Malacca interlude

For centuries, this port city has attracted sailors, traders and adventurers of every race and creed. Pu Zhendong soaks up the history, the lore and the culture today.

Meandering through the ancient streets of Malacca, I was often struck by moments of familiarity and strangeness, awed by how a small city can peacefully assimilate Chinese, European and Muslim influences. It is a meeting point of East and West, which attracted the Chinese admiral Zheng He in the 15th century, the Portuguese general Alfonso de Albuquerque in the early 16th century and the Catholic missionary Francis Xavier in the mid-16th century, says Idris Haron, the chief minister of Malacca state in Malaysia. A visitor can hear the long call for prayer lingering above the Kampung Kling Mosque, see the ruins of St. Paul's Church silhouetted by the setting sun, and smell the burning joss sticks and candles inside the Cheng Hoon Teng temple.

It is a place that invites nostalgia for an Asia that used to be slow, sleepy and forgotten. As early as the 13th century, Prince Parameswara, a Hindu political refugee from Sumatra, founded the city on the site where he saw his dog chasing a chevrotain, also known as mouse deer, and converted the land to Islam.