Archive for the 'Malaysia' Category

I have been posting occasional posts by my father about his Memories of Malaya. He celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year and recently found time to write another piece for the family about our family traditions in the time of British rule over Malaya. He writes his memories as an email to our family, who are spread out all over the world, and I edit and share the ones which have a wider general interest here on Fusion View.

While my mother’s side of the family are staunch Methodist Christians, my father’s side of the family comes from a Buddhist tradition. I grew up going to Sunday School and reading Bible stories so it’s really interesting for me to learn more about the traditions from the other side of the family.

He writes:

British rule

I grew up in Malaysia and until I was in my late teens in 1957 the country was one of the many British colonial possessions. There were roughly two kinds of colonial possessions, one, a colony and the other a British protected possession. The first is ruled directly from Whitehall and the other is one where the local chieftain or sultan had entered into a treaty with the British Government where the former had asked for British protection usually against other local chieftains, sultans or neighbouring states. The British Government then sent a British Adviser to help in the administration of the local chieftain or sultan. He would also set up the administrative institutions and infrastructure not unlike those of a colony and for practical purpose the country was administered like that of a colony. Examples of a colony were Singapore, Penang, Malacca, Hong Kong etc. Malaya is an example of the second type. The empire had not only a vast mix of racial types who spoke their own languages practised their own customs and worshipped their own gods. In all these respects British colonial policy was benign. There was no compulsions of any kind: the natives and immigrants need not go to English language schools, worship the Christian god in the manner of the Anglicans nor eat with knife and forks nor dress in suites. They did interfere to do away with inhuman customs or practices like widow burning or slavery. The policy of generally not interfering with local family laws, customs and cultural practices prevailed. The British must have adopted these policies from the examples of the Romans in their dealings with their empire. There was therefore little serious social or political tension in the possessions they ruled.

Taoists

In our households like most Chinese household who were not Christians, we were actually Taoists although without very clear thinking we regarded and called ourselves Buddhists. We worshipped various gods and goddesses with an altar and little statuettes of each of them. I do not think we were even pure Taoist although to this day I do not know what Taoism is. A Buddhist generally means a person who follows Buddha’s teachings and there is no image or statuettes and no worship other then paying respect to a statuette or painting of Buddha in the usual eastern way of paying respect, by kneeling and the bowing to them. I will continue to refer to ourselves as Buddhists although by this it is really the kind of Taoism I have described above.

Daily rituals

There were certain daily rituals to be performed. In the morning after my Mother or the servant, Ah Hoe Chey (AHC) had done their morning toilet, they would place one joss stick for one deity into a bowl filled with a kind of grey powder which held the joss stick in upright position and would kneel with hands clasped bowed to each deity in turn.

The gods and goddesses were placed in a row on a long altar table and going from left to right they were the following:

1. the “Heavenly Emperor”: there is no image of Him. I think he rules the heaven;
2. the Warrior God (Kuan Kong): He was not a god to help people to fight wars like the Roman god, Mars. In his life on earth he was a warrior in the classical period of Chinese history; after his death, a cult arose in paying respect to him and sometimes people who did so also asked for favours and they were granted and he became deified like some Roman emperors although there is no record of a dead emperor granting any favours. There was a painting of him in his warrior robes famously with tucked up eye brows with a red face with two lieutenants standing beside him.
3. the Goddess of Mercy (Koong Yum): She was a human at one time who did a lot of good deeds and was known for her filial piety. Her life was portrayed in a film version with a famous Chinese star playing her part and there was a scene where she was shown to pluck out her own eyes to use them to cure her mother. Again she was deified after her death because she still performed good deeds in her answers to prayers. There was a small statuette of her made of white porcelain looking serene and benign, like a caring and loving mother.
4. next to her there was the Monkey God. There was a little statuette of him dressed in a yellow robe in the style of the classical Chinese time but with the face of a monkey. I do not know what his position is in the pantheon. I think it arose as follows: there is a Chinese legend that a Chinese monk traveled to India to receive the Buddhist scriptures and his traveling companions included two persons one with feature of a pig and the other a monkey and the legend is full of stories of their adventures in their journey to India. He must be the one with the features of a monkey. Because of this god in our house we would not use the ordinary word of monkey “ma lau” but a more polite word.

There was a small altar at the foot of the altar table. I do not know what god is represented there. There is the god of the kitchen who had a small altar over the kitchen stoves. He reports to the Heavenly Emperor at the end of each Chinese calendar year on the deeds of the household. On most mornings either Mother or AHC would chant prayers from a prayer book and this lasted about fifteen minutes.

First and fifteenth

On the first and fifteenth day of each Chinese calendar month the worship of these deities were a little more elaborate in that the appropriate temples must be visited and worship conducted there. The more religious minded, like Mother and AHC, would not eat meat for the two days. The temples would provide free vegetarian food for these two days for anyone who attended them whether they worshipped or not. In addition to joss sticks, joss papers were burnt.

Feast days

In addition to the daily prayers most Chinese also celebrate other feast days many of which were not religious but involved the cycles of the earth around the sun. The first major festival in the calendar is the Spring Festival or more usually known as Chinese New Year. Like all humanity it is a celebration of the beginning of new life - wearing of new clothes, cleaning house so that it looks new, wishing good fortune for the New Year. In our household we children wanted presents left near where we slept like on Christmas Eve. So we had Mother to give us presents in this manner. In one year Mother gave us a small magnifying glass to complement our stamp collection and packets of stamps and fountain pens. Father did not have relationship with his relatives except his elder brother. Mother was the only child. So we had no relatives to have to visit except Father’s elder brother and two ladies whom, like all Chinese, we call aunts although we were not related but were only Mother’s friends. We therefore received very few red packets and were impressed when some of school friends who related the amount they received. For the first day of the Chinese New Year even we children ate vegetarian and AHC made some delicious vegetarian food. When we grew up in secondary school Father would allow us to see any number of film shows for the two days of holidays. Normally we were allowed to see one film a week. So we packed as many as 3 shows into a day.

There was the mid-summer celebration which occurs on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar. This is a harvest festival and the moon is supposed to be at its biggest and brightest. Children would stroll around the garden of their houses holding lighted lanterns.

There is the day the winter solstice is celebrated when everyone eats little dough balls cooked in sugared water with ginger. I personally did not like them but Mother did very much.

There is All Souls Day where families go to the graves of parents or grandparents to pay their respects and render filial piety by cutting grass and sweeping away rubbish around the graves. About 14 days are given for this duty. I feel very touched when I see photographs of cemeteries filled with the Chinese doing this. I know of several persons who have travelled from as far as Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to perform this duty and I have just heard a few days ago that a friend traveled from Hong Kong where he worked to do this duty.

Cowherd and the weaver girl

There is one particularly romantic festival and it occurs on the seventh day of the seven month in the Chinese calendar. It is the festival of the “Cowherd and the weaver girl.” A long time ago there was a cowherd who tended the cows and a girl who weaved cloth. They were so enamoured and spent time mooning over each other that they neglected their chores. The gods became angry at this and separated them and permitted them only to meet for that one day in a year on the rainbow bridge and it is this that the earthlings now celebrate. I think this would make a splendid opera. Imagine the last scene where the young couple meets on a rainbow bridge singing duets of love and longing and below on earth the people dance and sing in celebration of the meeting. Opera composers have always included one scene where there is a lot of spirited music and vigorous dancing and this can be it and be a very fine one too.

There are other festivals but regrettably I cannot remember them.

Deity of little children

When we children celebrated our birthdays we had to worship a very old lady deity whose altar was at the end of our bed. She looks after little children. When I use the word “worship,” I mean that one would kneel put our palms together and bow three times to the altar and if Mother or Grandmother is standing beside us she will prompt us to say “make me a good and filial boy and help me to be successful in the examinations.” To celebrate I had a bowl of rice and as a treat I was given the thigh of a roasted duck all of it for myself. I remember eating it by myself holding it by the bone and it was a treat not to have to eat together as usual with the family. Even then the birthday was not celebrated every year - only when Mother, Grandmother or AHC remembered it.

Photo: thanks to limeydog on flickr.com

memmlya

While we were on holiday in Crete recently, we spent many long, lazy dinners at the tavernas in our little mountain village. The tavernas spread their tables out in the open air under a light bamboo canopy or a shelter naturally woven from grape vines. Looking up at the stars beyond, we could see the nascent grapes begin to bulge on their tiny stems.

After the meal, we would sit back, stuffed on barbeque lamb or pork chops and baclava. They would then bring us a complimentary fruit basket and a small carafe of Raki on the house.

Raki is a clear colourless spirit, like vodka and seems to be a local speciality which the taverna proudly served us with a flourish. You pour it from the chilled carafe into small thimble shot glasses and knock it back. And feel the burn.

It made me think of arak, a clear colourless spirit, like vodka, that is drunk in Malaysia. I wonder whether how Raki found its way to Malaya (as it would have been back then in the past) from Crete to evolve into arak. Or perhaps it travelled from Malaya to Crete? Most likely, it would have been through the traders from the Middle East, just a short hop East from Crete and regular visitors to Malaya and Indonesia many centuries ago - and who still have a strong connection with modern Malaysia. And both Crete and Malaya in that distant time were hubs in major trading routes from East to West.

I savoured the strong aromatic alcohol burning my palate as I enjoyed this unexpected global connection. It was not my favourite taste - rather like medicine, or even methlyated spirits. Still, I toasted the ancient international adventurers and took another acrid sip.

Photo: thanks to AcornMan at virtualtourist.com

The prize draw to win a copy of Lydia Teh’s “Honk! If You’re Malaysian” is now closed.

The winners of the draw, picked at random from the Fusion View email subscribers list, are:

rijac

hom

charlotte

The above are first names only, taken from their email addresses, so that their privacy is respected. I have emailed them to let them know.

Thanks to everyone who has subscribed to Fusion View!

Yang-May

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KL like you’ve never seen it before - from the eyes of base jumpers who leapt of that tall flying saucer tower that I can’t remeber the name of.

Breathtaking! Extreme! Crazy!

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I came across this via http://www.kualalumpurishome.com - so thanks to them for the heads up on it.

The durian is a South East Asian fruit that is so stinky it is banned from airplanes and smart hotels. The smell lingers like a bad fart combined with the ripest blue chees and crusty hard fetid socks that have been worn for weeks in hot humid weather without a change. Mmmmmm! I bet that’s made your mouth water.

But that’s what Asians - and in particular, Malaysians - love about the fruit. The smell is hideous. But as you eat the sticky, custardy, soft flesh, the taste is aromatic and sweet and creamy. And then you have to live with the most dreadful halitosis rotting sewer breath for hours on end.

So some smart guy has come up with a variety of durian that doesn’t smell. Thai scientist Songpol Somsri apparently spent 30 years of his life researching this project, according to the Seattle Times. The article goes on to say that in Malaysia, durian is prized as an aphrodisiac and a farmer is quoted as saying, “If the durian doesn’t have a strong smell the customer only pays one-third the price.”

I picked up this story from Seth Godin, the marketing guru, who uses it to make a great analogy for marketers who try to fix what they perceive as a problem - by focusing on the people who are not buying the product. So marketers aim to fix the problems in order to get the non-buyers to become buyers - in the meantime, destroying the key qualities that the enthusiastic existing buyers rave about and thereby turning away their core customers.

Personally I’m not a great fan and whenever my family have a great durian feast, I have to keep my distance from them all when we’re chatting afterwards! Still, it seems unnatural and sacriligeous to be tampering with the distinctive quality that makes a durian a durian. I’m not sure I’d eat more durian if I was offered the non-stinky variety - the taste and texture of the eating experience just doesn’t do it for me. I’m much more of a mango fan and I’d choose mango over any other fruit any day. So I guess I’m inclined to agree with Seth. What’s the point of a non-stinky durian if the core customers don’t want it - and neither do the ones who never wanted it in the first place?

Photo: thanks to the Seattle Times

Those of a sensitive nature should turn away now.

The one thing I’d always found challenging in Malaysia was the state of the public toilets. They used to be dank, damp, stinky and just plain traumatic. You’d only go if you were really desparate and would otherwise hold on for dear life until you got home. And if you did have to go, you’d try not to touch anything, look at anything and you’d hold your breath until stars flashed in your eyes.

This last trip I made back to Malaysia, I was completely captivated by the public loos. It began at KL International Airport (”The Best Airport in the World” according to the banners that greet you as you get off the plane - and I’m inclined to agree). The ladies room there were clean, sleek, bright and shiny with auto-flush toilets, lots of loo roll, soap and paper towels. Then in the malls where I was speaking at a number of book events, the toilets were lovely and sweet-smelling, with bright, clean surfaces and shiny tiles. And practically everywhere I went after that, the public toilets just exuded luxury and glamour.

Someone told me that these delights didn’t just happen on their own and that the Minister of Tourism issued an edict to the nation to get their toilets in order for Visit Malaysia Year. Can that be true? Or is it just an urban myth? At any rate, in my view, if anything tells you that Malaysia is a nation that’s achieved world-class success, it’s the state of its public toilets.

I was so horrified and appalled when I arrived back in the UK. The ladies toilets at Heathrow were the first to greet me and they were tatty, dirty, badly stocked and unkempt. Everywhere I go now in London, I find myself comparing the toilets to the joys of the Malaysian loos.

Pic: thanks to techno-impressionist.com

When I met Lydia Teh for lunch in Kuala Lumpur, we went to Delifrance in one of the many malls - a chain of cafes selling French-style pastries and coffee. In the UK, the equivalent is Delice de France and it sells croissants and chocalate or almond croissants with savoury flavours such as Chicken Feuillette or Ham and Cheese Croissant.

In the KL Delifrance, I was tickled and delighted to find Green Curry Feuillette and Beef Rendang Feuillette, the ultimate in fusion food. I had the Green Curry Feuillette and it was spicy and yummy, the combination of curry and flaky pastry reminding me of curry puffs.

If you know of any other fusion foods like this, do email me or add a comment!

When I was in Kuala Lumpur at the end of February, it was Chinese New Year and when my Mum and I popped into Standard Chartered Bank to get some cash, we found ourselves surrounded by lions dancing to a crashing, deafening beat of cymbals and drums.

The dance troupe were making their rounds of the KL city banks and financial institutions, their ritual intended to bestow luck and prosperity on their hosts. We watched with delight and amazement. I kept thinking how one would never see this in a UK bank!

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Photos: thanks to Miss Sun Piu Yee of Standard Chartered Bank, Kuala Lumpur who kindly emailed me these pics.

It was only one week. I was in KL for only one week. And yet, I seem to have got very round and chubby from all the eating I did.

My parents and I spent much of the time trying to work out which restaurants I absolutely had to go and eat at. I only had a limited number of mealtimes in my week - lunch and dinner times 7 days equal 14 meals only! I needed to maximise them efficiently - rather like the best 5 Malaysian books to bring back with me in my suitcase, I had to identify the best 14 meals to have.

Let me say that of those 14 meals, the ones below ranked in the top 3:

Pic 1: Roast Suckling Piggy at Green View Restaurant, Petaling Jaya. Crispy, crunchy pork crackling to die for!

Pic 2: Giant prawns in chilli and garlic sauce, also at Green View. The pic is a bit blurry as I was too excited by the site of them! Each one was larger than my hand and full of succulent, tasty flesh.

Pic 3: The best “char siu” (barbecued pork) in the world, with roast duck, curry chicken, sour spicy vegetable and “archar” (curry pickle) at Siew Ngap Fei, Pudu. In London, the char siu is usually dyed red to con you into thinking it’s barbecued but here, it is truly barbecued with a caramelly, crunchy juicy crust. I used up two lunches eating here!

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A while back, I asked Sharon Bakar, the KL- based creative writing teacher, to recommend 5 books by Malaysian authors for me to take back with me to London when I went out to Malaysia for my week’s visit. She put the question to the readers of her blog and local readers and writers recommended a whole range of books. I limited it to 5 books in my request as that hopefully focused everyone on the best books that they could think of. I printed out their list and after one of my book events at an MPH bookstore while I was in KL, I bought the following books - in the end, more than 5 books after all!

A Malaysian Journey by Rehman Rashid - a personal memoir of one man’s journey to discover his homeland. The second edition has just come out, self-published by Rehman. In his introduction to the second edition, he writes movingly about how the success of the book co-incided with the collapse of his marriage and disasters in his journalism career. He had to bring the second edition out himself because no local publisher would touch it, due to elements of the subject matter. I have only just started reading it -he writes very well and evokes Malaysia vividly - and I am intrigued as to what elements in the book caused him such difficulty.

Silverfish New Writing 6 - a collection of short stories by various writers with a Malaysian connection. Some live abroad and others are Westerners living in Malaysia. The standard of writing is very high and the sense of place is stronger than in a number of the other short story collections I’ve come across. and I have been enjoying all the stories I’ve read so far.

This End of the Rainbow by Adibah Amin - a novel by a prominent Malaysian writer and columnist. I haven’t started it yet.

Dark City by Xeus aka Lynette Kwan - a collection of dark and macabre short stories. They are well-written and very readable though the first story made me a bit queasy with it’s graphic and detailed description of sexual abuse and rape, which for an Asian writer is pretty daring, I would say. Xeus has now turned editor and is calling for submissions of dark stories from other Malaysian writers for a second collection Dark City 2 - visit her blog to find out more. The one thing I’d like to see more of in these writings is a greater sense of place, a sense of Malaysia’s city/ cities as places which perhaps are characters in these dark stories or which may contribute to the darkness within the souls of the people who wander through these stories.

Write Out Loud - this was actually a gift by one of the short story writers whose story is in this collection, Ted Mahsun, a Fusion View regular reader and commenter. His surreal story about a a blender being rescued by alien electrical goods made me smile in its charming absurdity. Again, it would be good to get more of a sense that the stories in this collection are taking place in Malaysia - there is a feeling of generic “anyplace” about them which for me weakens their uniqueness as Malaysian stories.

Honk! if You’re Malaysian by Lydia Teh - this was a gift from the author when we met for lunch the other day. She has donated three copies for the Fusion View prize draw and generously added a fourth as my personal copy.

Photo: thanks to stockport.gov.uk