Open Faithed

I genuinely felt happy about working in a multi-cultural environment, for or with people from different ethnic backgrounds who are mostly in their 20s. Waheeda was the Quality POC. She wore a white veil with subtle embroideries. The Quality Specialists were Jesvinder, - a Punjabi in a red Turban, Nickesh – a Hindu who supported the football club Arsenal, and Adrian – who was Chinese in ethnicity but we didn’t touch upon his religion.

They asked if I was Chinese and I said I was Filipino. I believe, I am Roman Catholic.

Punjabi, Hindi, Muslim, Buddhist?, and Catholic --- we all spoke the same boring call center lingo. They took me to the Rasa Sayang and Kedai Mamak that every corner in KL seemed to have.

In the Philippine office – the closest you’ll come to religious diversity would be:

1.) Catholic/Christian
2.) INC
3.) El Shaddai
4.) Born Again
5.) Dating Daan
6.) Loyal Noranian Fans Club (Pasay Chapter) since 1975.

Rookie Mistakes: Look (to your) Right.

In a right-hand drive city, you always come close to death when crossing the streets. Looking to the right may save your life. Moreover, escalators are on opposite sides. Groceries are at the top floor instead of the ground. The bowling alley is also in the top floors.

Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak is omnipresent in practically all eating places and establishments in KL. “Nasi” is fragrant rice, and “Lemak” is literally fat. It’s served with a salty-spicy red sauce, along with roasted peanuts and anchovies. It can come in a plate or shaped like a triangle in a banana leaf and brown paper.

It can be eaten anytime of the day. It’s sold in a fancy “Restoran,” by street vendors in sidewalks, and in 7-11s.

I remember asking one of the colleagues at work, Nickesh, what local food I should eat, he said: “Nasi Lemak, you can’t go wrong there.”

He’s probably right.

KL-style Lazy Sunday

After shopping for D.’s gifts, writing at a Coffee Bean kiosk and local food lunch at restaurant called Little Penang, John and I sit by the beach chairs at the poolside. I listened to a lot of the laid-back and ambient “Hotel” by Moby while reading a book.

The book is a recent local publication, a first edition called “New Malaysian Essays.” Bookstores have such power over me and I got this for RM30 at the Kinokuniya. I even got myself a set of Moleskine journals.

Profoundly amused by the interestingly-written book, I got a gist of contemporary issues in Malaysia. It’s also a taste of their critical writing, and other cultural idiosyncrasies that you don't pick up from Lonely Planet.

I learned, for example:
Kuala Lumpur was placed as the third rudest city in the results of that controversial ranking, which were published in Reader’s digest in July 2006.

I remember shopping a few days back. I looked at something that I needed time to decide on and told the saleslady, “I’ll come back.” Sensing that I was making up alibis not to buy, she responded with: “That’s what they all say.”

But hey, lazy Sunday afternoons like these, I really want to come back.

Bukit Bintang

My life felt like an episode out of a Discovery Travel and Living series.

I tagged along with John, a colleague from our company’s IT department, to “the biggest IT mall in Malaysia”. He’s getting himself a digital camera. We planned on having lunch in KLCC first, walk around Bukit Bintang and eat hawker food when the tables come out at night.

We took the bus to KLCC and had the Nasi Bojari in one of those mall restaurants in KLCC. Nasi Bojari was a humungous meal with tri-colored rice, spicy shrimp, shredded beef with a spicy paste, a fried chicken leg, cucumbers and a boiled egg all cramped and arranged in one plate. It’s value for money at RM20 at a decent place. We trailed it with a traditional Malay dessert – Ice Campur, which is like the Filipino Halo Halo. Ice Campur had a refreshing fragrance that hinted chrysanthemum.

With our stomachs full, we walked to the Monorail station. The trains were half-filled on a restful Saturday afternoon. BB Plaza was just a few stations away. The entire BB Plaza was Malaysia’s Gilmore in Greenhills. It’s an entire edifice of PC parts, gadgets, gizmos, cameras, and cases. John had a good buy for a RM500 Canon digicam with the free tripod, camera bag, memory card, and a backpack.

We walked down the street since the tables started coming out. The red lanterns are lit and it was time for non-halal food. We shared the roasted chicken rice and fried meehon with a lot of pork skin. It was excellent. It was especially all hyped with the bustle of street-food commerce, smoke for the grilling sweet pork, the broken English of waiters as they speak to foreigners, the slurps, gulps and the symphonic chatter of guests in many tongues. This was obviously a backpacker-food preference and it was wonderful food that wasn’t packaged with the shopping mall experience. Of course they issued these phony-looking receipts that won’t make it to our expense reports but what the fuck. I’m more than happy to dig this out of my own pocket.

I had a few bottles of Tiger. The cheers with John went, “Here’s to KL.” My life felt like an episode out of a Discovery Travel and Living series.

On our way back to the hotel the Teksi would fix a price a big as RM20 to Ampang. So we rode the Monorail and stopped by KLCC again for some obligatory night shots of the Petronas Tower and the Menara Tower with John’s new digital camera.

We even planned on check out one of the posh clubs along Ampang. At the entrance, there crowd looked all-too-young on a Saturday night and that made me feel old. Back at the hotel, we said hi to our other colleagues and since no one else drank I downed my big bottles of Heineken while watching Manchester United lambast Arsenal.

Well done.

Aloneness Summons

Whenever your aloneness summons, glorious afternoons abide by you wherever you are. After a quiet walk, roti kaya, carrot and wolfberry juice, I turn on the telly. Live on CNN, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performs at the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

They opened with the national anthems. Each musical note, for a moment, silenced the nuclear propaganda and blurred the ideological differences. These differences makes such violent waves. This music silences it with this glorious sonic boom of notes.

I remember having seen the New York Philharmonic perform live. It must have been too hot in CCP’s cockpit because save for the conductor, the entire orchestra had their penguin jackets off. A penguin-jacketless New York Philharmonic is the closest was the closest I got to New York.

This afternoon in Kuala Lumpur, it was different. It’s all happening now. Somewhere in North Korea, the Americans brought their largest cultural group to a communist state and played their music. For the first time.

Act III of Wagner’s “Lohengrin.” Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony. 9, then, Gershwin’s "American in Paris." By Americans in Pyonyang.

They focus on an Asian member of the orchestra who does the clarinet solo. They zoom in on the US and NK flags standing together on a stage.

When they played Arirang, a beloved Korean folk song, the audience’ applause thundered in a very long standing ovation. And the applause and the standing ovation kept on.

I was alone, weeping unembarrassed at this little peace.