Chinese New Year Countdown – A Trip To Petalling Street At Night

Don’t ask me about the history of Petaling Street. What I know since I was a kid, Petaling Street was a paradise of imitation. regardless the source of those counterfeit products, you can get whatever ‘branded’ clothing and accessories, shoes, watches, sunglasses, CD’s and DVD’s and etc, but are all fake! Its reputation is welknown worldwide, even my British lecturer knew and loved to buy pirated watches from here every year. Accordng to him, replacing watches from Petaling Street is even cheaper than replacing batteries in UK!!!??

Originally, Petaling Street was known as “Chee Cheong Gai” in Cantonese, or Starch Factory Street. It was the settlement of Chinese workers from China since about 140 years ago.

Thanks to the great ‘effort’ of local council and copyright enforcement team, most of the pirated CD’s and DVD’s have been cleared from the site. However, counterfeit ‘branded’ watches are still the favourite items in Petaling Street.

In 2003, the area has been refurbished, upgraded and re-imaged as China Town of Kuala Lumpur. Two large Chinese arches were constructed at both ends of the street to welcome visitors, and flee stalls have been properly organised and rearranged for a more tidy and organised travel destination. However, counterfeit products could still be found here. I don’t understand why, perhaps to retain Petaling Street’s image as a world famous fake market!!

My biggest interest in Petaling Street are its local Chinese food and snacks, such as dried meat, chestnut, ‘Longan’ syrup drink, chicken noodles, jam, prawn mee, roasted meat, chicken porridge, Asam Laksa and Hokkien mee are all my favourite foods here in Petaling Street.

For Chinese New Year celebration, these hawkers have decorated their stalls in red lantern and banners. Green coloured Pomelos as shown in the above photo are my favourite fruit for Chinese New Year praying ceremony.

Every year before Chinese New Year, this area is extremely packed and busy, especially at night. I went there to actually buy some seasoned duck and chinese ‘hot dog’ as shown above. On top of that, dried chicken and pork meat for CNY presents.

The most famous dried meat shop in Petaling Street is this one above: Kiew Brother’s or Wo Lai Yeah, the first dried chicken meat shop in South East Asia. This shop is their Head Quaters’ outlet. I come here every year.

Another unique scene in Petaling Street is the road side seafood reataurants which are favourites to those western travellers. Travellers love to sit under the moon light, tasting the local seafood, and enjoying their beers and people watching…. 🙂

Click HERE to view all these photos in full resolution via Flickr

Finally, ‘Boy and Girl! Come on and hug your mummy!’ ‘Chik Chak!’ Done. Photos taken. My family would like to greet all my readers a prosperous and happy Chinese New Year. – Travel Feeder.

Above photos were all shot by Nikon D60

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.