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Penang Government agrees to multi-language signs for tourists’ benefit |
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Wednesday, 23 July 2008 08:38am |
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©The
Star (Used by permission)
by Priscilla Dielenberg
GEORGE TOWN: The state government plans to put up street names and road signs in
multiple languages at heritage areas here for the benefit of tourists and
visitors.
State Local Government, Traffic Management and Environment Committee chairman
Chow Kon Yeow said yesterday that the languages would depend on the cultural
characteristics of the streets in question.
“There have been requests for road signs in various languages now that George
Town has received Unesco recognition as a world heritage site. The state has, in
principle, agreed to have signs in Bahasa Malaysia, English, Chinese and Tamil,
and maybe even Arabic,” he said.
Chow noted that the Federal Government had also approved an allocation to put up
signboards in various languages around George Town.
On the six street signs put up by several Gerakan members, led by former Penang
Municipal Council councillor Dr Thor Teong Ghee, Chow said he had instructed the
council to give notice to the group to remove them.
“The council will advise them to take down the signs themselves, unlike in the
past when the council under the previous administration used to pull down signs
put up by the DAP within two hours,” said Chow.
On Monday, Dr Thor and six others put up the road signs in Chinese to remind the
DAP that it had to keep its word to come up with such road signs now that the
party was helming the state. The six signs were for Beach Street, Burmah Road,
Macalister Road, Carnarvon Street, Chulia Street and Jalan C.Y. Choy.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said there was no reason for anyone to politicise
the issue as this was the people's aspiration. He likened the need to have
multilingual road signs to the multilingual announcements at airports which were
a necessity.
However, Tanjung Umno Youth division chief Shaharrudin Hassan urged the local
government and government agencies to only allow road signs in the national
language.
“If the Malays can compromise with not having road signs in Jawi or Arabic, we
do not see why the other races cannot practise a similar thing,” he said.
When contacted, Dr Thor said he would wait for the council's notice, but hoped
that the signs could remain until the council put up its own.
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Circular No 304/2008
This country is blessed in so many ways just as some of its leaders are cursed in so many ways - cursed by chauvinism and blinded by bigotry.
Properly planned and executed, tourism can be a big income earner. In order to do that, we need to have multi-lingual road signs, even in Arabic since Arabs flock to Penang for their holidays.
So what's wrong with multi-lingual road signs if we can earn the tourist dollar and provide employment at the same time for our fellow Malaysians in even other tourist-related areas?
Stephen Tan Ban Cheng