Simon Soon
The Goddess of Mercy Temple on Pitt Street was founded around 1800-1801. The Pitt Street Guan Yin Temple is sometimes know as 椰跤觀音亭. 椰跤 (Iâ-kha) most likely means Where the Coconuts Fall i.e. Beneath the Coconut Trees' or possibly the 跤 is a contraction of 跤叉 i.e. 'The Coconut Tree Intersection'. 椰跤 is the local name for a section of Pitt Street (now Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling) considered by locals to be the beginning of the street.
It is also known as Kong Hock Keong, 'Kongfu-Hokkien Temple'. It was established on land presented to the temple's founders by the British East India Company. Both the Cantonese and Hokkien dialect groups are equally represented on the temple board, which served as a council and tribunal for the Chinese community in the early years of Penang.
Originally, it began as a shrine dedicated to Ma Chor Po (Mazu), the Goddess of seafarers. Later, Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy was adopted as the main deity with Ma Chor Por serving as a second principle deity of the temple. Kuan Yin's feast days fall on 19th day of the second, sixth, and ninth month of the lunar calendar, marking her birthday, the anniversary of her initiation and the anniversary of attaining Nirvana. Processions, puppet shows and Chinese operas were staged in her honour.
The site was chosen because of its higher ground and the gentle knoll was recognised as a 'dragon' - geomantically harmonious with feng shui principles. The foundation stone states that the temple community dates back to 1728 although this is in likelihood a retrospective record of the earliest Chinese settlers on the island.
Extensions to the temple date from 1824, by temple record notes that the temple is already dedicated to Kuan Yin as the main deity. The Chinese Town Hall building next to it was erected in the 1880s, and this institution later took over the economic and social functions of the temple by 1886.
Image 2 - Penang-Main Chinese Festival March 1887, August Kaulfuss part of twenty photographs collection.
NOTES
1989. Pulau Pinang Magazine, Jan-Feb.
Khoo Salma Nasution. 2007. Streets of George Town, Penang. Penang: Areca Books, 150.
2011. 'Guan Yin Temple, Pitt Street, Penang' Half a pound of Treacle. 11 July, http://up-your-toot.blogspot.com/2011/07/guan-yin-temple-pitt-street-penang.html
