Kuala Lumpur: Estuary of Cloudy Streams
”The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.”
This may be the most fitting description of what I encountered as trying to order the breakfast in the Little India, Kuala Lumpur. Sitting outside the door, a customer was having a balloon-resembled food, something between bread and pancakes. I wanted to order the same thing but didn’t know how to express it, so I simply pointed to the photo on the menu and ordered what looked the most similar to it.
”We don’t have that anymore,” the waiter spoke with a southern accent, ”because…blah blah blah. Would you like something else?” I could understand nothing more than 70% of what he said, and ended up ordering something else that looked somewhat similar. What came was a round and crispy, deep-fried balloon-like pancake, like a inflated Chinese scallion, served with coconut milk and curry. The curry was mild, scattered with powdery-textured potatoes. the ‘pancake’ tasted pretty good with it. I ordered a glass of Lassi, whose sweetness is so strong, that I canconsider it as a standard accompaniment to Indian cuisine for me.
What was the name of that dish again?
I wandered through Little India looking for a place to buy souvenirs. The supermarket shelves were stocked with coffee, jam, oil products, various canned soups, and incense for prayer. There were several buckets filled with a variety of spices in the center of the supermarkets. The bag of branded coffee and the Kaya jam, which my friend highly-recommended, was eventually found at a department store on the upper level of Central station, or in Malay, Stesen Sentral.
After buying a ruby chocolate, which was said cannot be found in Taiwan, at the chocolate exhibition hall, I called a Grab ride to go to a western-style coffee shop in Chinatown on Jalan Petaling. I ordered a ”Summer Time”, a mix of lychee and watermelon juice, and began to write about my experiences in Kuala Lumpur. It suddenly came to my mind: the Indian dish I had for my breakfast, made of curry, coconut milk, and crispy bread.
We still don’t know the name of the dish we had that day.
The recitation of the Quran resonates during Zuhr.
The streets of Kuala Lumpur have a distinct tropical humidity, yet with a touch of freshness, which perhaps derived from the Muslims’ cleanliness, preventing the unpleasant odor of damp and muddy drains. Kuala Lumpur, Estuary of Cloudy Streams, at the confluence of muddy swirling currents; Muslims established mosques at the convergence of the Gombak River and the Klang River, and later the British built various Mughal-Gothic-styled government buildings in the same area.
As Crows gather along the riverbank and search for twigs to build their nests, a group of hijab-wearing college students happily pose for pictures with the architecture. An afternoon thunderstorm suddenly washes away the restlessness in the hearts of the diverse tourists. They quietly hide themselves under the covered walkways, listening to the recitation of the Quran emanating from the Masjid.
Time seems to been fragmented, yet never ceases to flow.
According to the Malaysian history book, the official version of Malaysia’s founding epic told us Malays came from Sumatra. ”A prince who lost his kingdom take his people to come to this land for rebuilding what they once had,” and they rooted themselves here, never to return to the other side of the straits. In the market, the aroma of coffee were permeating the air, and carried far away by the tropical breeze. A Tamil vendor introduced me to beautiful batik shawls. In my not-so-fluent English, I negotiated the price with him and ended up buying ones I’m pretty sure I would love.
Gentle sunlights spilling onto the shading canvas, notes of diaspora danced, in the fluttering signs of the bazaar, amidst the bustling city traffic, and within the oscillating fans at the train station. Secret-society members drifted here from the Northern Empire, Sri Lankan merchants brought by the monsoon winds, and the eventually settled-down Indonesian royal members, they are all smoothly shaped by the river flow into the time, slowly extending into an unending melody within stories.
The recitation of the Quran resonates during Asr.
In the cafeteria of the old Kuala Lumpur station, Ayam Tandori filled the air with a fragrant aroma. Although the beauty of the old station building couldn’t be captured by a camera, it appeared particularly lovely in the sunset. A photography team was taking pictures of a couple in front of the train station, though I couldn’t quite tell if they were shooting wedding photos or being Cosplayer.
The river, quietly flowed through the city, the Railwat went towards the harbour of Port Klang, and they would never to return. I watched the bustling traffic in front of the station, that forming an ever-turning roundabout, which are so fast, that seems in the next second, they would all dissolve into cream as the way tigers melt away.
Time clearly never ceases to flow, yet it is fragmented in a montage-like manner.
I delved into the crevices of history, let the approaching time drenched my body; Like a camel traversing the endless Silk Road, looking back at the scriptures I once wandered through. Inside the Islamic Arts Museum, I gaze at the coins displayed in glass cabinets, forming a long timeline connecting the end of the Silk Road to another end: the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Fatimids; the Ayyubids of the Kurds, the Safavids of the Persians, the Mughals of the Mongols… Distant faith and the sound of prayers gradually reach the scattered archipelago of islands.
The guide at Masjid Negara introduces me to the distinctive features of their religious architecture: geometric patterns, designs devoid of images, and Arabic calligraphy that adorns every corner. He mentions that the average Malays do not truly understand Arabic, just like the Chinese, who do not really understand ”Namo Amitābhāya” or ”Om Mani Padme Hum.” However, the devoutness during prayer may overcome the language barrier, allowing the heartfelt yearning for tranquility to be conveyed genuinely to the beloved deity.
The peaceful coolness from the floor of Masjid gently touches my skin through my socks.
The recitation of the Quran resonates during Maghrib.
Perhaps due to its tropical location, even on weekends, one can feel that the nights and days in Kuala Lumpur are like different worlds. The deserted Independence Square during daytime comes to life at night with several food trucks gathering there. People ride bicycles and blow bubbles in front of the old government building, while the shimmering neon lights make the city’s stories vibrant.
At the night market on Petaling Street, the tables and chairs are already packed tightly by the vendors, making it difficult for the traffic to move. The aroma of delicious jerky fills the air, with each bite, I can feel its fresh, sweet, and crispy taste. I picked a few satay skewers, fried snacks, and even buy a serving of Balinese-style char siu rice. Slowly, I move to Bukit Bintang, the Starhill Avenue, where you can see a group street performers sing loudly in front of the subway station. The audience gathers in a circle on the sidewalk, eager to listen to their voices. Coinciding with the floral procession of Vesak Day, the streets are under traffic control, and Buddhist followers from around the world ride float after float, showering blessings upon those around them.
I step into a karaoke bar. It’s sparsely populated. I order a cola and sit at the counter. A staff member accosts me in a simple conversation in English. She tells me she is a Chinese from Myanmar, with a younger brother studying Mandarin in Taiwan, and a sister already married and has children in Taiwan. She proudly shows me photos of her siblings. The bar owner is Hakka, and I casually recite a few phrases in Hakka that I heard in the Subway announcements from Taiwan: ”Sṳ̀n-mùng-ǹg, án-chṳ́-se.” However, she looks puzzled. I ask her how to say ”thank you” in Malaysian Hakka, and she replies with ”唔該,” with the Hakka pronunciation. Haha, we bridge the language barrier and make ourselves understood. I select a song by Sandy Lam and another one by Jay Chou on the jukebox, At Least I’ve Got You, even if I Find It Hard To Say. A Japanese customer orders a beer, and as it pours into the glass, it turns into Bubble, as G.E.M. sings. The bar owner suddenly suggests that we should go together to taste some street food at Jalan Alor after closing. In the stir-fry restaurant, we order five servings of chicken wings, a large plate of fried noodles, and the Malaysians’ favorite ”lala” (clams). I thought it was a phonetic mistake for ”lâ-á” in Hokkien, but as I eat, the clams in front of me seem to play the ”Lala Land.”
I recall the previous night when I sneaked into a bookstore and browsed through interesting English books, searching for fragments of stories that have died but not yet been buried, as if I were a wandering ghost. That’s it. Knowing that stories don’t end like this, that’s it. Knowing that time doesn’t put a full stop on us, that’s it. Knowing that those timelines hidden in the Islamic Museum, the clocks that calculate prayers in the Masjid Negara, and the novels in my backpack are not the end of history. That’s it, I think.
I love Kuala Lumpur’s converging all of the stories, yet it hasn’t written the final chapter.
The recitation of the Quran echoes during Isha.
On the plane, I turned on my e-book reader and continue reading the unfinished book about Malaysian history: Portuguese captured Malacca, the White Rajahs ”inherited” Sarawak, the British and Dutch partitioned the Malay world, and the colonizers attempted to build a better world, like Raffles and Swettenham. The plane takes off towards the north, and outside the window, the weather is clear, with clouds leaping alongside the aircraft.
Once again, I hear the recitation of the Quran, reminding me of Fajr.