Many people especially the younger generation would not know the late Tan Tong Tong 陳同同. Tan Tong Tong played a traditional Chinese stringed instrument, the Yueqin 月琴, otherwise known as the Chinese mandolin. Probably, at one time, he must be a familiar figure in the streets of Penang. He used to ply the streets there, strumming his Yueqin, singing songs and rhymes in Hokkien and telling fortunes, then the trade of the day. Tan Tong Tong later appeared in radio, singing old Hokkien songs in a one-hour program on Redifusion Malaysia and a half-hour programme on Radio Malaya. There is a mural of the mandolin man at the backlane of Delta Office near Pitt Street in Penang; in honour of him, I suppose.
Here's another mandolin man!
and a Mandolin woman wishing you a happy Chinese New Year!
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