The Building Where Fingers Wouldn't Stop Dancing

Tap... tap... tap... tap... taptap... tap... taptap... tap... ting.

Krrrrrrrr...

Taptap... tap... taptap... tap... tap...taptap... tap... ting.

Krrrrrrr...

Taptap... tap... taptap... tap... tap... taptap... tap... tap... taptap... ting.

Krrrrrrr...

Salam and greeting.

If words are melodious as it sounds, our first few lines will recall back a very familiar sound that is seldom heard nowadays. Even its newer similar type does not sound the same as its older relative used to be.

Well, this might be a familiar sound back then when one enters this building. The movement of the officers' fingers, dancing gracefully on the rusty but trustworthy typewriter in this grand Government Office building in Taiping. Characters tapped, one after another, forming words and sentences, officiating letters and documents that have changed people's or even the Taiping town itself.

The building complex was designed by Francis Caulfield, one of the State Engineer in the early Perak Administrative office. Its construction started in 1892 and was completed and opened in 1897. It featured a distinctive Palladian facade and rooftop's pediments. Initially the building housed Council Chamber, Offices for the Secretariat, Treasury, Audit, Education and Forest Departments.

Currently the building is being occupied by Larut Matang and Selama Land and District office. And as its previous roles, the building becomes the administrative center for Larut Matang and Selama district, where Taiping is part of it. Day in and day out with fails people coming to this building to settle their whores.

And with that, even though the sound of the dancing fingers on the typewriter have now extinct , but with its newer relatives the keyboard, the fingers still continue to dance as long as people are here in this  strong and majestic building.