When impoverished 16-year-old Cheong Fatt Tze set off from his village in southern China in 1856 to seek his fortune, a scornful aunt pledged that if he succeeded, she would wear her pants inside out.

History does not record whether she lived up to her promise, but the striking Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Penang is solid proof that she should have.

One-hundred-and-twenty years after Cheong had it built for his seventh and favourite wife, the mansion has been painstakingly restored and offers 16 rooms for guests who appreciate a little time travel with their tourism.

Also known as the Blue Mansion for its original indigo exterior, it preserves the memory of one of the innumerable Chinese who left their homes in the 19th century and overcame enormous odds to establish themselves and Chinese culture in far-flung lands.

With a total of 38 rooms and an elaborate central courtyard, the intricately decorated two-storey mansion is essentially Chinese, but includes eclectic touches such as gothic windows, Scottish cast iron work and art nouveau stained glass panels.

Its restoration as a classic of 19th Century Straits Settlements architecture has been approved by Unesco - winning the UN cultural organisation's Heritage 2000 award - and by a group of geomancy masters who declared its feng shui harmony to be "perfect".

Important figure

Although Penang off Malaysia's west coast was opened up as a British trading post in 1786, the island has a strong Chinese character, highlighted in the build-up to this week's Lunar New Year and the dawn of the Year of the Monkey.

Festive red lanterns adorn the many Chinese temples in the narrow streets of the state capital Georgetown, where the signs on the rows of two-storey shophouses are invariably in Chinese script as well as English.

Lawrence Loh, the architect who bought the dilapidated Cheong mansion in 1990 and restored it over the next decade, describes himself as "Malaysian, with a very strong sense of Chineseness."

Over coffee in the elegant courtyard, with portraits of a top-hatted Cheong and his seventh wife gazing sternly from the walls, Loh says the project has to some extent righted an injustice in which Malaysia's history books ignore Cheong.

"When he died (in 1916) both the Dutch and the English flew their flags at half-mast. He was very important and very central to the whole economic structure and development of Malaysia, but is totally ignored."

The Malay majority in Malaysia, which won independence from Britain in 1957, holds political power while the descendants of Chinese immigrants, who make up 27 percent of the population of 25 million, dominate the economy.

Penang's strong Chinese presence is reflected in the fact that it is the only one of Malaysia's 13 states to have a Chinese chief minister.

One of the island's earliest pioneers, the 16-year-old Cheong, set off on the journey which was to lead him to Penang and the Blue Mansion when his brother-in-law sacked him as an odd-job man because he was naughty and angered many customers, Loh said.

Unfazed, Cheong declared he would strike it rich one day, leading his brother-in-law to scoff that if the day came to pass, he would hang the family surname lantern upside down, and the aunt swore she would wear her pants inside out.

China's Rockefeller

The ambitious boy sailed to Batavia, as the Indonesian capital Jakarta was then known, and took work as a water carrier. There he won the trust of his employer and, crucially perhaps, his daughter's hand in marriage.

With an initial stake from his father-in-law Cheong ventured into business - going on to own plantations, tin mines, a shipping line, railways and banks in a regional business empire stretching through Sumatra to Singapore, Malaysia and China itself.

He died in Jakarta in 1916, just months after visiting the United States to set up the Sino-American Bank. During his visit, the New York Times dubbed him "China's Rockefeller".

Lawrence Loh's grandfather came from the same southern Chinese province, Guangdong, working as a labourer in Malaysia's rubber plantations while slowly building his fortunes until he became a plantation owner himself.

Loh, 53, says he has been back to his grandfather's village, as have his own children, maintaining a link which not all Malaysian Chinese have with the homeland of their ancestors despite their strong cultural ties.

Turn right out of the Blue Mansion, walk two blocks and you will find a Chinese fortune teller on the corner of Leith and Chulia streets.

Worst year

Kim - the only name she offers - says she has set up her small table on the pavement there for 18 years to practise the ancient Chinese tradition of forecasting the future, but has never been to China.

She is a plump, 53-year-old self-described "jolly person", but her predictions for a passing reporter were far from cheerful.

The Year of the Monkey "is the worst year to play the stock market," she said. "Monkey jump up, monkey jump down."

She then shuffled an aged pack of cards and predicted a lack of riches and an early death for the reporter.

As he got up to leave, slightly stunned, she said: "Sorry about the rich thing."

There was no apology for the prediction of a short life, but given the economic success of so many Malaysian Chinese her priorities are perhaps not surprising. - AFP