In Praise of "Lepak"

The Malays have this wonderful concept called 'lepak'. The word roughly translates into English as something like 'hanging out' or 'loafing around'. Sitting around with a few friends chewing the fat, or just sitting there, thinking or reading the paper or listening to music.

I love 'lepaking', as does my wife. Especially at the Kuching Airport branch of Starbucks. Annie and I lepak there whenever we have free time in the evenings. She sees it as a good therapy for cheering her up while she is undergoing radiotherapy, but I see it as an excuse to drink good coffee and to peoplewatch. But you may be wondering to yourselves how does a high flying professor like me find the time to lepak in Starbucks?

Not only that, but I must not forget that lepaking is somewhat frowned upon by many upstanding members of Malaysian society. Lepaking is often quoted in the sensational press as one of the 'social ills' alongside drugs, alcohol and sex that are rapidly taking over the youths of the nation.

Well, I have little argument about the evils of drugs and even alcohol and sex, but come on folks, honestly, what is wrong with a little bit of mild lepaking once in a while? Surely, everyone is doing it, so why can't we?!?

I mean, imagine what life would have been like if certain great historical figures had not indulged in some lepaking?

Let me give you an example or two if I may. Take William Wordsworth, who wrote that most iconic of poems "I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils". Now do you honestly think he wrote that while running around madly in his house doing the washing up and the housework, or driving his horse and cart to the office through the London traffic? No. Wordsworth is surely one of history's most celebrated lepakers, because it was his singular act of lepaking through the hills and vales that inspired him to such heights of poetic greatness.

Not yet convinced? OK, let us take Sir Isaac Newton, the discoverer of gravity. The history books tell us that his discovery of the laws of gravity was the direct result of his being hit on the bonce by an apple that fell out of the tree that he was lepaking under. So, if it wasn't for Newton deciding to have a quick lepak under that fateful apple tree, then we wouldn't know the difference between up or down!!

They say that we also serve, who only stand and wait. I say that we also serve, who only sit and think. Just because we may be sitting around, coffee in hand, chatting away with friends doesn't mean that we are not doing something useful. Many university professors and businesspeople all over the world do their best thinking and intellectual work while sitting down in the coffee bar discussing their research with their friends or doing business deals in pubs, clubs and restaurants.

Unfortunately, however, I have found that sitting around like that in my university will attract disapproving stares from my colleagues. Most people cannot equate physical inactivity with work. So they think that if you are lepaking on the job, then you must be lazy, or have too much time on your hands.

But lepaking is good for you because not only does it help to cement the social bonds between people who are often highly stressed but it helps your mind to relax and focus on serious work. It actually makes you more productive. And furthermore, when you lepak in places like Starbucks, it takes on a whole different dimension. Lepaking becomes an art, a lifestyle choice.

I think I'll start a new academic discipline: lepakology. The study of hanging around in a Malaysian context. I'll carry out research into what lepaking means to those who indulge in it. I'll write papers on lepaking and submit them to learned international journals on the citation index, and I'll even organise an international symposium on lepakology. Perhaps, if God is willing, I might even be awarded a university Chair in lepakology!!!!!

But until that happens, the only chairs I will be occupying will be the soft, luxurious sofas outside the Kuching Airport branch of Starbucks, where my wife and I can drink coffee, and play scrabble, and watch the young things go by, and dream....