What Remains After Fire

There are years in a man’s life when everything burns brightly enough to convince him -- only him -- that he is alive.

Back in my twenties, I abused the term “mid-life crisis” the same way young people nowadays casually throw around words like anxiety, narcissistic personality disorder, and depression. Every heartbreak became trauma. Every sleepless night became existentialism (to be fair, that part was true during my insomniac years, the very reason this blog came into existence).

We were young and dramatic. Even sadness deserved a premium label, decorated with sophisticated words like “morose”, “melancholy”, “languid”, “wistful”, and “somber”, borrowed from some obscure underrated English literature because we wanted to feel profound.

Now I’m thirty-nine this year. Forty next year. Forty-one already waiting nearby -- not quietly, actually. It has been making noise for a while now. Like an uninvited love story with an inevitable collapse written into its bones.

Strange thing is, I keep yearning for the softness of a woman’s skin while constantly forgetting that souls are supposed to touch too. Perhaps that has always been my flaw. Wanting warmth without knowing whether the fire was ever truly mine to begin with.

I am cold. I know. I overexplain. The opposite of fire is ice. Ice is cold. Dry ice is colder. Liquid nitrogen is cryogenic cold. This conversation could have ended three sentences ago. That is about it. I overexplain. Boring. 

Surprises fuel the fire burning in the pits of their bellies. I know this. I have always known this. But predictability is the last shelter left when you have run out of places to hide.

Maybe predictability is simply what calcifies after enough disappointments. The eagerness to try something new, to know new people belongs to the past now. Because I know disappointment is the admission fee for every unfamiliar door we dare to open.

And so the road I take every day remains the same. It has been fifteen years since I signed the tenureship letter. Pushing work became my preferred coping mechanism.

I pushed harder to avoid thinking about my failed relationship with a woman who once worked in the same laboratory, never quite making peace with the fact that it was the very same place where we first met. There was a version of that bench that belonged to us -- coffee rings on the laminate, mornings that arrived before everyone else, a particular quality of silence between two people who had not yet learned to disappoint each other. Her apparition still lingers around the same bench where, one overcast evening, I read a text message from her sister warning me to stay the fuck away from her because her family was experiencing tremors from my existence, and therefore she needed to save them from some impending emotional explosion or whatever catastrophe they imagined I represented.

I pushed harder after seeing her walk down the aisle in pale purple traditional regalia. The recorded kompang beats echoed through the hall speakers while the bride and groom walked in from the entrance and paused politely before two or three children performing a poorly synchronised silat dance routine. But that was okay because they were not important.

The groom should not have worn that G-Shock watch during the ceremony. It looked absurdly oversized beneath the sleeve of his baju melayu. Puffy eyes. Sleep-deprived, or perhaps just the weight of knowing what comes after the ceremony. Fat cheeks because bro clearly enjoyed his food a little too much. Bloated belly pressing against the sampin. Patches of stubble on his beard; he should have shaved. He looked ugly.

Meanwhile she, beneath that intricately embroidered headpiece, wore a pale purple hijab and looked devastatingly beautiful. The same pale purple that had filled her Facebook profile picture during all those months I mistook for a future - just a plain pastel block, no image, quietly announcing intentions I was too stupid to read. She loved pastel colours. Pale green for us, she had said once. But pale purple was never ours. 

Her voice was never particularly feminine, as I always remembered. There had always been a slightly masculine roughness beneath it, a firmness that occasionally overpowered the tenderness she carried, especially around the quieter lives around her.

And God, that smile. That damned smile.

Her smile was the brightest there.

No.

The second brightest.

Her eldest sister's smile burned brighter. The relief in it was almost architectural -- the kind that holds up a face from the inside. Her younger sister had finally, mercifully, married the man she sympathised with. Not the guy eight years older who had just watched his life savings evaporate into cryptocurrency fumbles. 

I remember staring at the recorded video longer than I should have. The artificial flowers decorated a mirror with cursive writing spelling their names. One of those names had the privilege of returning to itself, even when the world tried to turn it around. The mirror offered everyone in front of it a second version of themselves, but nobody was interested. The bride and groom had entered, and the room had tilted towards them. Her eldest sister held the phone while they walked down the aisle. Then, that brief few-second clip of her making small talk with her mother-in-law at the dining table.

I kept wondering what they were talking about.

“Sedap kan udang ni, mama?” (“This shrimp is dang good, right, Mama?”)

“Pedas sangat ke ayam ni?” (“This chicken’s spicy, isn’t it?”)

“Do you know I watch so many PETA videos that I’ve become vegetarian, but today is cheat day?”

Who knows.

I was never part of that conversation anyway.

Everybody looked happy.

That was probably the hardest part.

I was happy she was happy. I want to be very clear about that.

I pushed harder to forget all of it.

I pushed so hard that the world consumed me. I pushed people away. I pushed away opportunities to join marathons or hike hills where I could socialise and maybe find a new soulmate who might sprain her ankle while walking down the mossy trails and then accidentally grab me by the neck, pressing her bosom against my chest, leaving traces of sweet perfume, that warm, faintly musky scent of sweat rising from the hollow of a neck, the kind that bypasses the brain entirely and goes straight for something older and less reasonable, and the kind of longing that lonely people -- and I know this with some expertise -- mistake for destiny. I pushed away opportunities to leave all this mess behind and start life anew, but I never knew how.

Funny thing is, if the “mid-life crisis” I claimed to have in my twenties was mathematically legitimate, I should already be dead by now. “Mid-life” is supposed to be the halfway point, right?

Yet I still breathe. Still carrying invisible sacks filled with things I have no language for, or perhaps things I have too many words for, which amounts to the same silence.

God, meanwhile, remains silent in ways that terrify and comfort me at the same time. Because if He truly wanted me gone, I would have left long ago.

Aimless Wanderer

An aimless wanderer since young, swayed anywhere by the winds of fate. Contemplating his whereabouts like a stranded seafarer beaten by harsh sea. Gazing at a faraway land beyond the horizon where the mother gave birth to him. And the waves remind him that the beach will never look the same again.

He grows old. His mother gets older today.

Early Morning Drizzle

3:00 o’clock in the morning, a light drizzle showers the warm tarmac. It lasts a bit longer than a man’s urinating. A cool breeze momentarily lifts the window curtain where I sit facing the computer. I think about many things in life—reminiscing about younger days, imagining the uncertain future. A tense feeling lingers in my chest, pregnant with words left unsaid, like a cloud heavy with rain that never falls.

Good night.

Missing Him

November 2010 was cold when Father left us. Dinner was quiet. We couldn’t care less what was blaring from the television. We wandered through the faculty of memory, mentally playing Father’s demeanour like movie snippets, in random fragments of a timeline. I sometimes projected imaginary holograms of him standing, sitting, pacing the house, speaking near me with the sharp Benson & Hedges scent in his breath during my everyday activities. His apparition lingered around us for months after he departed this mortal world. November 2018 is perhaps warmer — literally and figuratively — compared to that same month in 2010.

Father’s younger brother died last night. He was laid to rest this morning, in the cold ground of Teluk Pasu, after the cousins siphoned milky tea water out of the dug grave. Perhaps the morning rain will never feel as right again for his widow and the children he left behind.

Suddenly, I miss Father.

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Original post was published on my Facebook wall at 14th November 2018. Father died this day eight years ago. How time flies.

Life of My Own

Father left us some money in his life insurance policy. I remember one morning when a man with a thick peppered moustache, another younger man probably in his early thirties without a moustache, and two quiet ladies much younger sat in our living room. Just tea, no cakes, and a cheque laid flat on the coffee table. I don’t remember what the two insurance men were talking about, but I remember feeling embarrassed when I stood up and pinched one corner of the cheque while the moustached man, who did most of the talking, held the other end. Mother stood beside me, smiling, before the second man without the moustache showered the living room with flashes of light from his camera. It wasn’t the posing that embarrassed me, but the presence of the two ladies—because I had forgotten to wear underwear beneath my track trousers.

Before that, we had cattle cheeks, tongues, tendons, and some real beef stuffed in the kitchen freezer from the previous Eid-ul-Adha celebration. Father had given me two decapitated cattle heads and forced me to extract as much meat as possible from the carcasses with a knife so dull it couldn’t even slice a cake, just days before he left us. That struck me deeply, almost spiritual—an odd thought that God had planned all this beautifully, and amin to that. That was the first time I tasted the best beef cheeks, tendons, and tongues in my life. It would have tasted better if Father had been there at the quiet dining table. Still, it was alright, because cattle cheek meat, truth be told, tastes like ordinary beef.

Long before that, someone I knew from the blogosphere generously deposited RM500 into my bank account to help us survive after Father’s demise, before I found a decent job. I am still thankful to her today. We never met in real life, yet it was so kind of her to show such generosity to a stranger. She eventually stopped blogging for reasons I don’t know. She just disappeared—perhaps now sitting on some apartment balcony in Hong Kong, eating egg tarts with a pot of green tea by her side. I remember her kindness well, and I know she wanted me to do the same for others. I try to, though I must admit, I get annoyed by people knocking on my car window during traffic jams asking for a ringgit or two.

All these memories came back after I read the news of a man misappropriating public donations channelled into his bank account—funds he initially claimed were for the well-being of his two orphaned nieces, whose parents died in a car collision. Blindfolded by greed, he siphoned off a large portion elsewhere, and that betrayal sparked public outrage.

While netizens hit their keyboards in anger, I stood under the shower long enough that reflection became inevitable. As I said, Father left us some money. We talked about it as a family, and I compromised—I agreed to let Mother handle it all. I could find a job, build my own wealth, and never have to worry about her with that eighty thousand ringgit in her hands. Later, Mother insisted I should buy a new car, which led to two weeks of silence between us because I preferred to keep the old 1991 Perodua Kancil. Eventually, I compromised again; I bought a new car, which put a smile on her face. Mother then persuaded Sister to do the same, and she, too, bought one. Mother gave us enough money for the down payments, all deducted from the inheritance.

Years have passed, and things are not turning out the way I wanted. I hate it whenever somebody—related or not—interferes with my financial planning. The son wants to save, but the mother says, “spend.” The grandfather insists the house should be demolished and rebuilt in concrete. The uncle taps the wooden wall and reminds me it will collapse one day if I don’t act. The aunts ask, “have you found your soulmate yet?” All of this aggravates me, and it boils down to my parsimonious nature—a trait inherited from nobody in the family. I’ve grown a little rebellious lately, showing more disagreement than approval, avoiding certain people, and even turning down a family vacation plan to Indonesia. Mother now understands that her son is carving out a life of his own.

Less Strings Attached

One more year and I’ll be thirty, yet I still ditch people from my life every now and then. Popular wisdom says that at this age one should deal with confrontation by being docile, calm, and gentle. I embrace the idea and put it into practice, all right—let the bear with the sore head growl. Unbeknownst to them, as I walk away, I have already ended all connections with them. From that moment, they no longer exist. They are unimportant, insignificant, like specks of dust scattered across the universe.

On social media, it takes only a single click to remove their account from my friend list. Pathetic as it may sound, I cut ties in the real world just as easily. It has crossed my mind that my puny body, once on the deathbed, may not be accompanied by many people because of that.

Malaysia has a population of approximately thirty million. That’s thirty million antics to deal with. Sorting them into groups with whom I feel comfortable—taking into account differences in skin colour, culture, faith, sexual orientation, age, profession, political views, hobbies, and more—would leave me with only a handful. A fragile handful.

A handful of people, forming a network as weak as cotton strings criss-crossed between pins pricked into a softboard like the ones seen in movies. One pin holds a photo of one man, the string connects him to another, the lines sketching the possibilities of interaction: a passing glance, a silent judgment, a small talk, a casual conversation, a pretentious laugh, an argument. The string stretches, snaps, and just like that—they become strangers once again.

I am the grey pin over there, positioned at the far corner, separated from others by wide gaps on all sides, silently observing in solitude and peace. That tangled ball of cotton strings in the middle no longer matters to me.

We Are All Actors

“Actors – actors Pok Deng, do you think they see those people at the benches?” questioned Al. It was raining heavily that evening.

“What?” I replied, bewildered.

“God, Pok Deng! A theater stage, there are actors acting,” Al grunted, “Do you think they see people watching?”

"They don’t, I suppose.”

“You shouldn’t be one,” said Al before sipping his tea. “Be the one who watches instead. The problem with you, Pok Deng, is that you see them but never observe.”

“I am observant,” in my defense.

“But you never learn anything from them,” Al reprimanded. He continued, "You can't be anywhere better than at a bus station for crowd watching. Lots of weird people over there showing different characters, idiosyncrasies, awkward social interaction. One day I saw one man wearing a ring with big gemstone on his every finger..."

"Long time haven't been at bus station, mate," I said.

"You never learn," Al replied, took another sip of his tea. He seemed uninterested to tell me more about people at the bus station.

Hakikat Insan

The road I never chose.

Pesto

Lemon tarts. Valencia orange tarts. Oregano bread. Cinnamon rolls. Apple crostata. Pear crostata. Aglio olio spaghetti. Pesto spaghetti. Chicken curry. Fish head curry. Fried rice. Tom yam. Beef soup. Lemon tart again, but a little less tangy. Orange tart. Baking and cooking are my current obsession. I think I will be a good husband with these self-taught skills.

You don’t want to invite me to any football match. I don’t know jack about football. But I’ll invite you to my place, where you—yes, yes, yes, please—chop the cilantro for me while I sauté the shallots, garlic, and mushrooms. Pass me the salt, please. Thank you. We’ll wait for the spaghetti to cook al dente (I don’t really know what that means, anyway). I will pretentiously plate the pesto spaghetti on a big round white plate, like Jamie Oliver does.

We’ll sit facing each other at a small table with dried flower stalks arranged in an empty glass jar in the middle. We’ll see each other’s faces showered with incandescent light that colours everything warm. Behind us, the television will blare whatever happens to be on, so that we feel an extra presence in the room.

We’ll talk about almost everything in particular—except football. We’ll dive deep into our nation’s politics and their clowns. We’ll exchange stale jokes. We’ll wash the dishes together, then close the night with a cup of my watered-down version of affogato and a slice of lemon tart. Bitter and sweet, just like our future will be.

A Mother's Hunch

Mother was very fond of her. She couldn’t wait a moment longer and told me about it the very same day, right after she coincidentally met her at a nearby car service centre. I said I didn’t want to get to know this young woman I barely knew, but Mother said, “who knows, someday it might work out.” I held my ground, saying I would never dream of mustering up the courage to date some random girl Mother happened to find somewhere down the street.

Mother pictured her as a petite, fair, polite, demure lass from a state north of Terengganu. She shuffled daily between a rented house and her white-collar profession at the nearby general hospital in Dungun. By the time Mother walked over to the entrance, the girl’s genuine smile had already stolen her soul. From then on, she seeped into Mother’s heart with her impeccable manners as she spoke.

Their encounter sparked a merry conversation that drifted into awkward interrogation. She blushingly confessed, “no man has ever shown interest in me,” while the henna-painted ornaments on her hands caught Mother’s curiosity. She explained that they were from her role as a bridesmaid (pengapit pengantin) at her cousin’s wedding recently.

“You can befriend my son!” Mother blurted the unthinkable—or so she told me afterwards.

“Jange lah gitu, malu lah sayo…” she replied, demurely, in her thick Kelantanese accent. I felt embarrassed on my own behalf.

“He too has no special friend,” Mother said of my life. Almost true. “Just like you, he’s just got himself a job.” Nope, not true—I had already been sitting behind a desk for two years, while she had only been working six months. Mother later admitted she told her that I had just started a job after graduating from a local university. The girl replied, “malu lah sayo…” and “sayo blaja setakak STP jah…” Perhaps a self-esteem issue: I was a university graduate, while she was a village damsel who had finished high school. Mother said it didn’t matter. Neither of us in the family measured people by such worldly yardsticks.

Mother also told me that the girl’s mother, like her, was a single mother. But while Father had died, hers had found separation a better path to happiness. It happened when she was still small. Mother even mentioned that the girl’s car registration number was eerily similar to mine—a strange coincidence. She admitted no other young woman had ever drawn her interest before, but this one named Intan was different. Mother thought she might be the one. It was a mother’s hunch.

At one point, Intan said, “mitok maaf lah mok cik (I’m sorry, aunty).” It was during the body-roll of her Perodua Viva as she took a sharp corner, pushing Mother slightly against the door panel. Mother said it was fine. A few minutes later, Intan dropped her off at the entrance of our house. Mother’s car was left at the service centre.

Hours later, Mother recounted everything to me. She even gave me Intan’s phone number, telling me to let my heart decide. But I could not give her my word. By then, I was already drawn to someone else long before Mother ever met Intan.

November Rain

Winter is approaching in the northern hemisphere. Cold winds march southwestward from the land of the Great Wall, bringing downpours here almost every day. After winter comes spring. The angsana trees will bloom with resplendent yellow flowers, shedding them to the ground as new ones take their place. Soon, the earth will be layered with a floral carpet—bright yellow and gold, mottled with brown patches here and there.

It is a beautiful sight.

Growing Up Is A Must

There is a man with hint of bags under his eyes. His bushy eye brows under the broad greasy forehead of his oblong skull are charcoal black. It must be hard for an artist to sketch every detail of his eyes only by looking at a photograph of his. His slightly sunken eyes always keep lights away. When facing the sun, one man could see the irides are heterochromias. One is like a copper nickel coin bleached in vinegar and the other one is darker than his skin. Stubble below and above his dry lips. He examines his face, brushes some thin strands which stand higher than other sparse remaining hair like damaged springs coming out of an old bed. He turns his neck a little to left and right to let light paint a clearer image of the slightly coarse skin of his cheeks. Two tiny moles at the right side. He pinches a small pimple at his temple, presses the blood and pus smeared fingertip against the dusty mirror, touching his image - touching me. Time moves on oh so swift. It has been twenty five years since this very day. Growing old is a must.

Maddoff

It was Madoff who designed the system. His competitors made some innovations to the original plan, and then many versions came into being, carrying many names in many places under the sun. They were the “optimistic opportunists,” led by rich figures who spun yarns about their journeys to financial success before deciding to recruit followers. What fool would ever deny the wise words of rich people trying to help them get rich?

The promises were so convincing that I found myself embracing the world of multilevel marketing. With only RM2,488 as the programme’s prerequisite capital, I became the blood brother of optimistic opportunists who practiced senyum simetri (symmetrical smiles) in front of aspiring downlines and would NEVER say baik (good) whenever someone greeted them with apa khabar? (how are you?). They would heroically say hebat! (great!) instead. To me, it sounded both pretentious and funny, because that kind of reply doesn’t naturally exist in my language.

“Apa khabar semua?!!!” the speaker yells energetically. How are you all, he says.

“Hebat!!!” reply the aspiring business partners.

“Now we present youuu Tuuuan Haji Abu Akhlaqen! The top achiever in this reeegion!” the speaker shouts. “Twenty-seven years old, yes! That’s his age!! His monthly income is in five figures!! Once again we present youuu… our honourable… Tuuuaan Haji Abu Akhlaqen!!!”

Then, a man looking sharp in his finely tailored suit jogs in slow motion towards the stage. Scorpions’ vocalist belts out “Here I am… rock you like a hurricane” from the megaphone at the corner of the hall. The song fades into silence.

“Apakabarrrr sssssmua!!!” Akhlaqen greets the crowd.

“HEBATT!!!” yells everybody. This time, shit has gotten serious.

“Assalamualaikum. Hello everybody. Thanks to our emcee for tonight’s event, Mr. Sadiq Segaraga, who is also my upline, for making my life a mess.” Everybody laughs. “Yeah, my life is indeed a mess because I don’t know what to do with my monthly income of RM35,000. Haih…”

“Yearrghhh!!! HEBAT!!!!” and they clap their hands.

That was how the first step of recruiting new businessmen and businesswomen in multilevel marketing worked. After this ritual, they would become money zombies who valued friendship more than normal people do. They would begin visiting old friends, striking up good rapport, and then—out comes the pitch.

This explained why Mother’s old friend paid us a visit two weeks after Father died. She brought along another woman, some sort of cheerful companion. The fat penguin that broke the ice and played with it. She really knew how to talk.

Suddenly the living room was flooded with promotions of this antioxidant product and that mineral supplement. She told us about their plan to visit China a few months later. She bragged about quitting her permanent job to focus on the business. She boasted about her downlines’ five-figure incomes, though she kept hers conveniently confidential. She explained the system. She invited me to join the system.

She insincerely praised my educational background to flatter me into joining. Then she asked me to roll up my sleeve—
“Let’s see whether you have health problems. I’m using this device. Even modern medical practitioners use it.”

Yeah, right.

She's Spoilt

"Doksoh lah. Enough. Stop it already. You should forget her. She's spoilt. Spoilt. Bloody spoilt," says Pok Kor the clairvoyant man.

"Pardon?"

"I am sorry I have to say this out very clear, young man. This is for your own goodness. Dok payoh lah, wak nyusoh je kekgi. Stop it already, if you carry on like this, she will be a bigger problem to you. Cakap ballik-belloh sekali dia ni. A good spinner she is. What she has told you before does not reflect what she's actually doing over there. Kuat ngulor ni, muttor ulor sekali. Like a petrified snake knocked senseless by a stick her words are."

"Oh."

"I am sorry again young man. This is an honest advice for your own goodness. Forget her already. She's spoilt."

"It seems like you know better, Pok Kor," says Sir Pok Deng.

This happened a day before Father died. God has answered my prayer. He showed me her true colours.

Shah Alam

Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The people whom I hate the most and who are the farthest from me on the Day of Judgment are those who talk uselessly, and those who put down others, and those who show-off when they talk.” [Narrated by At-Tirmidhi].

Shah Alam. Internship. And a job interview for Researcher post. I don't mind if I don't succeed. That's the fact of life, it has the ups and doung (downs).

Forgetting You

I burned my eyes not to steal a glance at you that day. I pretended you weren't there near me, and that nasi ayam was a hell lot looking good than your beautiful eyes. I bet you my left pinky finger that my friends must have been bored listening me rant about how sweet you smile is, how beautiful your eyes are, how gorgeous you look in that red kebaya. You picked up your tapau (polystyrene lunch container) and left, and when your perfectly shaped nose disappeared from the corner of my eyes, I elbowed my friend and asked him a question which he too must have been bored listening to for a thousandth time: "she go?"

I had left you, young lady. I haven't had the chance to be a real man, to walk over to you, to say "dah habis kelas?" And that was probably the lamest and most decent starting line ever to break the ice.

But hey, you have just accepted my friend request on Facebook! I'm happy to see you post something on my wall, not a "thanks-for-the-add" rubbish, but something that seemed like you wanted to know me more, and we actually interacted through the comments' box afterward. My friend kept saying that was a good sign, "that's a green light, man! Go get her!"

But it states there in your details, you are 'In a Relationship'.

Fatal Leap

A twenty-one year old bloke committed suicide by a fatal dive into Unimas' famous man-made lake, as reported by Borneo Post. Not included in the news report is the suicide note left by him on his blog here. Major cause that influenced his decision was probably depression, as reported by majority of rumors. I raised my hand to agree in joining those who opted to pick the same opinion with the majority.

I also faced the same emotional problem ever since I reached second year of my academic years. No I did not commit suicide. I just kept quiet, quiet, and attempted more silence, but I let go off my pent-up emotion into blog. When I was tired of looking at the laptop's screen, I led a lonely walk by the bank of the lake, said "hi" to everyone I knew, stared at the slender hip of female joggers. I never thought of drowning myself into the lake, anyway. When I was tired of walking, I went to my friend's apartment to distract their everyday chores.

They later introduced me to one boring art called hisap sisha, which needs no translation if you are very well-informed about our current youth's lifestyle.

No I don't smoke. Cigarette is not my companion. I wonder why people inhale smoke. This is a suicide form too.

Of Malay Dramas & Myself

In Malay dramas, there are at least five or six or seven or eight dining scenes. Eat. Eat. And eat. It is compulsory for a Malay movie director to include eating scenes before the finished product reaches the hands of movie filtration board's officials. We can conclude that Malays are very extravagant about things that are about to enter their mouth. So the well-being of a Malay family is indicated by the condition of their everyday meals; ordinary kampong folks eat rice together with side dishes by bare hands, the Datuks eat spaghetti by spoon and fork while discussing lightly about 'daddy punya saham syarikat di Cape Town, esok mummy nak pergi spa' or conversing about Tengku Ameera Alice Liyana Sandra Batrisya's convocation at the South Hampton Institute of Technology (SHIT), and last but not least, there's a poor family who lives in an unfurnished wooden house — their dining condition is depicted by a heart-shattering scene where the whole family members need to sit on the floor to eat nothing but rice, fried brine fish, tapioca shoots, and a glass of plain well water — silently. No words spoken.

That was our condition in early year 2000. Father didn't have money to buy groceries. No ikangs nor chickens to be cooked into side dishes available in the kitchen. A typical Malaysian like you know very well, that it is going to be a plain boring meal served afterward. We still thanked God however, that we had kerepok keping (fish crackers) to be fried to substitute real fish. We ate without a single word spoken. Then we had tea, not well water.

Father died many years later. After a few days I cursed my ex for her insensitive question "Deng, are you okay?" at the day Father chose to leave us forever, money from God-knows-where is showering on us. Father's life insurance coverage. His pension. Sincere donations from strangers. Khairat kematian from this bank and that bank in which Father saved his penny.

One of our relatives came by our house for a visit. Instead of expressing his deepest condolences on our dear Father's demise, he came here to talk about termites. Soon, our small wooden house will collapse if we don't change that damn porous main pillar that stands this small hut since 1997. How about renovating the kitchen? Adding another living room perhaps? Hey, buy a new car already.

Fuck you!

For fuck sake, we don't have the heart to do that. Father just gone. He was born a poor man in a poor family. He sacrificed nearly all his assets to raise his children, to provide best education for Sir Pok Deng until he received a Bachelor's Degree of Science with Honours in Biotechnology. And my Father died poor too. He did not have the chance to see me succeed, married to a decent lass, produce my first child so that he can hold him/her and say "cucu aku ni haaaa" before his jealous gray-haired colleagues.




I want that Kia Forte.

Tres

It has been three months Father gone. I did not want to tell you that his birthday was 1st of January 1960 because on that date, annually, you're happy blowing out confetti celebrating New Year. There's no time to be sad. I is not sad too. Is you sad naw? I hopes you nawt.

Prosperity Brew

My friend Chuan taught me a few things about the art of brewing tea. You don't want to leave the tea bag(s) soaked in the jug too long, otherwise some intricate chemical reactions would take place in there, making the brew lose its zing, that it will taste soury. 'After a few minutes, take them out. Use it again for brewing next batches,' he said one evening after evaluating and criticizing the dull-tasted tea we had together at a cafe in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak.

Boastfully he claimed himself a tea expert and I couldn't say more because he's Chinese. No way you could be better than a Chinese in tea science. I personally like mine black and bitter with modest sweetness, not manih letteng that best describes the overwhelming sweetness of all kuihs and ladies in Kelantan. So far, in my experience befriending Chuan, whose name means "boat", I could see he has steered his barge full of tea knowledge very well. Surprised to know that I carry Chinese gene of my paternal ancestors within me, he introduced me to the celestial aroma of jasmine tea when he was being my guest during his visit to Kampung Cina Kuala Terengganu a year ago.

Chinese people seldom add sugar into their cuppa, he informed me, and after hearing this I had to accustom my British tongue to a new taste of tea: unsweetened. That was hard because I have been sipping sweetened Liptons and Bohs all my life. The idea of not adding sugar into my jasmine tea has caused my taste buds act a bit awkward. So when Chuan has gone back to his hometown, I silently add sugar into it while pondering what "jasmine" really means in Malay. It was "melur", a kind of flower that smells good and when naming a Malay girl "Melur", she must be very pretty.

On the same warm day of our journey at Kampung Cina, he made me taste a kind of cold sweet tea, whose name was hard to pronounce correctly without Chuan's assistance. It was called "luo han guo" tea, made from a kind of exotic fruit harvested from "luo han guo" trees by people of China, probably at their backyard by the bank of air chor (water puddle). It tasted like longan juice sold at many hawker stalls at Sarawak, and also borrowed the colour of it, but with a tinge of quaint taste and aroma that my narrative capability could not describe nor relate to similar things on earth. Chuan said, luo han guo tea carries cooling properties. I reckon this tea is good for short tempered people like me.

Lately I began to like drinking unsweetened Chinese tea. Probably it was luo han guo tea that cooled down my ego. I discovered calmness and tranquility - a celestial aftermath of sipping unsweetened "oolong" tea, a type of half-fermented tea from mainland China. The unfermented version of it is "green tea", tasted good too. The commercial black teas available in the market are fully fermented ones, and used by mamaks nationwide to make the life-threatening teh tarik.

With tea, you make good friends.

I would like to wish all my Chinese friends, Selamat Hari Raya Cina. This is less pretentious than saying English sounding phrases like 'Happy Chinese New Year'. And for your information, we say 'Hari Raya Cina' over here in Terengganu.