Pulau Jerejak, Malaysia

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Fifty years ago, no one went down to the southeast edge of Penang. There was no reason to. A small island state in the newly formed country of Malaysia, Penang had a bustling colonial downtown along the northern coast and much of the rest of the island was covered in forests or farms. The southeastern coast was easy to get to but there was nothing to do there. It was a place for fishermen and the handful of people who lived in the area. Had anyone gone and stood at the shore, though, they would have seen Pulau Jerejak, a small island just off the coast, covered in forest.

Today the island is almost the same. From the strip of beach near Queensbay Mall, the trees are still visible behind the ferry port on the island’s edge. The ferry goes between Penang and Jerejak several times a day, taking passengers to and from small resort. Besides the hotel and its spa facilities, the resort has hiking trails and a zip-line. What’s harder to find are traces of Jerejak’s past.

In the early 1800s, Penang was gaining traffic as a profitable island colony in the Straits. Immigrants flooded the small island, drawn to the tropical forests where they were promised ownership of any land they could clear. What began as a health inspection center for immigrants became a fully functioning leper colony in the early 1880s. Jerejak took in lepers from all over the British colonies in Southeast Asia and by 1926 the leper island’s population swelled to 700. After World War II, the number of patients dwindled and in 1969 the remaining 300 patients were moved to Sungai Buloh Leper Settlement. Afterward, Jerejak housed a tuberculosis ward, and, later, a prison, the Alcatraz of Malaysia, which closed in 1993.

At the peak of its activity, Jerejak’s leper colony saw inmates fishing and farming. Anyone standing on Penang’s coast could have looked across the small strip of water and waved at any patient who happened to be standing on the other side. But, 50 years ago, no one went to the southeast edge of Penang.

—Zoë McLaughlin
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