The journey home

Taken from a work in progress (since 2001). Raw & Unedited. With occasional broken English and spelling error.

London was an exiting metropolitan city. Lovely middle size building not more than couple of floors makes up it vibrant skyline. At night, it seems bigger than what it truly appears during the day. The clouds were dark as it was in Taiping, Frasher Hill, 1996 all over again. A city with diverse race and cultures. The city was the ‘in’ thing. The next Milan and beat New York, easy. Fashion was on the high end and the taste in music here are much more better than those in the US. From house music to indie-rock to trip hop and jungle music. It was alive. They don’t need high buildings and flashy neon lights. It was the colorful people that bring life to the city. It breathes life everywhere, always happening and exciting, even for jaded, rich, ignorant and spoiled KL yuppies. It only took a while for someone to see its true color. Asian family emigrating here in hope for a better life, inherits their family business and others ends up with stereotype Asian odd jobs like taxi driver. Rich Asian entrepreneur starts investing big bucks opening franchises and boutique at every corners and happening places. It was jam-packed as a pack of M&m’s. Am fells like a blue M&m’s, often alone and not correctly colored. Nightlife was the highlight for some of the students here. Just as our back there in KL, only here it was with the approval from the Ministry Of Sound it selves.

Am can’t belive how hot the Malaysia weather can be. He knew it was hot, but forget how hot it actually is. Beads of sweats started to build up everywhere. Some of it making their way downs his cheek and armpits. The row of ship houses offer many delicious delicacies he’d had been craving for so long now. Asam pedas ikan selar and white rice. The restaurant near the traffic light at Parit Jawa is often full at lunchtime. By noon everything was gone. Finished. Asam pedas and telur dadar. Telur goyang. In a simple orange plastic plate, the type where you can find in school canteen around Malaysia. The story was, it was originally a simple fisherman’s dish. Like the restaurant in Parit Jawa, Am remembers the coffee shop at his kampung where the coffee was thicker and blacker than anywhere he ever been to. It leaves brownish stains on the cup and the taste lasts long into the night. Bitterness has never been sweeter than this.

Winter, the second year was hard. He’d missed home more than ever. His lips turn blue every time he thinks about home. Hari raya often came without any hints to him. Only that first year he was there, he wore songket till dusk. Wearing baju melayu in a metropolitan city as far away as this, what’s the point? Even if there are many Malaysian here. Different if your family is here. Just different. Am loves his late mother a lot and whenever the childhood memories of Hari Raya with his