It's All for Charity

We were being charitable, paid our dues, were giving in the spirit of the season. We had wended our way through the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, in my wife's little red devil car, inveigling our way into the heart of the city. Waze guided us through the evening streets to the grandest of hotels, and our be forested destination. We were quietly optimistic.

In the beginning, the search for relief was frustrated through the casual lack of signage. Once relieved, however, we stood, in what may have been an entrance hall wondering just what on earth was supposed to happen. European regional accents abounded, and one or two from my own country.  It appeared to be mostly an expat get together, a gathering of pale people in the very heart of what had been distinctly non pale colonial Malaysia.

I am generally ill at ease at such functions, perhaps it is through my lack of social graces, or through some bizarre quirk in my psychology. Fishes bereft of wet stuff would have had similar difficulties. But, hey, it was all for charity, was it not.

"Did you just come in through that door?" Well yes and no. Yes I did, but I had already been inside, had my tickets nabbed and been given the lottery tickets too. Her question had an undertone of harsh lights in faces, dimly lit rooms and all kinds of pointed accusations. Had we sneakily snuck in? Were we totally devoid of social graces? Were we charity gate crashers, with no sense of decency? I would not have minded, but it had happened twice within ten minutes. There must be something illicit, or decidedly common, about my face.

It was sweltering. The meagre horse powered air-con simply could not cope as four hundred expectant bodies breathed in and out into that aged colonial building, raising the temperature in more than one way, as waiters slipped by with empty food trays. 

We stopped one Indian gentleman and asked him if it were possible for the trays of minuscule food to come in the opposite direction too, as it seemed some people were getting very well fed at the expense (literally) of others. The wine flowed like water and water too flowed like itself, but fruit juice ran out as if in the Olympics. 

Over time, and it seemed like an age, we devised methods to waylay waiters bearing food. At one point I stood highwayman like, sans pistols, blocking the hallway and practically demanding a waiter to stand and deliver (the food that is). In the eons of foodlessness I became trained, like some Pavlovian guest, to respond to the door opening in the vain hope that a waiter might be bearing a tray of food. However, the tiny bites, even when they did appear, could not keep up with my growing appetite. Eventually, half starved and desperate for nourishment, we left to grab freshly cooked tender tandoori chicken and great garlic naan bread. It was the most delicious meal, ever.

PS And to the continental gentleman who mentioned “Your people used to live here”, I can assure you that “my people”, that is the working class of England, had nothing whatsoever to do with that particular colonial building, nor the fact that Queen Elizabeth II stayed there.

Cambodia Chill

In the beginning, sleepy early morning flight descending to deluged fields intaglio etched rivulets bushes trees blue tarpaulin draped roofs, safe against watery onslaught.Familiar dust strewn streets lined with bottled petrol and Ginsbergian boys slim brown tousled haired. Siem Reap early morning waking. Tuk tuk sir. B all abuzz with being back. Cambodia stirs from resting. We're drinking cold sweet local coffee B girl planning yet another conquest of this magical town hearts minds perhaps even souls in her Dhamma Baby guise Jolie boots and big Buddhist smile. Pseudo monk orange leaping to embrace touches my forehead in fake worshipful stance uncommonly obese pot not full of Dhamma chill but fresh dollars. Tuk tuk sir. Beat ghost in cheap Panama glides wraithlike practically antediluvian across our view, one more coffee Arkoun, his washed up dope days now culturally lost amidst curious new world antiquity. Khmer waitress smiles cheap smile for tourists and delivers American coffee while "B" girl sketches GP-K7 Signature. Outside boy trembles bright coloured bird tree, jostling pole, looking hollow eyed into shops schooless in season of green and damp, fragile in an uncommon age. Tuk tuk sir. Back to Colors gallery seeing Phany, Ponleu, all grown, mature, not like the children from before, all talent and big eyes, now brandishing sleek iPhones, dudes talking teacher talk. Ponleu cool strands of beard relic amidst surreality of teaching gallery, Mira fan blowing gale as four Khmer children place book marks newly bought onto stands, red ties on left wrists, boy "Fly Emirates" assists, black and gold Buddha watches signalling peace, man. Tuk tuk sir.

All awake at uncomfortable 4:40. B girl wrapped against air-con cold still sleeping. Me writing in bathroom, whir of extractor, yesterday thoughts disturb sleep hammered brain having succumbed to intermittent naps, taking edge from that crack of dawn early start and the rainy day leaving me now wide awake, restless, as she, my partner and hundreds of tourists sleep before breakfast in this growing whiter but still tropical town. I struggle with thoughts, preparing for the day. Letting her sleep. Chinese Foo in my mind as water colourist supreme, his sharing with eager Khmer minds. American Bill absent, yet forever with us as founder, guitar man, endless poet in the poem that is Colors of Cambodia in Siem Reap. Tuk tuk sir. Raggedy children clasp sugar cane juice, smiling lopsided smiles through innocent eyes. The compact gallery at Colors drips art into young minds with line wash shade and tones of existence. They are Dhamma children awakening. Later, watching elegance of her showering, all sleek lines feline grace water reflecting her beauty lines skin glistening singing siren lure. Waiting on breakfast fine rain kissing banana leaves monstrous grey concrete elephants dust be splattered small c.c motorcycles bare armed riders rush to work market home lovers still she sits opposite sculptured silhouetted by the brightening day. American not so pleasant breakfast at Moon Villa tries to hijack the day fails still desperate for coffee watch her load tuk tuk clothes for school. New Leaf Book Cafe watching temple roofs red piercing heavens slight cloud sun rising blue sky promises beat jeep languishing relic from past no longer forgotten, shaven head Eminem wannabe lopes past Wat contrasting orange draped monk on Dana mission. Tuk tuk sir. Round breasted Khmers abreast Scoopys ponytails streaming. A cappuccino day, tuk tuk sir, gamelan in air, rain gone, private delivery Phnom Penh Post coaster telling I heart Cambodia memories of Milton Glasser are you reading this James Merci to Mersea Siem Reap awakening. Life passing. Be hatted bearded European male pants past on bicycle in growing warmth cacophony supplanting gamelan Siem Reap modernising I shift to Wat seeking silence. Tuk tuk sir.

Tuk tuk sir. Sauntering old market squeezing past sellers of beef chicken pork eating yellow noodles pork fish sauce drinking iced local sweet coffee jump up. Tuk tuk sir, Yes. Driver Sitha loading slippers. Thai Zo school riding past yet more sellers of bottled petrol, convenient Molotov cocktails, down dirt track. School smiling faces headmaster waiting talking road repairs energy low need caffeine boost. More dust more heat. "Bong Bong chop chop coffee coffee" tiny glass not expresso local charcoal heated coffee laced in roadside market shack, Thai creamer, driver Sitha smiles. Englishman, two glasses coffee filling a gap but still insufficient no time. Long mud track. Tuk tuk to sponsored children's phoumi (village). Buffalo fields, egrets, long winding potholed road, real muddy water not blues singer, Khmer cycling woman carrying bamboo, children catching fish in sparkling green padi. Frog trap phoumi, leaping into unknown leads to frog rice. Cambodian market rice delivered to sponsored Cambodian student families. B girl sketching opposite pink lean-to, line by line capturing essence of rurality, simplicity. Sun blessed dappled baby sucking sweet mother milk in silence of Cambodian rural idyll satiating raw id/ego of sunshine child. TV arial pricks incongruously into rural sky. Padi calm. Pink dress girl carrying baby cycles under yellow-as-the-sun morning glory, papaya, banana. Cockerel squawks. Boy pisses on path, emancipated mynah pecking path flys. Noon heat cloud flecked sky, white butterfly heaven. Three children two dogs play padi water. Motorcycle family, marketing, return. Padi farmer abandons field. Raises mobile phone brown skin walking talking naked feet bringing dark footsteps to rural path. Padi breeze cools, dragonflies dance descending rising, gentle air-borne apsaras. Small naked girl runs squealing. Two bitches chase. Brown black younger dog collapses submits to older. Sniffs younger head to toe. Satisfied returns to post. Black dog hesitantly walks home.

Morning Nai Khmer restaurant electric absent, sweat slowly, two eggs bacon bread iced coffee, shock sun bounces from land cruiser. Tuk tuk sir. Coconuts chopped splash juice into dry air. Hello batman tuk tuk flying Batman insignia driver Bruce Wayne, not Caped Crusader. It's a tourist jungle, Siem Reap. Air-con van travels sleepy dusty road out from Siem Reap, rushing past sleeping golden Buddha, sleepy sandy cows, endless padi stretching forever green into my soul. Fresh fires cook bamboo tubes stuffed with sticky rice, buffalo herders, ephemeral phallic haystacks pointing pornographically to skyline. Van motion bringing sleep, tired Chinese traveller dozes in orange T-shirt, backpack tightly clutched. Cambodian People's Party evident, not so rouge. Change track. Sodden earth not yellow but reddened, Thai Kubota RT 120 plough-tractor pulls simple trailer, takes three 50 kg sacks of rice with Chinese travellers, Khmer teachers, and one white man over track cratered by rain, revealing laterite, Muscovy ducks, emaciated hens, acres of emerald rice, rural stilt houses, naked children playing, benignly blue water lilies, wondrously white flowers, perfectly pink lotus, beautiful Buddha grace. Thirty minute bounce, toss, trundle past blue white clothed school children, effort driven bicycles, elderly Khmer napping 'neath huts blearily watching plough-tractor procession. At rural Siem Reap school, children file awaiting uniforms, shoes, equipment, clothes happily munching dry biscuits. Boy in striped pullover, not pyjamas, looks sadly on. The green vista calls to the pleasantness of the day, flat padi, thinking under blue sky, wishing on white clouds. Rose brand rice eked out between students for their families (Numbi), weighed out forever in fairness. Under tree mother in green sarong, green top, white hat, waits for laden child soon to come. Children line up once more for official sponsorship photo, keeping records straight. One child delves into her newly given bag, pulls out trousers, striped top, hugs them ever so preciously to her slight chest, smiles the biggest smile ever, smiles of happiness, smiles of gratitude, smiles of sweet contentment, love, harmony. Another measures jeans against her thin legs now knowing they will eventually fill the space, eyes the rice in the clear plastic bag, she smiles too. Stuffs her new belongings into her Snow White backpack, eyes the boy beside her and his Ben 10 bag. Tuk tuk sir. In the evening, slightly rested from the heat and the day's giving we rest at L'Osteria, Alley West, Siem Reap. Sea bass, roasted veg with smoked roasted cheese, followed by tiramisu brings smiles to our faces as I treat that hard working B girl in that ancient town. Jazz leaks from the restaurant into the mystic Cambodian chill. And, in the end, my love, her sleek black hair braided and now slightly peppered white, cools from the heat, she is elegant in that alley, radiating love amidst the smell of rosemary and Holy basil, love, joy and peace, Dhamma Baby in all her good deedness, child sponsoring, love giving, special way. She sits opposite and I love her in every way I can and in every way I cannot with my foibles and weaknesses. I love her as she loves Siem Reap in all it's roughness and incompleteness, in all its years and transgressions, tumbling stone, burning heat, Colors and colours and complications. Tuk tuk sir.

And, in the end, trouser belt removing, shoes off, computer tablet in separate plastic carrier moving slowly through metal detector, photographed, and quizzed we are in the departure lounge longing for home in no negative way. Arriving early to palm oil plantations, finger printing, we welcomed back to Malaysia.

Giving in Cambodia

Champagne coconut and enchiladas were served in Viva Mexico as the electricity outage forbade me access to the internet, okay, that's it, right then I knew that I was back in Siem Reap, amidst drawling and drooling Americans. That and the grease-ball in the green tee-shirt, Mid Western American accent and the Khmer child bride, all hiked up on frozen Margaritas and pawing at the smiling waitresses seemed all too familiar, and all too Siem Reap, Cambodia.

The whirring electric fans had eventually given up their battle with the Cambodian winds. Grit flew through the open restaurant. Fans eased to a stop. Lights went out, and somehow the traffic got much much noisier, but my artist wife had soldiered on, sketching, and my step-son diligently, addictedly, watched Manga on his mobile phone.

Winds brought rain, and what rain. Straight falling great goblets of cooling rain, bouncing happy rain,  glad kamikaze rain dive bombing tuk tuks. It was Gene Kelly dancing rain, splattering on sidewalks, bringing melancholy memory. It was a writer's rain, but it was my wife drinking the Angkor beer, not me. The writer's rain sank its teeth into my consciousness, biting chunks of still throbbing thought, tearing off morsels of what could have become morose memory, but didn't. The absence of alcohol and my good sense at not drinking at lunchtime gave me the edge. The Writer's rain was, after all, just rain which slowed to a mere drip. The clouds were still grey, but what could have been a tour d' force became nothing but a damp sarong and a vague memory of a dream and dancing with a blonde.

There was a distinct absence of either Frida or Diego at Viva Mexico. Posada and Siqueiros too were noticeable in their absence, as was any reference to silhouetted skulls, skeletons or any of the paraphernalia of The Day of the Dead. Instead green phallic cacti graced orange walls where fake giant geckos raced after unimaginable insects. It was all a little Quentin Tarrantino, with a dash of David Lynch Blue Velvet, and a whole shake of Siem Reap tourismo, but I enjoyed the quirky delights of pseudo-Tex Mex. But I couldn't get that bloody Beegees song out of my head "..........and the lights all went down in Massachusetts......" 

The very next day, and early morning black coffee at Viva brought us the Siem Reap June quiet. After the night's deluge, the ever present Cambodian dust had returned, and with it the heat. It was an early start. The ever smiling tuk tuk driver was champing at the bit to transport us to Thai Zho School. No pigs on motorcycles this time. The roads at 8.30am were curiously quiet as our vehicle tried to evade the growing number of holes in the road, and mostly failed.

Siem Reap was expanding like my waistline. Thai Zho school was gratefully adding buildings to house the growing secondary population of students. The school needed laptops as well as buildings and injections of cash. That trip we were able to provide another donated laptop, the second so far, with the promise of a third in September. The teachers are in need to upgrade their knowledge, and the school, and begin to move into the 21st C, at least for file keeping and other purely necessary tasks. The great god electricity still evaded most of the classrooms, cooler air was provided only by windows with bars and no glass. Occasionally the swinging wooden shutters slammed in the breeze, blocking the light, making the audience of students outside, jump.

The new Colors of Cambodia teachers aided one teacher in directing students to paint key chains for children's sponsors, and taking Polaroid photos of sponsored students both for record keeping and to share with sponsors. As the day grew hotter I began to wilt. Lack of sleep will do that. I desperately needed a caffeine boost to offset the tiredness. Age can be a bugger some times. I silently prayed for class to finish. I knew that on the trail back there was a small coffee stall, there we could indulge in small shots of the local sweet muddy coffee, espresso style.

As I wrote, a small Khmer child in a remarkably dirt stained white(ish) shirt peered over my shoulder, at the tablet. He and I were both silent. I smiled, turned my writing towards him. He looked, and walked away. Then, suddenly, there he was again, watching as I stabbed the keys with one finger. I had no idea what he was thinking, whether he had seen an iPad before, if what I was doing had any connect with him other than his curiosity. The school was remote and the children's families very poor. Hence the sponsoring in the first place. There was a disconnect, me with my iPad and he with his down-at-heel school uniform. I felt guilty for the minute amount of affluence I had. Sitting at the back of the classroom I was an alien observer. My role had been to record, in still and moving images, the interaction of  Colors of Cambodia with the sponsored students. Can recorders ever remain detached.

Nighttime brought Margaritas, Pimms and the eager cry of "tuk tuk sir", amidst a quite subdued Siem Reap street scene. A day of teaching school children, and the visiting of senior monks in monasteries was behind us. It was a productive day, a day of meeting old friends and peeking into the future, ever so slightly.  A day of guidance and earnest deals struck, a day, perhaps, for the betterment of mankind, or at least those 135 children we help Colors of Cambodia sponsor in Siem Reap.

The off season in Siem Reap is barely bearable. Tourists are at a minimum and the air noticeably cooler. Evenings and night are devoid of the raucousness of the high season. That is when all and his uncle are drunk, loud, and displaying the less decent side of what passes for human nature in tourist towns. My welcome Pimms brought to mind sunny days at Wimbledom, strawberries and the dull thud of racket on ball. A complete contrast to the bloody mosquito filled air of that most popular city in Cambodia. But my Wimbledon days are long since gone as I pondered my expatness in a bizarre mentally linen suited Denholm Elliot sort of way, all mopping brow and dreams of an England that never was.

Piling up years blinds you (literally) to the questionable delights of the local young female population. Not in any Ginsbergian way, no meat denial, no Zen of gayness. But a saving grace gracefully growing older. While it is unquestionably true that many Cambodian young women are attractive in that Apsara, high cheekboned, long black hair way, age in its wisdom inoculates most of us elder males from that particular virus of wanton lust. Maybe it was a sublime Thomas Mann moment. Perhaps I needed a beach and deckchair to appreciate the beauty before me, while two shapely young Khmer young ladies dangled their equally shapely legs in a water-filled trough for small fish to nibble at. I remained largely undisturbed, except to the fact of the number of other feet which may have graced those troughs and whose DNA might have been digested by those very same fish.

Morning hardened, and came, ejaculating a brand new day into the world. Hendrix sang 'if a six turned out to be nine'. In my bleary-eyed, not so cool air-con Cambodian morning I mistook six for eight, shot out of bed and, while evacuating last night's food, I fumbled my iPad to discover my error. I wondered why the alarms had not gone off. Only I was left alarmed, as others remained asleep.

It was to be our last day, that trip, in Siem Reap. We needed to buy ground Vietnamese coffee, as you do and, for that, to breakfast early and rouse our tuk tuk driver from his slumber too. We had a second visit to the school, more Polaroid photos to take and more data to collect visa vie currently sponsored students.

Inside that last sweltering classroom, sweat ran from my arms as I typed. The weather was spoiling for yet another tyrannous downpour. I sat at the back of another class, as my wife and her son distributed paints and key chains for another group to paint for their sponsors. The sky constantly greyed, the heat inside rose as the air stilled. Overcome with the internal heat I went outside to find a breeze, sat in our tuk tuk, gathering my wits and feeling a little less faint.

June, though a wetter month, was nevertheless swelteringly hot. Our driver, taking pity on this old, large, white man brought a most welcome bottle of cold water. As I let the coolness slip down my throat, there was a veritable deluge of children as the morning school session finished. Those children who had bicycles swept upon them to charge from school, those who didn't flip-flopped their rubber slippered ways along the dirt road that led from the school. Bicycles of all colours, including 'Tomorrow's' white which, incidentally, was a ladies bike being manoeuvred by a very small boy, exited from the builder's yard which the school had temporarily become. All over, bicycles had sprung into action amidst mothers on small motor scooters collecting their tiny children, three-up on their machines. I didn't notice any Italian thieves, but steady pumping sounds emanated from the builder's machine promoted a snooze. I closed my eyes...

Exiting Siem Reap airport, security staff uncommonly surly. Nary a smile broke, no eyes lit. Belts and shoes taken, passports scanned at X-ray belt, once happy Apsara dancing, lotus positioned graceful people grunting, stressed. Maybe the price of tourism is too high.  

In Quest of Kuala Lumpur's Museum of Ethnic Arts

The city was Kuala Lumpur, the market was Central, the day sunny and a Friday. It was morning and our students, some parents and teachers, eagerly mounted a big yellow bus (not taxi) and trundled towards the city and its paved paradise. Students and parents twittered like birds at the back of the bus, for most of our brief journey and, having circumvented the wearisome traffic, we finally alighted at Pasar Seni (aka Central Market). 

Central Market, which is hardly central and really no longer a market, was originally named the Big Market (Pasar Besar), and had been a meeting place in Kuala Lumpur since its inception in 1888. The current freshly painted building was built in the time of the British (1937), in a rectangular Art Deco style, and has grown from a genuine meeting place to an over blown tourist trap, replete with severely hiked prices and quickly made ‘antiques’. But Kuala Lumpur’s main Central Market was not our destination, its annex was.

Having taken the obligatory group photo, all fake smiles and bunny ears, we herded our young teen flock around the main thoroughfare of Central Market, past psychedelic lampshades made of hardened plastic and figurines of red behatted Chinese Cultural revolution icons. We stopped for a desert which was, seemingly, unavailable (as we were too early at 10.30am). Instead we bought ‘antique’ postcards freshly Photoshoped and dot matrix printed. Then we leapt merrily up the stairs, not to Bedfordshire but to the second floor of the annex, to pay our respects to all things vaguely tribal.

Leonard Yiu, the proprietor, curator and chief collector for the Museum of Ethnic Arts was unable to meet with us on this occasion. Leonard was probably halfway up some long forgotten river in Indonesia seeking El Dorado, Atlantis or the lost continent of Mu with Professor Challenger and Allan Quartermain, making our bus journey seem a tad less than heroic. Nevertheless, going into Leonard’s museum, officially called Art House Gallery, Museum of Ethnic Arts (lot 3.04 & 3.05) was like entering into another (lost) world.

A stern Indonesian wooden statue greeted us, all pointy breasts and big ears. The label indicated that she was of a ‘goddess’ from Nias Island, but she was obviously having an off day, or maybe resented the intrusion of our school children into her relative peace and quiet, as her mouth scowled and her eyes were less than friendly.

Masks galore filled ancient wooden boxes, walls, showcases. Yellow and red seemed to dominate, though a couple of very white masks had been made to represent the intrusion of the white man into tribal lands and culture. Those masks were not terribly flattering, but gave our group of Chinese school children a double-take and a damn good laugh. Many masks seemed Balinese, with the characteristic bulging eyes or long pointed noses of demons, perhaps a remnant of the Ramayana plays. I thought I saw a Hanuman (Monkey God) mask, but it was brown instead of the characteristic green or white, and there was no label.

Our Sarawakian guide pointed out various shaman accoutrements lurking in the museum’s shadows including, yes you guessed it, yet more masks. Masks are a big thing amongst the indigenous peoples of Indonesia, though many now are made to be sold to enquiring tourists. 

One smaller girl was a little fascinated by postcards of half naked tribal women from Borneo. You could see the questions framing themselves in her mind, “why don’t they have clothes of their tops” or “Isn’t this a little pervy” etc. But I carefully explained the difference in cultures, and that in many other societies it was as natural for them to wear less clothes as it is for us to wear more. Her frown and wry smile held some doubts. Luckily there were no photos of Papua New Guinea (Kombai or Korowai) penis gourds.

The pièce de résistance was the iniquitous carved monkey skull, which our guide held up for the children to be in awe of. The skull grinned a ghastly grin, all long browning incisors and hollowed eye sockets. It was gruesomely held aloft by a rattan handle, which only seemed to add to the overall macabreness of that particular object. And, like all good things it had to come to an end.

The children had a very brief insight into the worlds of the indigenous tribes still inhabiting Malaysia and Indonesia; tribes who had subsisted there long before the children’s Chinese ancestors had appeared, or the Malays who now profess to lay claim to a land they have, in fact, only borrowed from those who have a much earlier claim. 

Chinese Dumplings

"They're not dumplings", I said knowingly! "Dumplings are sort of round and squishy, they belong in stews, beef or lamb, they stick to your ribs in the cold English weather, give you a warm coating to protect you from the full awfulness of the British weather. Dumplings, real dumplings are made with suet, flour and a pinch of salt. Some, the posher ones, have dried herbs". I took a deep breath.

"These things are parcels. Chinese parcels, wrapped with bamboo leaves containing a whole host of things which does not include suet. Chinese parcels, loosely called dumplings by the unknowing some, are made with two types of rice, have pork, chestnuts, dried prawns and all sorts of goodies to fill eager starving tummies. They, in no way, resemble those gooey lumps found loosely associating with over boiled lamb, demolished potatoes and disintegrated barley."

I was in high dudgeon. I was on my high horse, which was standing on a soap box and I was getting very bloody annoyed at the whole misnomer. I was irrational, true, but I was making a point.

 "Chinese parcels are not dumplings". 

It was like the whole bloody turkey bacon saga all over again, or that of the non-alcoholic beer. What next, non-pork pork and non-alcoholic alcohol?

 "Other things are Chinese dumplings. Things that are made of pastry. Things that are fried and dunked in vinegar with ginger strips, or steamed with minced pork and chives inside, or boiled with long flowing tresses of wet pastry trailing like Won Ton but much, much larger. Chinese dumplings surface in Dim Sum eateries, alongside Siu Mai, steamed ribs, feet of chickens and wide rice flour made noodles called Cheong Fun, which fairly drip with flavour (not to mention hoisin sauce) and are hauled around on shaky, rambling, trolleys in restaurants in London’s China Town."

We British have translation problems when we try to talk about Chinese Dumplings. We are out of our depth, out of our culture, lost amidst a veritable ocean of succulent Chinese morsels, each being called dumplings by we foreigners who know no difference. And, be honest, which would you choose - Chinese parcels, which are called Chang (Chung) or dumplings, soggy English dumplings. Chinese dumplings are dumplings but tastier than any from British cooks. They far out strip our humble British dumplings which swim, but most likely sinking, in stews like those of my dear departed mother; thin, lifeless stews, stews existing purely to make her robust dumplings buoyant.

Yes, you guessed it, it's that time of year again in Malaysia. A time of remembrance of ancient Chinese poets and their sacrifices for Emperor, and country. A time of dragon races and over eating, and yes I know that just about every week there is an excuse for that in Malaysia, but this is a time honoured tradition so, of course, I have to comply don't I, don’t I?.

June is a time when, once again, Chinese sons and daughters return home to help ageing relatives consume those heaps of Chinese, bamboo-leaf-wrapped, parcels that loving relatives have tenderly made for their eagerly returning kin. Let's face it, anything concerned with food is practically sacred in Malaysia, and more so if you are Chinese. Chinese love to eat, they live to eat, they long to eat. The 'Dumpling Festival' provides a Spring excuse to consume weighty amounts of rice and meat filled parcels, until consumers can consume no more and have to remain  seated, bloated, unable to rise from the table.

Home-made parcels are simply the best. They are fragrantly imbued with all those family and cultural heritage tastes/remembrances. It is that poignant combination of culture, memory and a full stomach which entices sons and daughters to return 'home', dragged away by cultural consciences from that other Chinese love -that of making money. 

THURSDAY

It was Thursday, day of Thor, hammer of the gods and general show off. It was the third day of the domestic dispute with she who shall remain nameless. The day after two sleepless nights sleeping solo, waking tired after frustrating dreams of nubile nymphets and, seemingly, a lot of running around. Freud would have enjoyed all this.

The non-appearance of breakfast and lunch, and dare I say diner too (the day before), which never have appeared magically as they have in some marriages, prompted me to quickly shower and walk, yes walk as I have no car thanks to a vindictive former spouse, to the Indian eatery some 15 hot minutes away, and have breakfast.

“Where's aka” (sister) the waitress asked. I wanted to tell her, but only muttered not here, then added (soto voce) and not likely to be in the near future either. I ordered my usual masala dosa and my not so usual sweet lassi. Perhaps there was a tad rebelliousness oozing out with that Lassi. Perhaps I was saying yes, I know that I usually order coffee or masala tea, but I am on my own and I will order what I like, hence sweet lassi, and contemplated what to do about lunch.

The weather was way too hot to consider another jaunt out at lunchtime, so I entertained the idea of buying the raw ingredients, and cooking for myself. It would be no real hardship as I have done that so many times before, and a sheer joy after the tasteless instant noodles I ended up throwing out the day before.

O.K. if you really must know. If the private details of my marriage are really that interesting to you who know me little, if at all. The altercation was, as is the case more often than not, nothing, a trifle without the sweetness, jelly, custard and cream. But it led to my first sleepless night, sleeping alone, the first day of being sent to Coventry or the Malaysian equivalent,  and a day of barely any food (there will be wives smiling great big smiles right about now, having read this). Any one of these petty annoyances would have been grounds for further strife, but all three, in my tiny male mind, signalled an all out war.

Lysistrata and those bloody ancient Greek wives have much to answer for. Several weeks of an entirely different kind of starvation was beginning to take its toll hence, I guess, the fruity dreams and the longer gazes at be-shorted legs of by-passing Chinese women (of which there are plenty in Malaysia).

It is difficult to describe to anyone who has not been married to a Chinese Malaysian wife, what differences there might be cross culturally between a white Anglo-Saxon male and a Chinese Malaysia woman. It has been muted that the Chinese are the Jews of Asia, but that is performing a grave disservice to all peoples of Yiddish ancestry.  No other race has the sheer, unadulterated zest, zeal and undying love for money as the Malaysian Chinese have.

That was where it all had started, two sleepless nights and several celibate days ago, an argument over money, not the first and probably not the last. The cultural differences being, basically, that my Chinese wife is very, very careful with money (a trait she has inherited from her shopkeeper parents), while I have never been burdened with having enough to worry about!

I trudged to Giant (Tescos but seedier), bought the necessary accoutrements for a lamb curry, and walked back home a little heavier and dripping with sweat from unaccustomed exercise. On arrival I mooched to the kitchen, to place plastic bags full of goodies onto our pretentious glass kitchen table and, behold, there was a bowl of freshly made pasta butterflies, and a second bowl of creamy sauce. All my anger and disappointment simply melted away. Ahhhhh, she did care after all. Stupid man!! I was saved the trouble of food preparation and cooking. Saved the potato peeling, saved the constant checking to see if my dry curry was too dry, and burning.

I put the lamb in the freezer for another day. Well, you never know! 

Summer Soundtrack

The precise sounds of any singular summer are a little hazy but, suffice to say, it was some amalgam of years in an era between 1967 (the Summer of Love) and, perhaps, 1970 (when the world ended with The Beatles split). 

A summer soundtrack might begin with Fleetwood Mac's Albatross, first heard on an ancient tape deck when heading into Margate for the very first time, car windows open and seagulls weaving wonders in a white cloud dotted sky. Or, alternatively, on listening to Canned Heat's On the Road Again springing siren like from the bakerlite radio at the bookbinder's where I was apprenticed and, within a month or two, was heading out in a ramshackle rusty Land Rover Defender, to join a 'Hippy' commune in Yorkshire, and imagining us to be Merry Pranksters, me to be Kerouac.

Mungo Jerry's In the Summertime would spin its magic from my 'Victorian' reel to reel tape deck, or bounce with vinyl warp on a portable record deck through an open window, while a much slimmer I would pose all in black, sunglasses and beret included, for Polaroid images which would fade with time, to blues and browns, and I too would encounter blues and browns in turbulent post-teen times.

Inevitably it would be a time of Hyde Park Free Concerts, so maybe that sublime soundtrack would include Blind Faith, Donovan, Roy Harper, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones, as well as several thousand 'Heads' chattering to real and imaginary friends, all doped up and being dopey like dopes in the days of kaftans, beads, bells and flowers. Dylan and The Isle of White escaped me, as did the paid concerts, for they needed the money I never seemed to have. I consoled myself with bootlegs, tape recordings and second hand vinyl, bought cheaply.

Wild (Mushroom) Sunday

cold drip coffee

 It was a wild (mushroom) Sunday. We had trundled off in the April showers, to Shah Alam, Selangor, just outside of Kuala Lumpur. Our friends had invited us to try their family's specialist coffee and bakery 'bistro' aptly named Brew&Bake. It was conveniently sandwiched between a multitude of 'local' restaurants and ‘kopitiams' (Malaysian Chinese style coffee houses).

Brew&Bake roast their own coffee beans. Some beans are Indonesian, some coffee beans are from Central America (Brazil). Brew&Bake’s vaguely impressive coffee roaster sits in a small, glass partitioned, room fragranced with delicious coffee aromas. A handsome, impressively polite and well-groomed nephew accompanied his father in explaining the roasting process, and pointed to their Dutch coffee roasting machine.

We were also pointed (literally) to the cold drip coffee filter where, surprisingly enough, cold coffee dripped achingly slowly into a glass container. In England cold coffee would have been sent back to the kitchen, but in these equatorial climes cold coffee was all the rage. Cold drip or cold brew coffee is also known as Dutch coffee where coffee beans are soaked in water for 12 to 18 hours. The cold dripping lowers the coffee’s acidity. The owner, Pua Kim Guan, insisted that the result was a deluxe coffee, with a distinctly whiskey taste. The cold coffee was high octane caffeine fuelled, black and decidedly precious looking, but whiskey it wasn't. It was a hit, but a kid glove tap compared to some, and pleasant enough drunk without unnecessary additives - milk or sugar. I forewent the obligatory ice and would have preferred a more robust coffee taste.

the coffee

A credibly creamy soup was delicately flavoured with wild mushroom, while our Waldorf (poached) Egg sat atop yet more wild mushrooms and was dribbled with Hollandaise sauce (a la Eggs Benedict). Some, of course, say that the sauce should be brown mushroom sauce if it were to follow the 1918 recipe for Eggs Waldorf, but it was Malaysia, the equator, not New York. 

It was a surfeit of snacks and myriad coffee followed by a non-alcoholic tiramisu, and yes there is such a thing, sadly, in the nether lands of this politically, racially and religiously confused country. The total tiramisu was tasty enough but it was, as my British contemporaries might say, all mouth and no trousers without the alcohol.

I was overtly over-snacked at Brew&Bake, but some of our party were still hankering for some more traditional Malaysia fare. We wandered along to try Mr Pua's other restaurant in the area, Kheng’s Kopitiam (named after his wife’s family), which was but a few steps along the same covered walkway. There they, not I, gorged on Nasi Lemak, Rendang, noodles and a whole host of authentic 'kopitiam' food, drink and desserts. All hints of wildness, wildlings and wildernesses were over, as we all became satisfyingly satiated and therefore timely tamed.

Something To Get All Steamed Up About

It was Sunday. We had finished work late, and yes may all the Saints preserve us, I do have to work on a Sunday. I fancied a burger, my wife was a little upset that I didn't fancy her too, but it was lunch on my mind, not lust, so we drove to Setia Walk, Puchong, and strove to find the long advertised Steam n Grill Burger.

Find it we did, eventually, after wandering Setia Walk until I for one was eager and quite willing to give up. It was a severe case of location, location location - a common real estate cry, and doubly true in Setia Walk, where it is difficult enough to locate specific enterprises with its meandering lack of signage. Sadly, I had tried for a number of weeks to find Steam n Grill Burger, and this day was about to give up when I was chivvied on by my wife, to try one last time, and find it we did, in an area of Setia Walk we had never before ventured. It is a pity that that particular eatery is so difficult to locate, as the not-so-fast-food (100% natural yeast) outlet has everything going for it - design, style, taste, attentiveness of staff, all things right except for location and that dreaded tasteless music which I could have easily done without.

In my great optimism, and ever in search for the great, not just the good, burger, like some cartoon side-kick to a sea-faring spinach eater, I had plumped for the Double Special beef burger - think Burger King Double Whopper and then a whole lot more, and healthier. I had a wholemeal bun out of a choice of four bun types. It was, honestly, one of the best (halal) burgers I've tasted yet, and was so reminiscent of those long lost great burgers from the Swiss Centre, Trafalgar Square, London in days of yore. Unfortunately, the contemporary music in Steam n Grill Burger grated on my nerves to the degree that I had to ask for it to be turned down, which the staff did.

The choice of 'bun' was a nice idea, while I chose wholemeal, my wife charcoal, my step-son had the original. My beef was succulent and authentic enough, not at all hard or compacted like some other burger establishments. There was sauce enough to drip the length of my arm and lettuce enough to pretend that I had a wholesome meal. A graphic on the wall read - THINK BURGER IS FAST FOOD JUST THINK AGAIN, and suggested that the meals were not fast, in a good kind of way, I might agree. Cutlery was absent, but might have been a good idea for those of us taking the larger (double) burger, just to prevent the copious drips and splashes from a hand held meal. Luckily I had my trusty backpack with me and, inside, a pack of wet-wipes just handy for such occasions.  

Burgers finished, and having been seduced by the large ice cream counter, my wife had brought back a heart shaped confection. A small boy appeared as if by magic. “Hello beautiful lady is that a tasty ice cream I see in your hand”. Those words were not actually spoken, but the four year old Chinese boy chatting to my wife had this huge thought bubble above his head, as his eyes swivelled between my wife's face, and her hand containing the ice cream. Her strawberry and lychee iced dream became eaten down to the stick. My wife's new love affair appeared ended no sooner than it had begun.  We never saw that small boy again. It was obviously an all one-sided affair, based upon desire and not the knowledge of intimacy. My wife had never actually proffered her heart (shaped confectionary), much to her young suitor’s disappointment.

All in all Steam n Grill Burger is a delight to go to, but a little expensive. It is a luxury burger outlet in one of the up-and-coming mini-malls in Puchong, just outside of Kuala Lumpur, and a worthy one too. My budget will not allow too many Double Special beef burgers a month and, maybe, that is a good thing too.