First day in Malaysia
WOW
Well, I've been busy for the last 103 weeks, (not to mention that the great firewall started blocking livejournal))
Anyway, I'm in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia on vacation now and its my first day here and I wrote a little story and took some pictures, so I decided to post them here!
I just took 2 weeks off from my job in Beijing for the Chinese New Year, or spring festival as we call it. Anyway we had an excellent first day in KL. Love it here. Such an interesting mix of cultures…
You know how NYC has 1000 cultures, but it sort of feels like they all just got there, and then there are a few old and established ones. Its like how the guy in the deli barks rough dago-brooklynese, while the taxi drivers speak a hundred different languages, and they all mutilate English in different ways. Well Malaysia is different. Here in KL, there are only 3 main cultures - Indian, Chinese and Malay - and they have all been here, mixing, for 100 years, so they are pronouncedly different, yet slowly mixing, spiraling together. And here, it sort of feels like days are slow, years are fast, decades bring huge HUGE change, but the centuries; they come and go like wispy nimbuses in a windless sky.
It’s funny how the cultures mix. It’s the thing that's the hardest of all to nail down about this oddly incomprehensible place. I understand my image of KL is a snapshot in time. It feels like I’m just experiencing that moment of convergence - like when you add sweetened condensed milk to iced Sumatran coffee and it swirls into the mix of ice cubes and coarse ground coffee beans and that richly brown/black liquid that’s so addictive and satisfying. There's that one moment, a moment there where it's all swirling together, the colors haven't yet combined, the ice cubes haven't yet stopped spinning and the grounds still haven/t settled into a thick mud at the bottom of the glass. That fraction of a second where the milk and the coffee are still separate, but insuperable. That’s like a hundred years here.
In this decade you can feel the people being lifted out of poverty, cars and motorcycles abound, new cell phones enter the market to begin their five year journey from the richman's hand to the farmers mouth, and yet, fancy restaurants aren't everywhere, people are still poor, unemployment is noticeable in the cafes and the pace of a cup of sweetened milk tea. New cars, yes, they are sold, but its not like HK or Singapore where everyone has a new Benz or a Lotus or a Ferrari.
But this is only half of the moment - the sense of increasing prosperity, mixing cultures - being pierced by the green eyes of a woman in a burka you get off the bus (this is the other half), only to get whiplash as a girl in a headscarf with hip-hugging jeans flies gaily by in the other direction - and she's talking in sweet but abrupt Bahasa Malaysia to her gel-headed Indian boyfriend, who laughs and smiles and croons and then hops the monorail to Chinatown where he hawks Chinese sunglasses or flip-flops to an Aussie tourist at five times their price in China. His boss is a gray hared, yellow-eyed Chinese who speaks with a Cantonese accent, and tells you, sweetly, but not without cunning, "I know you want to get the lowest price, but you have to think of me too." And his store is literally overflowing with goods and infused with the sickly sweet smell of poppies burning - but it’s not poppy, it’s incense and its coming from the shrine - and then the day breaks in half as the searing sun forces you from the streets and the walking puts you to sleep.
And you’ve walked and eaten your way across town by now, but somehow the same big bellied Buddha proudly watches over another store, this time tea beckoned you in. The character 茶 (“Cha” which means tea) is taped in ancient Chinese coins onto the glass window of the door, and your lovely travel companion peeks her head in and it’s dark and cozy and homely, and all of a sudden you’re sitting and chatting in Mandarin with the store owner - who, it turns out - sells sapphires and precious stones and jade carvings (not tea) and maybe the odd fake antique too. And the beautiful girl you are with is enchanted by the stones, and you can tell too that the shop owner is enjoying this random break in his newspaper - he hardly ever gets walk-ins he says - he mostly trades with established partners and the sapphires come from Goa and the amethyst is called 黄水晶and, of course, the Jade is from Burma, and “here’s something that makes a good souvenir” he says, pulling out a crudely carved piece of opaque green and white marbled bottom-barrel jade. “we get those in Beijing as well” says the girl, “but the workmanship is different here” he says. But he doesn’t push the sale and you are back to being friends and no one’s feelings are hurt and soon your feet are rested and you are cooled from the AC and you’re back walking again.
And you walk and walk and walk, and its dark and you, a Jew, have a wonderful, cheap Indian dinner in a Muslim café full of scull-cap wearing Moslems and TVs with Gazans and Israelis killing each other and free mini-bananas. And you’re walking again and walking and blisters form and pop under the rubber from the newly bought flip-flops and now you’re walking barefoot and you can smell the shit in the gutter as you cross an ally to a street where maybe (and you doubt it) you can find a taxi. And as you exit the ally you hear music.
It’s Chinese music. And the street is closed off for this banquet of 700 people and there’s a bandstand at the T intersection, with the crowd on all three sides and children playing in front. You stand watching as a lovely Chinese singer sings a song in the cool evening breeze. The backdrop says “the 11th annual fashion import export meeting” and the people sitting at the table directly in front of the bandstand offer you an orange and soon you are sitting with them, toasting with Tiger beer and yelling in mandarin over the speakers. But they see that you’re with you’re girl and they back off a little and then the singer sings 月亮代表我的心, (a sickly sweet love ballad “the moon represents my heart”) and you and she know all the words too and sing to each other) and a huge plate of prawns lands on your table as the singer is replaced by a fire-breathing beauty and you are delving into the depths of the flip-flop importing business with the Chinese men at your table - the best table, front and center - and the boss with the orange sunglasses has a long beard and you think you recognize him from somewhere… And then the singer begins a song about Caishen, the money god, a big fat Buddah who comes at Chinese New Year bearing bulging red envelopes.
Well, I've been busy for the last 103 weeks, (not to mention that the great firewall started blocking livejournal))
Anyway, I'm in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia on vacation now and its my first day here and I wrote a little story and took some pictures, so I decided to post them here!
I just took 2 weeks off from my job in Beijing for the Chinese New Year, or spring festival as we call it. Anyway we had an excellent first day in KL. Love it here. Such an interesting mix of cultures…
You know how NYC has 1000 cultures, but it sort of feels like they all just got there, and then there are a few old and established ones. Its like how the guy in the deli barks rough dago-brooklynese, while the taxi drivers speak a hundred different languages, and they all mutilate English in different ways. Well Malaysia is different. Here in KL, there are only 3 main cultures - Indian, Chinese and Malay - and they have all been here, mixing, for 100 years, so they are pronouncedly different, yet slowly mixing, spiraling together. And here, it sort of feels like days are slow, years are fast, decades bring huge HUGE change, but the centuries; they come and go like wispy nimbuses in a windless sky.
It’s funny how the cultures mix. It’s the thing that's the hardest of all to nail down about this oddly incomprehensible place. I understand my image of KL is a snapshot in time. It feels like I’m just experiencing that moment of convergence - like when you add sweetened condensed milk to iced Sumatran coffee and it swirls into the mix of ice cubes and coarse ground coffee beans and that richly brown/black liquid that’s so addictive and satisfying. There's that one moment, a moment there where it's all swirling together, the colors haven't yet combined, the ice cubes haven't yet stopped spinning and the grounds still haven/t settled into a thick mud at the bottom of the glass. That fraction of a second where the milk and the coffee are still separate, but insuperable. That’s like a hundred years here.
In this decade you can feel the people being lifted out of poverty, cars and motorcycles abound, new cell phones enter the market to begin their five year journey from the richman's hand to the farmers mouth, and yet, fancy restaurants aren't everywhere, people are still poor, unemployment is noticeable in the cafes and the pace of a cup of sweetened milk tea. New cars, yes, they are sold, but its not like HK or Singapore where everyone has a new Benz or a Lotus or a Ferrari.
But this is only half of the moment - the sense of increasing prosperity, mixing cultures - being pierced by the green eyes of a woman in a burka you get off the bus (this is the other half), only to get whiplash as a girl in a headscarf with hip-hugging jeans flies gaily by in the other direction - and she's talking in sweet but abrupt Bahasa Malaysia to her gel-headed Indian boyfriend, who laughs and smiles and croons and then hops the monorail to Chinatown where he hawks Chinese sunglasses or flip-flops to an Aussie tourist at five times their price in China. His boss is a gray hared, yellow-eyed Chinese who speaks with a Cantonese accent, and tells you, sweetly, but not without cunning, "I know you want to get the lowest price, but you have to think of me too." And his store is literally overflowing with goods and infused with the sickly sweet smell of poppies burning - but it’s not poppy, it’s incense and its coming from the shrine - and then the day breaks in half as the searing sun forces you from the streets and the walking puts you to sleep.
And you’ve walked and eaten your way across town by now, but somehow the same big bellied Buddha proudly watches over another store, this time tea beckoned you in. The character 茶 (“Cha” which means tea) is taped in ancient Chinese coins onto the glass window of the door, and your lovely travel companion peeks her head in and it’s dark and cozy and homely, and all of a sudden you’re sitting and chatting in Mandarin with the store owner - who, it turns out - sells sapphires and precious stones and jade carvings (not tea) and maybe the odd fake antique too. And the beautiful girl you are with is enchanted by the stones, and you can tell too that the shop owner is enjoying this random break in his newspaper - he hardly ever gets walk-ins he says - he mostly trades with established partners and the sapphires come from Goa and the amethyst is called 黄水晶and, of course, the Jade is from Burma, and “here’s something that makes a good souvenir” he says, pulling out a crudely carved piece of opaque green and white marbled bottom-barrel jade. “we get those in Beijing as well” says the girl, “but the workmanship is different here” he says. But he doesn’t push the sale and you are back to being friends and no one’s feelings are hurt and soon your feet are rested and you are cooled from the AC and you’re back walking again.
And you walk and walk and walk, and its dark and you, a Jew, have a wonderful, cheap Indian dinner in a Muslim café full of scull-cap wearing Moslems and TVs with Gazans and Israelis killing each other and free mini-bananas. And you’re walking again and walking and blisters form and pop under the rubber from the newly bought flip-flops and now you’re walking barefoot and you can smell the shit in the gutter as you cross an ally to a street where maybe (and you doubt it) you can find a taxi. And as you exit the ally you hear music.
It’s Chinese music. And the street is closed off for this banquet of 700 people and there’s a bandstand at the T intersection, with the crowd on all three sides and children playing in front. You stand watching as a lovely Chinese singer sings a song in the cool evening breeze. The backdrop says “the 11th annual fashion import export meeting” and the people sitting at the table directly in front of the bandstand offer you an orange and soon you are sitting with them, toasting with Tiger beer and yelling in mandarin over the speakers. But they see that you’re with you’re girl and they back off a little and then the singer sings 月亮代表我的心, (a sickly sweet love ballad “the moon represents my heart”) and you and she know all the words too and sing to each other) and a huge plate of prawns lands on your table as the singer is replaced by a fire-breathing beauty and you are delving into the depths of the flip-flop importing business with the Chinese men at your table - the best table, front and center - and the boss with the orange sunglasses has a long beard and you think you recognize him from somewhere… And then the singer begins a song about Caishen, the money god, a big fat Buddah who comes at Chinese New Year bearing bulging red envelopes.