작품 상세

Dato’ Chuah Theng Teng has tremendous perspicacity in extracting the humorous out of ordinary or peculiar situations, in this case, the Malay kampong tradition of ‘angkat rumah’. Literally ‘carrying house’, usually wooden. This was fairly routine in the 1950s but rarer today, with modern transportation being used if the house is of heritage value, and the parts likely deconstructed and reassembled because of the modular concept. They are spruced up and used as novelty homestays or even cafeterias or art galleries. A more recent case in Kuala Kangsar in July 2018 required some 150 volunteers to carry a whole house weighing 6 metric tonnes more than 150 metres away. The house was lashed to a structure of bamboo and pinang trunks. This has been practiced mainly in Perak and Kedah, and even in South Sulawesi in Indonesia and the Philippines (they call it bayanihan). So, you won’t need Aladdin’s genie to spirit the house away from you.