The Privilege of Choosing Character
I paid for the patina of decay, the chipped paint, the reluctant plumbing, the night rat that emerged like an ellipsis. I wrapped it in the language of charm. But charm, I’ve come to understand, is often just hardship with an exit strategy.
The heritage shophouse on Lebuh China has a ceiling fan that sounds like it's slowly dying and carpeted stairs are somewhat narrow in a way that I have to angle my suitcase sideways to reach the second floor. The modern hotels in Gurney Plaza have air conditioning that doesn't sputter and lifts that don't require tactical maneuvering. Yet, here I am.
The courtyard fills with a particular type of guest by 8 AM: MacBook Pros balanced on reclaimed teak tables, everyone photographing their breakfast before eating it. We're all here for the same reason, though none of us would phrase it quite the same way.
This morning I'm drinking coffee in the Nonya Restaurant on the ground floor, listening to the German architect at the next table explain to his companion why the lime mortar between these bricks represents "authentic colonial construction techniques." He uses a Leica to document "deteriorating colonial facades" $5,000 worth of equipment to capture authentic decay. His companion takes notes in a Moleskine, presumably for the heritage preservation conference they're attending in Kuala Lumpur.
The floor tiles were chipped. A pattern someone once chose, before taste was curated by algorithms. I watched the hawker unfurl his day with muscle memory. Next door, a woman in linen tried to capture “local colour” on her phone, tilting it slightly so the cracked paint caught the morning gold. I could tell she thought she was being discreet.
I was not unlike her.
Some people move for better schools, others for shorter commutes. I moved, temporarily, for peeling paint, creaky shutters, and the sound of heavy wooden chairs scraping across tiled five-foot ways. I chose character. But only because I could afford to.
People like me, we come to places like this for the story. We call it “character,” but what we mean is history without hardship. What we want is texture without trauma. The beauty of peeling walls, not the poverty that made them peel.
It’s a kind of voyeurism dressed up in taste.
My shophouse suite on Lebuh China is the kind of place travel magazines describe as "heritage-rich" and Grab drivers describe as "impossible to park." The Peranakan Suites had looked romantic in the photographs: turquoise shutters weathered to just the right degree of authenticity, a wooden swing suspended in the central courtyard, mosaic tiles left deliberately uneven to suggest craftsmanship rather than carelessness. Financial stability allows for this fantasy of selecting difficulty like one might select a patterned tile: rustic, charming, lived-in. I had been enchanted, naturally.
But the enchantment came with real-world caveats: irregular water pressure, patchy Wi-Fi, the occasional rat parade in the back alley. To frame these minor inconveniences as part of the charm is a kind of class-coded sleight of hand. I had the option to leave. Many of my neighbours didn’t.
There’s an unspoken privilege in aestheticising struggle, in seeking places with “soul” while knowing you have the means to relocate the moment soul gives way to sewage. It’s the same logic that fuels gentrification; first admiration, then acquisition.
And yet, I get to write about it. To romanticise it. To call the alleyway “moody” instead of what it also is: poorly lit and perhaps dangerous. I write this from a small wooden table, surrounded by the ghosts of other people’s endurance. I sip coffee made the long way. I Instagram the condensation. I become the kind of person who says, “There’s something about Penang…”
But maybe what I mean is: there’s something about the way I am allowed to be here. Temporarily. Comfortably. A tourist of someone else’s everyday.
Character, I’ve learned, is perhaps only charming when you can leave it behind.
