Penang International Museum Day 2024 - Penang Museum Tiffin Exhibition

 

Entrance to the free Penang State Museum Tiffin exhibition during International Museum Week. A giant green tiffin greeted me at the start of the exhibition. A security guard at the entrance seems surprised to see me visiting and asked me to sign the guest book before allowing me to venture in.

There were just a few halls opened as most of the building was still under renovation, but I must say, I did enjoy the exhibit here. There were much more effort and thoughts put into it. A friendly curator guided me through the whole exhibition, explaining to me about the display. I found out that he was an intern to the museum, and a student of University of Science Malaysia which was located in Penang. The exhibition here was done by USM. Above, some of the old tiffins on display. I say old, cause these days, the newer ones are all silver in colour, made from stainless steel.

This is a bike with tiffins hanging at the back. In Penang, it is pretty common to see people doing tiffin subscription, where you pay to have your meals delivered to you daily. Usually they deliver Monday to Friday via these bikes or motocycles, and you can pick where to have soup included, or rice included, or without. It's super convenient for people who is too busy to cook, or can't cook, to at least enjoy some level of home cooked food. My house hold have done a short period of these tiffin subscription before, and weirdly, one of them like serving rabbit meat as part of the meal :P

An old kampung house front with tiffins on display. I actually have a tiny green on in my Singapore home. I kept it so that I can one day restore it, cause I think it's such a beautiful piece of item from the past. It would be a shame to just let it rust away or thrown away. But I have to find out how to restore it. The curator just told me to protect it with oil. But I was interested on how to get it painted again so that it looks brand new....

A road side stall where you can order your food or drink and sit down to enjoy them. You can bring your tiffin along and 'tabao' (pack back) your food as well. In Penang, it is very common to see people still using tiffin to pack back their food from the market, from the pasar malam, or from the kopitiam. It is super environmentally friendly. The only thing I don't like about the tiffin is, it was hard to warm up the food in them.... You usually eat your food cold, which is something I hate doing if I can help it....

Above, a typical scene of a kopitiam in Malaysia :)

Here is a tiffin with a warmer! This was something I haven't seen before, nor knew that it existed! I though it was very interesting! Based on what I read about the history of tiffins, they seem to originate from India. These days in Malaysia, it is mainly associated with the Chinese and Peranakan. I don't really see other races using this extensively.

The last exhibition was more on the modern tiffin display, which was cool and slick, but also kinda boring, right? I prefer the colourful tiffins of the nyonya anytime! I bit farewell to my new curator friend whom I enjoyed chatting to through out this exhibition, and was looking forward to my other museum visit! Sadly, this was the only engaging exhibition of the day. The next museum had no curator, and the rest was just boring.....So I'm glad I came here first, cause at least I got a good start to my day!