am on Sunday 4 January 2004
They have just left for the first day of the new school year, after a breakfast of cereal, apple and papaya, and a glass of water. Rhiannon looked smart in her new prefect uniform. They are up early for school, me at 5 30 to get the breakfast ready, boil water, make tea, get the washing machine on etc, and now is only 7 30. I put on, quietly, the RPO and Tchaikovsky, and switched on the Christmas tree. The fish is defrosting and the cabbage is broken and soaking in water, as the vegetables are every morning. This year, Ai Gnor is not coming on Sunday, as this is my day off, so I am playing an even bigger role as househusband on this day. I do most of the above anyway, except usually cooking the lunch and ironing the clothes. In reality, she has little to do, as the washing is done before she comes, and is often on the line. The food is out thawing; the breakfast things washed and put away, the floor swept etc. Now she has two days off a week. No doubt, she will have mo intention of getting a second job. They are in many ways an indolent family. Many people make the fundamental mistake of thinking that rushing around in a car, chatting in a coffee shop and talking in a loud voice on a phone equates with hard work.
Friday 2 January 2004
Early morning classes, pay for some of yesterday’s petrol.
Sunday 4 January 2004
There were no classes, as this is my rest day this year. There was no Ai Gnor, so I prepared lunch, my first full Chinese meal on my own. I was going to do cabbage with garlic, rice, and fried fish, cleaned and trimmed by me. There were two plain, and one with chilli for Ai Hwa. They seemed to enjoy it. Today is the first day back at school, Rhiannon looking smart in her prefect’s uniform. I went to town with Ai Hwa to get money from the bank, saw a Malay female Chief Inspector of Police in the bank with whom I fell in love. Then, whilst Ai Hwa went to gold shop to try to sell whatever she sells now. I wandered round in the hot sun, but cooled by the incessant sea breeze. I tried to get a boat across the river to Seberang, but nothing seemed to be going that way. There was plenty of rubbish lying around; it was sad, but it is expected here. Then we went back to the house to prepare lunch. Rhiannon went back to school in the afternoon to decorate the classroom.
Harri read the history of the world, the book I had bought them for Christmas, and then we went for a walk, or a march, for about forty-five minutes, to Sura Gate, then on to the sea. He had an ice cream on the way to Sura Gate, the ice cream wallah on his motorbike and side cart seeming to know him, and we got 1 ringgit’s worth of goreng pisang, or fried bananas from a stall on the beachfront. We ate these whilst walking along. Then we went into Jalan Kenanga, where disaster faced us. Coming down the road towards the sea was a khaki Ministry of Health Landrover with cart, churning out clouds of thick poisonous smoke, deadly to the dengue mosquito I assume. What could we do? There was nowhere to go, no way to escape. Cool under pressure, and sweating from exertion rather than fear, I pulled out the small bottle of water that was stuffed elegantly in my trouser pocket, poured some of the contents onto Harri’s tee shirt, and then did the same to me.
We pulled them over out faces, and held our breath whilst marching through the smoke; a brief pause to take in more air, and then we continued until out of danger. The Ministry man gave us the thumbs up or waved as we went by. Okay, I know it is boring, but that is life here. I phoned Andrew to wish him happy birthday, and as I wanted him to have a full day’s enjoyment, rang him at 7 30 am UK time, hoping he would be in bed. He was not. What a pity.
Monday 5 January 2004
I was up as usual just after 5 30, to get the breakfast. I put out the cereal, the water, milk, fruit, toast etc. I put on the washing machine, and got the kettle going. I ironed Harri’s shirt, then did the rest of the ironing, as the iron was hot. We had breakfast, and they went off at 7 10. This routine happens every weekday morning, bar the ironing. There are no classes today, as students need to find out what the school has on in the afternoon before finalizing their time with me. I put the clothes on the line; on a typical morning, they dry in next to no time. I came in and began to scrap and gut the fish, peel the garlic, and put the aubergines in to soak. I had taken instruction in cleaning fish and meat some weeks ago, from both Ai Hwa and Ai Gnor, and one day had cooked a fish or two for Ai Hwa for lunch. Afterwards she looked at me and said,
‘You forgot to clean the head. I got a shock’.
It would give anyone a shock if they saw what was inside. That was some weeks ago. Yesterday, I left the three fish on the side for her inspection, and I passed with flying colours. Back to today.
Then I cleaned the garden so Rhiannon and Harri can plant some seeds now that her two papaya trees are gone. I used the jembi to break up the earth, got rid of the weeds, and inadvertently, some or Ai Gnor’s plants that she uses the leaves for curry, and for laksa, a soup with noodles in it. Oops. There are many different types of laksa, the most famous being from Penang, but I have also tried Kelantan and Terengganu laksa, quite different in taste, although they look the same. A soup, spicy, made with chilli and lime, with fish and rice noodles. It is nice. I tried the three types the same day at a function in the Science College in Kuala Terengganu in the mid 1990’s. I am surprised to find it is now nearly 4pm. My back is aching.
Wednesday 7 January 2004
They have left for school. I was up early this morning, boiled the water, got the washing machine ready, and put out the breakfast. Fifteen minutes later, they came in. I ironed Harri’s shirt, after washing it late last night. It was overlooked for the dhobi. The washing machine is on, the cuttlefish, pork and two fish are defrosting, the aubergines and cabbage are soaking, everything is washed and put away. I had a lecture on the Battle of Waterloo, the mud on the ground that affected Napoleon’s cannons, his handing of power to his deputy, the tactics of Wellington, the Prussians, this from the discovery channel I was told by the professor, and it’s only 7 28 am. There is only the garlic to peel, so I thought it better to use the computer first. I do not want the keyboard to reek too much. Yesterday, I met over the garden wall, the Indonesian maid from the house at the back, who has not left her employer’s house for two years. She is going back home this month. She works a Monday to Sunday week, early morning to late evening. There is your much talked about Asian morality for you.
Yesterday, I helped Ai Gnor with the lunch, learning more about her style of Chinese cooking. We washed and packed the prawns in sugar water for freezing for Chinese New Year; these were bought for Ai Hwa’s sister, cost 50 plus ringgit. I had a class this afternoon. The girl, one of the brighter ones here, went to Genting Highlands and Kuala Lumpur for about a week. What did you do? She went shopping; the only thing she could tell me about her holiday was the names of the shopping centres she went to with her pals. In Genting, they played the games in the indoor and outdoor theme parks, and then went to bed. A whole family in one room, but no problem. The mother and father went from midnight to early morning to the casino. They came back for breakfast. She went to Malacca a couple of years ago, but it was boring ...
I prepared the food tonight, but Harri cooked; nasi goreng, with garlic, onions, cabbage, lettuce, pepper, dried salted fish, orange juice, and two beaten eggs. This was Harri’s idea, making the rice yellow.
There was roast pork and guava on the same plate, with honey, and oil and orange juice dip. They seemed to enjoy it. Rhiannon was very tired after her basketball practice, and then she had an hour of piano. Ai Hwa is out at PIBG parents teachers meeting. Her sister Ai Ling, swee ee is younger auntie, phoned. I asked her what she wanted to talk about. Could Ai Hwa buy something for her in Dungun? They were the above-mentioned prawns. I told her that they were already in the fridge. The other things for Chinese New Year she could buy cheaper in Kuantan. Now I know that most things in Kuantan are cheaper than Dungun, but prawns are cheaper here. This morning, I had a discreet wave from the Indonesian maid over the wall. The Chinese neighbours were around, hence the soft tone.
Thursday 8 January
I was up early this morning to get the breakfast ready for everyone. They left about 7 30, by which time the dhobi was well into its cycle, the fish were defrosting, and the bitter gourd was soaking in the filtered water. By 8 30, I had finished everything, but waited half an hour to see if it was going to rain. It is cloudy but a little bright. Ai Gnor asked if I wanted the fish in tamarind sauce, so I helped her with this. First she cooks her own chilli paste in a little oil, and then adds the sauce. It has quite a pungent reek. The paste she makes from pounded chillies using the pestle and mortar, garlic, and then she showed me what I thought was galangal. She insisted it was not, it is kunyit. I thought it is halia in Malay., but it is not; halia is ginger. I knew the word but could not think what it was. It turns out to be turmeric, according to my list of four-language cuisine terminology. I had kept the tamarind seeds with the idea of planting them in the newly cleaned circle of garden, in the otherwise concrete yard, only to find she had thrown them out. I had planted earlier some bits of guava with seeds in them, together with the seeds of the bitter gourd. Maybe something will grow.
Sunday 11 January 2004
There were classes on Friday morning, and yesterday was full. I reheated food for lunch to save a trip to buy ta pau/take away, and money, too. It is a quiet, changing afternoon, and I am not sure if it is going to rain, or not. On Thursday evening, there was a power cut for about forty-five minutes, so I used this to clamber over the wall at the rear, trek across the empty plot of long grass and earth, to chat discreetly with the maid. It was really quite exciting. It was until the streetlights and house lights came back on. I slithered back to the wall, to the far end where there is no barbed wire. I hoisted myself up, and half fell into the yard, scraping my arm. The following night I was in the yard when there came a crash, and a bag with a broken tile and a letter in it hurtled by me. In the letter, she told me of her time in the house here, and something about herself. It was quite touching.
This morning, after Ai Hwa had taken the children to school, I yet again put the dhobi out to dry in the bedroom, as the sky was threatening to rain. She came back, and we went into Kuala Dungun to do some shopping. She popped into the market, bought some chillies and limes, but little in the way of fish; one man told her the wind was too strong so the waves were too big so the boats could not go out. It reminds me of the fishermen in ‘Under Milk Wood’; they look at a flat sea, no wind, and mutter ‘too rough’, and go to the pub. Whilst I was in the car, waiting for her to come back from the market, there were a group of men sitting under a tree, doing nothing more than smoking. There was rubbish everywhere. We went to the grocer’s to get some flour and yeast. The latter was in a large packet, too big so I said I would wait until he got something smaller. He suggested it, then pulled out a book of vegetarian cooking to show me recipe for making bread. He is quite knowledgeable about food and drink, actually takes an interest in his trade. He told me how to make crackers from unwanted stale bread, and that I have been doing. He explained the dried soya in the packet outside the shop. I bought some Histon apricot jam, low cholesterol eggs, and Tabasco sauce. On the main street, Jalan Besar, she pointed out a Chinese man from China on a bicycle, but why, I do not know. Now it is time to prepare lunch. I cook the rice, fry two types of fish, and cook the long green cucumber-type vegetable with garlic and an egg. This is new.
Now it is three pm.
They have left for school, for sports practice, and the high jump. The lunch went down well, the fish was almost finished, and the vegetable too, although I stirred in the egg too late, meaning it looked like a broken up omelette among the chunks. We had apple to finish. My wife complained I had not cooked enough rice.
My new housemates include a young cicak whose domain is around the rubbish bag at the back window. If he is feeding himself on this, then he is not doing his proper job of getting the mosquito. The other is a tiny two-centimetre long frog who pops in and out of the bathroom, and has to be taken out with care, not because I have an inherent dislike for the fellow, but he is in danger of being trodden on by accident. There are a few small spiders who roam around, and when chased away for the same reason as frog, bounce along the floor. So cute, as children would exclaim here. Scold is another popular word here.
I forgot to write this the other day, I think Thursday. Ai Hwa had bought what I thought were yams, but she said no, they were ubi kayu or wood potato. I then assumed they must be sweet potato, but turned out to be tapioca,. The following day I was looking for some flour to try to make some bread, and came across a packet in the drawer, only to find out that the flour Ai Gnor uses is tepung ubi kayu, ie tapioca flour. No wonder the cakes we made a couple of months ago turned out a bit strange. I was shown how to peel them by the two women. Then I boiled them with a little salt, and tried some later. They are interesting to try, if one thinks the blandness of starch so. I must have tried them before, either in Africa or here. Incidentally, I have now spent one third of my life in south East Asia including just over twelve years in Malaysia.
I have now prepared the evening’s meal; frankfurters chopped into small pieces fried in oil with lime juice, then skewered on a toothpick with lettuce and cucumber, extra lettuce, and a variety of condiments, lime, oil from Italy, Tabasco sauce, Lea and Perrins, parsley, so they can add what they want. A box of the crunchy bread I made this morning should suffice, with again a dessert of apple.
Thursday 15 January
I was up early to lay the table, get breakfast going, boil the water, and get the dhobi underway. I went jogging on the spot, and then some yoga-type stretches. After they went off to school at the regular time of 7 10, I had my breakfast of toast, yesterday’s soup reheated, some watermelon, and mango flavoured seri songket tea from the Cameron Highlands. Then I swept the floor and started washing the mah chai, gutting and cleaning the flat fish, not pomfret, but looks like one, ikan cermin in the Malay language. Pomfret is ikan bawal. I peeled the garlic, put the dhobi on the line, with all finished about 9am. Then I went to work on the computer.
Much of the past few days I have spent cleaning the cupboards and fridges, and throwing away out-of-date cooking materials and other assorted rubbish the inveterate collectors of garbage have picked over the years eg bags of sugar, sachets of coffee or tea from a hotel, tomato sauce from a take-away, throw-away spoons from somewhere etc. I put many of the condiments in containers; jars and bottles were washed to get the layers of Chinese stir-fry fat off them, cooking extras packed into containers in the fridge, and whole place looking cleaner and neater than for many moons. In a less-than-bright move, one of the racks was placed almost over the cooker, resulting in an onslaught every time cooking is done. Chocolate powder, curry, flour and barley are in Pyrex containers; the latter I used to make a barley drink for the children the other day, using soya and sugar. It is quite nice, and is used to cool the body. By watching, and increasingly trying, I am learning more about Chinese cooking, in particular the vegetables; kai lan, sawi/mustard, seow pai chai, and lien oh, the soup made from dates and small nuts. There is a tuber that grows under water; it has holes in it like Gruyere cheese. Today, we had mah chai, a lettuce like leaf that has, to my mind, little taste. The vegetables are always cooked, at least here, with garlic and a little tapioca flour with some salt to taste.
The past few days I have had a lot of work with some classes in the afternoon; it is tiring, but I am happy with it. I am doing much of the housework in the morning too. I am now quite adept at ironing, and recently ironed my first blouse and skirt. Rhiannon’s I mean. She examined them carefully, and pronounced herself happy with the result, Harri too. I have cooked fried mackerel, cabbage with anchovies and garlic, steamed aubergines, roast pork in the past week or so. I am getting pretty good at cleaning the insides of the fish; fingers in the gills and then a hard pull, and the whole lot come out. Madam Chong’s new job, one of many that she currently holds, is a supplier of German beer. This in a state in Malaysia where 90% of the population are Malay. The odds of success are not that good. It is the first time she has ever offered me a tin with the explicit instruction to drink it; not later, but now. Well, I will do, when it is chilled. The first is from the Hanseatische Getränke Industrie gmbh of Hamburg. The second is made for them in the Brauerei Abfüllung. I assume it must be either Austrian or Swiss. The first beer has the contents in most western European languages, plus Japanese. On the tin is the stamp ‘German Purity Law of 1516’. This means it must be good. The second has the same as the former, minus the Japanese, but including Russian, and what I take to be Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian, the latter written in the Russian script, with water, malt and hops being the same in both languages, as they almost are, with malta and malte in Spanish and Portuguese. It is less than three ringgit per can, making it much cheaper than locally made pilsner. She intimated it came from the port of Kuantan. The expression ‘fell off the back of a lorry’ came into my mind, except in this case ‘was slipped over the side of a ship in the middle of the night’.
Yesterday was busy, as I was covering my weekend classes, as many people will be away for the five-day break. They went out for dinner in Batu Enam, untidy and grubby home of Ai Gnor and a thousand useless containers of polystyrene, cardboard, glass and any other material you can think of , that she collects in the way dogs collect fleas. She has a reluctance to throw anything away.
I was very pleased with both the offspring on learning that they are to represent the school in a chess competition. This is not Chinese chess, but the other type. Rhiannon’s selection was a bit easier in that only two girls in the whole school know how to play the game. There are about ten or so boys too. However, they want only four, so Harri was involved in playoffs to choose the members of the boys’ team. He beat one character in eight moves. Whom they are to play against I am not sure. They are both taking part in sports day next month, running for their houses, named in a cunning way after the colours of their sports shirt. That means if your child has a shirt with lots of yellow on it, he or she represents Yellow House.
I assume it is to help the parents work out what is going on.
Right, here is a minor departure from the subject of sports day in Malaysia.
In Nairobi School in Kenya, the houses were named after distinguished people, some of whom had no connection what so ever with the continent, let alone the country. They have now prudently renamed them after Kenyan geographical features, the names of mountains if I am not mistaken. Alexandra Primary in Singapore was more logical; there were four British army generals, rather befitting an army school.
Right, now let us get back on track. I think this is the first time Harri has qualified for the finals; Rhiannon has a bunch of medals, mostly bronze, in her cache of prizes. The event takes place in February or March, for most of a morning on the padang in Kuala Dungun, next to the beach. February and March seem to be the hottest months of the year, too. The arena is soaked in the sunlight for much of the day, and even the non-stop breeze from the sea is not enough to make it comfortable. There is a half-hearted attempt at a grandstand at one end. The tall on the bus terminus side, way from the sea give no protection from the sun, until the afternoon. The grass is sparse in spite of the rainfall we get here and the terrain rough enough to provide toughening up exercises for the Army. One advantage is that the government health clinic is right opposite, in case some chubby oriental television and computer game addict crashes into the ground and shakes like a jelly in a mixture of fear and humiliation.
In the evening, I put out the Christmas tree as a Chinese New Year tree, in the same place, and with the same lights. Then the amah climbed over the two walls and we had a quiet chat, first in the garden yard, sitting on the concrete with legs over the drain, looking at the stars, clouds and watching out for mosquitoes. I asked her if she was all right. There was a big smile in the moonlight, and ‘I am very happy’. We had only the sound of the night insects and the breeze for company. We talked, and she told me something of her life until the car engine disturbed the two of us. We made a quick scramble back over the wall, made more remarkable when she was unable to climb over it. I assisted, by lifting her up, no mean feat, but calm in the knowledge that it takes several seconds to park the car, and get the grill unlocked, locked again, and then the mosquito doors after that. It was, therefore, not that big a problem.
This morning, I had breakfast by myself: a fried tomato, toast, banana, and a cup of coffee for a change. Ai Hwa came in looking as if she had had a rough night on the town and quite a number of beers too many. I know that one does not sweep the floor on the first day of the Chinese New Year, so I asked if one could put the dhobi on. No. I then asked if one could wash the dishes. Yes. Cook lunch. Yes.
She then said, ‘you can even see your girlfriend’, and found this funny. I did too, but for another reason. I looked at the clock. 8 30 and I thought of 12 hours ago.
12 05 pm I have just had a shower; I came out of the bathroom to be greeted by a deafening series of explosions, to find out that it was next door let off their string of firecrackers. It is made worse by the amplifying factor of the garden wall. Now they are watering the garden, or washing way the remnants of the TNT. Handel would be pleased, ‘The Fireworks’ first, then ‘The Water Music’. If I had had my wits about me then, I could have played the music from ‘High Noon’, but as it opens with ‘Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’, on this our wedding day’, it might have suggested the wrong thing to young Siti. We are not that advanced yet. Chong daughter number three has come in with my lunch, nasi laut, or sea rice. However, it does not have fish, only chicken. There is also a mild curry sauce, with some vegetables. This I have eaten on many occasions before. It fills the stomach but one is soon hungry; maybe this is why the Malays snack a lot. The rice is off brown, with what I think is coriander, or ketumbar in Malay. I think that their food is very appetizing, but the four of us do not eat it often because of its high salt, oil and sugar content.
The cuisine is not as varied as that of India, Europe or China, but there are some good dishes, notably the breakfasts, that are light years ahead of Chinese and of other ones. I would rate a typical Malay breakfast in my top three or four. I think that the finest buffet breakfasts I have enjoyed both visually and in experience are ones prepared by a Malay chef. I can recall the Awana hotel with you, the Concorde Inn at the KLIA, to name just two. A typical Malay restaurant would offer about ten dishes: fried chicken and fish, two types of chicken curry, mixed vegetables, a couple of other vegetables, perhaps with pineapple, fish in a yellow sauce, beef, and maybe egg.
