The Penang waterfront conurbation was a favourite haunt of Kuo Juping as it was near his business residence, an import-export trading company inherited from his father, the Sin Guan Thye Company in Victoria Street. There, he started honing his cross-cultural portraits of ordinary people — Indian jetty workers or stevedores and cattle minders, Chinese traders and coolies and trishaw riders, Indian-Muslim chettiars and goldsmiths, Achehnese settlers in the Muslim enclave of Lebuh Acheh… The Kapitan Keling Mosque stands as an imposing landmark in the business district closely tied to the history of the Chulias. The main means of getting round were by cars, scooters (Lambretta or Vespa), trishaws and bicycles. A somewhat similar scene can be gleaned on page 33 of the Kuo Ju-Ping Memorial Exhibition (Penang State Art Gallery, Aug 5-30, 1997) catalogue. Kuo Juping was from the pioneering batch of students studying directly under founder Lim Hak Tai at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, Singapore, in early 1941 but he had to return home during the Japanese Occupation in December that year. He formed the Thursday Art Group and Penang Chinese Art Club in 1936.