an interesting question of preferences for the schoolboy returning home to ponder, as his mother snaps, `Thick, Medium or Thin?’

Today, `Cannon Hole’ is one of the most photographed of the `Making George Town’ sculptures, possibly due to the humour of the piece, though few will be aware of the history of this location.

By contrast, in `Beca’ (trishaw) shows that a modern day trishaw rider is being burdened with an endless list of famous sights to be visited, by an overweight pair of tourists. `Beca’ is another example of a later sculpture, this piece including a real trishaw. Explore yourself by taking a trishaw for sightseeing in George Town World Heritage Site.

`Gold Teeth’ celebrates possibly the traditional goldsmith in the heritage area. Here we see, a customer point to her gold tooth and ask,” Can you turn this into a ring?”

The Goldsmith continues to create intricate jewellery using the most basic tools with his skills. Using a burner, he firstly melts a small amount of gold which is poured into a mould; once cooled, he cuts and shape the desired design, a time consuming process. As each of his pieces is hand, rather than machine made, and often is made to order, each is unique in its design.

It is commonly believed that prior to World War II, the Japanese owners of camera shop in this area were engaged in photographing and recording military information that would later prove invaluable during the invasion of Malaya. A Japanese `dance hostess’ is also shown in this piece.

Most of the shophouses were turned into the budget hotels since last century. `Budget Hotels’ on Love Lane pokes fun at a heavily laden backpacker, a common sight in this area, checking into his `5 Star Budget Hotel’.

The proprietor is happily ringing up various charge on his cash register, while offering a ranger of other services, all of which are available at a `special price’. It is all proving a little too much for the bewildered youth, clutching his soap, towel and room key.

While formerly Love Lane had a sleazy reputation, today its old shophouses are increasingly being remodelled as boutique hotels, `heritage’ cafes aimed and pubs.

`Cheating husband’ is a sculpture with an amusing cartoon caricature in an embarrassing situation. It is more likely to laugh at the character and his situation. It has been suggested that in this piece on Love Lane, an errant husband is making a rapid retreat from his lover`s bedroom to prevent his wife from discovering them. The origin of the name, Love Lane is uncertain: certainly it is a very old road, being marked on a map of George Town dated 1801.

One explanation for its unusual name is that it refers to the practice in the nineteenth century of wealthy men (of all races) keeping multiple wives and or mistresses. A towkay`s (employer) principal home might have been on the neighbouring Lebuh Muntri, while the problem of how to house and spend time with each of his consorts, not to mention avoid conflict in thr home was solved with house such as those in Love Lane.

`Quiet Please’ also know as `Street Fighters’, in Lebuh Gereja (formerly Church Street) references the fact this street was not only home to a Portuguese church, but also to the Ghee Hin Society, in those days notorious for their feuds with the Tua Peh Kong.

`Too Hot’ is included here with the other food related sculptures. It`s easy to miss, being installed well above head height on a warehouse wall near Swettenham Pier, on Pengkalan Weld, but contains as good deal of detail that deserves a longer look. See the hawker`s charcoal cookers and wicker basket, the small traditional stools as well as the customer’s head literally bursting into flame after eating `Kelinga mee’.

This cartoon plays on the high counter found in a traditional pawn shop. We can see, through a small window, that the broker is examining a ring with his magnifying glass. Today in Malaysia, while pawnbroking, or `pajak gadai’ is strictly regulated by government, it remains a traditional occupation, passed down from one generation to the next.

Anything could be pawned during those years. Due to different demands back then, ways of handling this business was also different. During tougher times, people would send in anything pawnable to our shop. There was someone who even pawned his favourite sarong in order to by some durian. Today, pawnshops take only jewellery and branded watches, and no longer would accept things like antigues…’ 

In`Gedung Rumpit’ sculpture shows that a cow is trying to pole vault over a wall because the grass is – of course- always greener on the other side. The connection between a cow and Lebuh Queen, or Queen Street may appear somewhat tenuous. However, the Malay name for this street, `Gedung Rumpit’ translates as `grass godown’ and it is believed that in former times the street was lined with sheds used to store the hay for feeding livestock, such as bullocks.

Toddy or tuak was a popular alcoholic drink amongst Indian labourers, being prepared from the fermented sap of the flowers of the coconut palm. Here, the point of the joke is that the man climbing the tree will be disappointed for it is a pinang, or betel nut palm not a coconut.

Birds also feature in `Untrained Parakeet’. Indian fortune-tellers used caged green parakeets trained to select one from a series of twenty-seven divination cards to tell fortunes when their cage door was opened.

The `Straits Settlements of Malacca, Singapore and Penang’ was created as an administrative unit by the Honourable East India Company in 1826. The rationale was to have string of bases along the Malacca Straits to protect the lucrative trade route of China, and combat local piracy. Penang was briefly the `capital’ of these Settlement, while the administration of the Settlements was direction from India.

`Happy Hour’ sculpture is on Transfer Road, so named for the transfer of the administration of the Straits Settlements from India, to the Colonial Office in Singapore in 1867. This change in overseers resulted in a more efficient administration and an era increased prosperity for all the Settlement.

The principal subject of `Ting Ting Thong’ is an elderly but genial hawker preparing to hammer away at a slab of home made rock candy.

In the background, there are several hawker selling traditional foods; nasi kandar hawker is – no doubt – describing how tasty are his dishes and the pau seller has a winning smile. See also one lady in a sarong with her tiffin carrier, tempted by rock candy while another housewife hurries home with her basket of purchases.

Note the change of expression in the transition from convict to `trade’, in the sculpture, `Labourer to Trader’. For India’s colonial rulers in the nineteenth century, simply imprisoning someone was considered insufficient punishment, something with more `bite’ was called for. The thinking was, transportation – separating prisoners from their home culture and shipping them overseas-made their confinement more severe.

Immediately after the founding of Penang, Francis Light requested Indian convict labour to help develop the colony, and by 1805 there were over 700 of these convict labourers in Penang, a number that doubled by 1824. Once here, these convict worked on major government buildings including Fort Cornwallis, and were also used in clearing swamps and forest. According to Governor Blundell of the Straits Settlements, these prisoners deserved credit for building the whole of the existing the roads throughout the island…. every bridge on both town and country, all the existing canals, sea walls, jetties, piers, etc’.

Despite being prisoners, they were considered better workers than the regular or local work force. Many of these convicts were allowed to live relatively freely, not confined behind bars, and many were released well before the expiry of their sentences. By the 1860s `very few’ prisoners returned to their home in India, with the majority preferring to remain in Penang

The subject of this design is the bread produced by a long established bakery at  Jalan Transfer. In this sculpture, we see the hawker cutting off the crust, or `unwanted skin’ from a loaf of bread, and incidentally threatening his customer`s safety.

Roti Benggali is an unusual name for a loaf of white bread, but there is an interesting history to its origin. Originally, there was a British Malaya Bakery, but during the Second World War supplies of basics such as wheat flour became increasingly bakery disappeared at that time.

`Ah Quee’ typifies the story of the penniless immigrant who made good. Ah Quee, aka Chung Keng Kwee, was born into a peasant Hakka family in Guangdong, China in 1841. In his aged of 20, was sent by his mother to Malaya to search for his father, who had travelled there previously.

Chung Keng Kwee’s home and his Ancestral Temple, which he built for the worship of his ancestors both are located on Church Street, Penang.

In this piece was see a European businessman struggle to pronounce Ah Quee`s name while greeting him ; notice too the traditional kampong houses in the background of this sculpture.

`Procession’, was one of the metal sculptures to appear and celebration both a person and event.

Zhang Li, a mid-18th century scholar of Hakka descent, while sailing to Sumatra with two companions, was blown off course, and forced to land in Penang. After their deaths, Zhang Li and his companions were buried in graves at what is now the Tua Pek Kong Temple in Tanjong Tokong, built in 1799.

Over a period of time the local Chinese began to venerate Zhang Li as a god of prosperity, bestowing on him the title, Tua Pek Kong. During the procession, that is carried on the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year from Lebuh Armenian to the Tanjung Tokong temple.

Celebrating of Penang`s communities, known `Chingay’. It has been claimed that Chingay processions, teams balancing and tossing large flags, as well as lion and dragon dances originated in Penang, Malaysia. This piece, celebrating Chingay is a light hearted, confident and glorious celebration of the multiracial nature of Penang, both in terms of the figures used and the nature of Chingay itself.

Among the figures on these five-foot way pillars who leads the procession with a Chingay flag balanced on his head. Behind him a rather anxious Chinese father balances on a high unicycle followed by his more confident son. The sequence is complete by an embarrassed man, caught in the realisation that doing a handstand is not advisable while wearing a sarong, and a stilt walker who lags behind the main procession, while arranging a date with his beloved, at an open window.