As a land of pluralism, Satun has long been a cultural and commercial meeting place for Thais and Malays who travelled throughout the Malay Peninsula. Satun’s ports have served as windows into a broader world that facilitated the exchange of goods and products from far-off places. Cultural inflows from foreign countries were blended with the local cultural forms, creating a rich cosmopolitanism in the regional maritime world.
Praya Puminatpakdee was assigned to govern Satun in the early 1900s. He had previously lived in Penang where he witnessed the development of Penang under British rule. He used Penang’s architectural concepts and adopted them to Satun. These architectural style can be observed in the town’s earliest department stores. The governor invited about 7,000 Chinese merchants in Penang to settle down in Su-ngai Upe. He developed Sungai Upe as a pepper plantation region, in line with the enormous commercial value of herbs and spices at the time. He established a port to transport the products to sell via the Sungai Upe steamboat route, which transformed Sungai Upe into “a new trade community” of the region.
Today, Sungai Upe, which is located in Thung Wa District of Satun Province, is reviving and regenerating its former glory. The mission is to help this land be reborn itself into the Little Penang that it once was, as a home to “a rich natural and cultural heritage” and one of the region’s “most distinctive pluralistic societies”.
Please stay tuned with "Spirit of Asia" on November 15th, 2020 at 04.30 - 05.00 PM. (Bangkok, UTC+7)
As a land of pluralism, Satun has long been a cultural and commercial meeting place for Thais and Malays who travelled throughout the Malay Peninsula. Satun’s ports have served as windows into a broader world that facilitated the exchange of goods and products from far-off places. Cultural inflows from foreign countries were blended with the local cultural forms, creating a rich cosmopolitanism in the regional maritime world.
Praya Puminatpakdee was assigned to govern Satun in the early 1900s. He had previously lived in Penang where he witnessed the development of Penang under British rule. He used Penang’s architectural concepts and adopted them to Satun. These architectural style can be observed in the town’s earliest department stores. The governor invited about 7,000 Chinese merchants in Penang to settle down in Su-ngai Upe. He developed Sungai Upe as a pepper plantation region, in line with the enormous commercial value of herbs and spices at the time. He established a port to transport the products to sell via the Sungai Upe steamboat route, which transformed Sungai Upe into “a new trade community” of the region.
Today, Sungai Upe, which is located in Thung Wa District of Satun Province, is reviving and regenerating its former glory. The mission is to help this land be reborn itself into the Little Penang that it once was, as a home to “a rich natural and cultural heritage” and one of the region’s “most distinctive pluralistic societies”.
Please stay tuned with "Spirit of Asia" on November 15th, 2020 at 04.30 - 05.00 PM. (Bangkok, UTC+7)