I was inspired to write the following entry after recently visiting a mall in Penang where I used to hang out a lot at while I was young. It’s actually a lot of scattered memories that I have of the place and maybe it’s not the typical kind of thing people blog about but I just want to be able to document these memories I have somewhere… and maybe share them with you guys.
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“Do you know that there is going to be a big shopping mall here with everything in one. Hotel, offices, a bowling alley and shops?”, my dad told my mum as we were in the car passing this big open fenced up piece of land being prepared for construction.
I couldn’t remember the year, but I remember I was still really young and in school. It blew my imagination. One big center with a hotel, offices, a bowling alley and shops? That was almost unheard of in Penang back then, apart from Komtar. I lingered in my young imagination when I heard my dad going on to say
“It’s going to be called 1-Stop”.
Years later, a huge building was erected where that empty piece of land once stood and the whole structure came to life. Shops moved in, Berjaya Hotel opened up there and the whole shopping center came to life. There were two big blocks that were connected by bridges and a big foyer area in the center.
It became the ULTIMATE place for teenagers to hang out. They had everything there. When we were going out with girls from another school, we would go walk around 1-Stop in typical teenager fashion. The girls will walk in front looking pretty and cute. The guys would follow behind in a cluster talking about football and acting cool. When we wanted to take it up a notch, we would go bowling on the 7th floor.
Then when time for lunch came, we would eat at, KFC, McDs or the food court on the top floor.
McDs that was so often frequented by us is no longer where it used to be.
In its place is closed shutters with a notice about its closure.
KFC though is still there.
Sometimes when pocket money permitted, we would go have a nice lunch at Dave’s Deli. A small franchise in Penang that was known for his chicken served ala Kenny Roger’s style. Today, all that remains of where Dave’s Deli used to be is the remains of “Rose Garden”, a shop that took over Dave’s Deli after my time.
And if we felt rich with pocket money, we would give in to the smells of the Famous Amos cookies at the back entrance of 1-Stop. Today Famous Amos is no longer there and in its place, a Cupcake cafe.
The fun in 1-Stop though was in the other kind of activities a young boy loved. When I was between ages 11-13, I used to play a card game called Magic The Gathering a lot. “Play”, was an understatement. I was addicted to it and it was an expensive hobby especially for a young teenager. I spent most of whatever Ang Pow money I had back then buying these cards. The place to buy them was a shop called Novel Hut in 1-Stop run by a guy named Marcus.
I used to think that he was the coolest guy ever with the best job. All he had to do was go open shop there every day and he passes his time playing Magic with everyone else. Not to mention he seemed to have the best cards ever. After I had stopped playing Magic The Gathering, he renamed his shop to Twenty Twenty and eventhough it was in no way as packed and bustling as before. It remained there till today.
Amidst all the other closed shops around it. I never went back to say Hi to Marcus because the last time I did many years ago, he didn’t seem to remember me anymore and some awkward silence passed between us. Funny enough the last game of Magic The Gathering I ever played was in 1-Stop itself for the Malaysian Open tournament. I promised myself to stop the addiction since it was leading to a lot of bad habits on my part so I promised myself that if I played in the tournament and got to the final 16, I would quit. I actually just got to number 16. So I quit anyway.
So that part of 1-Stop ended for me only to be quickly replaced by another: CYBERCAFES.
1-Stop from 1998 onwards became like THE place for cybercafes. One of the first cybercafes there that started was called Virus and it had this system where you had to buy a prepaid card of time that you get to play on and plug it into a card slot at the computer. Once your time was up, it would just turn off the monitor. I used to hang out there a lot with my friends and we remember the owner being this hot mid-30s woman who always dressed with a short skirt.
Right after Virus, other cybercafes sprouted out all over 1-Stop and they got bigger and bigger.
From just having 20 computers to ones that have like 100 or so of them. It got so big that some of them started linking up with each other so people could play games together. In 1998 we played a lot of Half-Life and Command & Conquer Red Alert. Then Starcraft came in and eventually we discovered Counter-Strike which took up the rest of the years. I still remember all the cybercafes I used to play in. Hyperweb (which if I remember correctly was the first), Cyberweb, Cyberjacks, Swat Zone, Pyramid… they had that many and it was thriving with teenagers like me spending hours and hours playing. During the school holidays I would go to 1-Stop at 11.30AM, have an early lunch with friends and start playing at the Cybercafes from 12PM all the way to 6PM or 7PM. Looking back I do sometimes think that if I had spent all those hours on something more productive, I might have turned out a bit differently but well… it was just fun.
When I wasn’t playing computer games at cybercafe, I spent some time at the arcade playing Daytona or Time Crisis. They arcade used to be at the 7th floor but now that area is all closed.
They moved it downstairs now.
Daytona is this old car racing game that I used to love playing because it’s just simple and fun. Along with Time Crisis they were the most popular games there at 1-Stop.
1-Stop isn’t all about games and all for teenagers though. There are some practical parts to it. On one side of the complex is all the cybercafes and shop lots but on the other side is some proper shopping.
There were all sorts of stuff there though. A supermarket there called Tops, a Garfield specialty store called “Huggable Cat” and lots of clothes shop. Today most of the shops that used to populate the mall have closed and you see shutters there that hasn’t looked like it has been opened in a long time.
The bubble lifts were still running as usual though. I used to remember how they took so long to get from one floor to another floor because there were so many people in it and everyone was stopping at every floor.
Today the lifts are often empty and takes you to the top floor with hardly any stops.
The bubble lifts were what we used to take us to the top floor of the mall where they had lots of computer shops and shops that sold PC games. Today all that are left of those shops are a handful of them and the rest of the floor is empty.
Some shops survived till today though. There is the perfume shop that one of my high school girlfriends brought me there to hint that I buy it for her.
I still remember how strong the hint was. We were walking around there and she asked to take a look at this particular perfume called “Sunflower” or something that her friends were telling her about. She just admired it then we left the shop. When her birthday came I knew exactly what to buy her so I went to that same perfume shop and bought that “Sunflower” perfume. When she unwrapped the present she looked surprise, though I know deep inside she knew. How predictable and unromantic I was.
Also there are these two Christian book stores that have survived for a long time.
The Watsons.
The Artist Gallery that is really like a a Speedy Video and sold CDs, DVDs and the likes.
Another music store that was really popular back then in 1-Stop was Music Valley. It used to be packed with people all the time and it’s where you would go to listen to all the latest music. In those days, shops all over 1-Stop will play music that was popular at the time like Michael Learns to Rock: Paint My Love or even Lemon Tree by Fools Garden. Those were sooo popular back then.
Funny enough when I visited 1-Stop recently some of the shops were playing these exact same songs which really helped me imagine a walk down memory lane. Music Valley is still there today though but it’s no longer the bright beacon of music it was back in the day. It shrunk from having two lots to just one.
You could see how business really went bad for them when Napster and mp3 downloading came into fashion. They’re still around though. Maybe more and more people are buying original CDs now. I know I am.
This England Optical which was the place where my mum brought me to get my first pair of glasses done when I was in Form 3 back in 1999.
I never used to have to wear glasses but after 2 years of intense computer games… I guess it was time it happened to me. After taking a good walk around 1-Stop that afternoon in present times, it was time for me to leave. I left by the front entrance, by the stairs where many times before I used to sit while waiting for my Mum and Dad to pick me up after I had a fun day out with my friends.
Those stairs used to be crowded with people coming and going from the mall. Today they are empty.
I don’t know what really happened to 1-Stop. Maybe they didn’t seek to further improve it or maybe they just decided that it was not worth reinvesting in. The teenagers of today no longer go to 1-Stop in their free time. They flock to the new places now. The Gurneys, the Queensbays and perhaps these malls will give them a different kind of childhood experience than the one me and my friends had.
1-Stop gave me mine… many different memories from my teenage years.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space