I chanced upon the most remarkable sight last November when I was in Ipoh to review The Haven.

In its heyday, the North Malaysian capital of Perak was an icon of the riches of the Empire. But when the mining boom ended, its star faded as the Town Built On Tin became a shell of its former self. All that remained of Ipoh were decaying colonial mansions and shophouses whose weathered bodies whispered of its glory days of British Malaya. As my father did, many of the city’s young emigrated to Kuala Lumpur for bigger prospects, leaving behind a sleepy hollow seemingly inhabited mostly by those old enough to remember pre-independence Malaysia. Ipoh, whose star once shone as brightly as Singapore, was now an Adele lyric: “that town where nothing really happened”. Or so I had remembered from my family’s annual Chinese New Year returns to my paternal hometown - it was usually a stopover between Kuala Lumpur and Penang, albeit one boasting some of the best Malaysian culinary fare. Although in recent years Ipoh has become a family-friendly destination for wellness and relaxation, it was not a place I associated with a burgeoning arts and culture scene, and certainly not with the trendy young.