Well, I finally decided to forgive the Starbucks at the Spring for past insults, so I bit the bullet (or biscuit as the case may be) and paid them a visit yesterday.
It is very rare that I am let off the leash on a Saturday afternoon like this without the family being with me, but this was a very special Saturday. It started off really well. The wife and her friend went off to the kampung to see some sick friends, and I went up to the campus ostensibly to attend a presentation to be given by an overseas visitor.
I went to the auditorium just before the appointed time (2 pm), because I am punctual like that. The place was empty, so I didn't have to fight for a seat. Sitting down, I started to revel in this unexpected opportunity to appreciate in fine detail the exquisite wood carving of the auditorium seats, and the elegantly tantalising array of light switches tastefully arranged on the wall near the entrance.
So, while enjoying all this architectural detail, I simply sat there and waited for someone to turn up.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until, at about 2.30, I received a call from one of the organisers informing me that the presentation was cancelled and that she had already called me at mid-day to let me know.
Funny how my mobile phone's call log did not record this fact, but there you go. If it had, I WOULD NOT HAVE BLOODY WELL WASTED MY TIME COMING ALL THE WAY TO WORK ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON!!
But I am one of those people who tries as hard as possible, when misfortune befalls them, to extract something positive out of the negative. So I decided to make my way to Starbucks, in the Spring, for a well-deserved coffee-fix.
Now this place was diametrically opposite to the auditorium where I had earlier been humiliated. It was packed to the walls and buzzing with clumps of trendy, shiny-haired young people with trendy bright young faces, clothes and limbs, all yapping VERY LOUDLY and sipping coffee and surfing the net on their lappies. There were hardly any seats but luckily, spotting two of my work colleagues, I managed to sit near to them.
We were sitting right next to the window, which is never my favourite place to sit because you feel like a goldfish. All these people are sliding past outside and none of them can resist the temptation to look in at you while you are drinking your coffee. Which must be nice if you are young and fit and handsome like nearly everyone else in that coffee shop seemed to be.
You can imagine what it must be like to be on TV. The camera is pointing straight at you, and every zit, every blemish, every loose nose hair and every fold of flesh is exposed for the whole universe to see. And of course, you are totally unable to resist the temptation to look outwards at the passers-by, and evaluate them. My colleague kept evaluating the womens' shoes. Me, being a family man, kept as quiet as I could...
I then came to realise one of the main differences between the Spring Starbucks and the Airport branch. And that is the noise level. At the airport, the background sonic ambiance consists of pleasant aural contours of gentle music combined with airport announcements and the polite buzz of conversation among mostly well-heeled business travellers and foreign tourists. It's all so very civilised.
But the Spring branch is like a zoo in comparison - here the ambiance is shot through with loud chatter and, yesterday, strident sounds of babies screaming from the group of young parents behind us, turning the place instantly into a family restaurant, rather than the trendy, cool coffee joint that Starbucks usually is.
I think next time I go there, I will make sure I invest in an iPod, or some other device for blocking out the sound. I definitely would not have been able to read a book there, as I would have in the airport branch.
But despite all that, the afternoon hadn't turn out so badly after all. After finishing my coffee and shouting goodbye to my colleagues, I went for my chicken cornish at Secret Recipe, then went on an extended trawl through the miniature MPH upstairs, scouting out future purchases. And then home, to wait for my wife to return from her day.
And unlike the situation at work, I didn't have to wait all that long for Annie to come back. She never lets me down. So it was a rather satisfying day off the leash after all!!
By the way, I would like to finish with an apology to my reader (s) for my long absences from this blog. These days, it seems, the most interesting topics to write about are forbidden ones, and the most forbidding topics are the most interesting!
But don't despair, Prof. Madder will not desert his readership just yet!!
Sunday 26 October 2008
Friday 3 October 2008
Raya Riders, Mat Rempits and the Angels
For those of you who don't know much about Malaysia, this time of year is the season of Hari Raya Aidilfitri, the celebration of the end of the Holy fasting month of Ramadan. The Hari Raya has the same immense power of social focus as that of Christmas back in the UK. You can be sure that during the Raya period, everyone in Malaysia, especially the Muslim majority, will be busy doing the same things - preparing and eating food, watching special programmes on TV, wearing colourful traditional clothes, and of course visiting each others' houses.
These house visits, or Open Houses as they are usually called, start right from the first day of the Raya, and can last throughout the following Muslim month of Syawal, In practice, though, most open house visits, at least in my part of town, tend to happen in the few days following the first day of the Raya, which this year fell on the 1st October.
The Open House seems to be a uniquely Malaysian phenomenon - almost all of the major religious festivals now have them - Chinese New Year, Christmas and Deepavali, and the Open House concept is intended as a social, religious and even political leveller. Everyone goes to each other's houses during these times regardless of their social or cultural background.
Even the Prime Minister of Malaysia holds a huge open house, but I guess there are too many people who want to see him for it to be held in his actual house, so the PM holds his at a major Kuala Lumpur hall. And the Chief Minister of Sarawak even holds his Raya Open House in the local sports stadium.
But the rest of us hoi polloi are content to hold our open houses in, well, our own houses! Yesterday, my wife and I went on the first round of Raya visits, and tomorrow is the day of our own open house.
Now I am going to be a little bit naughty here and, rather than give you a blow by blow account of the Raya Open House, I am going to save that bit to another posting and rather describe a typical Raya phenomenon which in many ways epitomises the spirit of the Hari Raya as it is practiced in many of Malaysia's Muslim areas.
Now, as you can imagine, if everyone is visiting each other for the Raya, they have to get themselves around somehow! Many people of course drive their cars, like us, and a lot of people take buses, if they can.
But, those who don't have access to such modern luxuries as cars and buses must fall back on that other staple of South East Asian transportation: the motorbike. And, during the Raya, the roads, especially the rural ones, are festooned and clogged by a veritable mobile army: the Raya Riders!
The Raya Riders are mostly young men and women who get on their motorbikes to visit their friends and families during the Raya Open House season. You will see them, usually riding in clumps of ten or twenty, or waiting at the side of the road for more to join their convoys, all dressed in brightly coloured traditional costumes that definitely break the traffic laws, but somehow look so right at this time of year. Imagine riding a motorbike in heels, or simple rubber slippers! Very dangerous, you might be thinking. Yes, but very Raya!
In the rural areas, in the kampungs where the roads are often so narrow you can only get a motorbike though anyway, the Raya Riders are in their element - sliding between the paddy fields with happy smiles on their faces, calling to each other on their mobiles, the colourfully-dressed girls with long flowing black hair poking out from behind their helmets (if they are wearing helmets at all that is!), and the boys with their Malay songkoks (hats) plastered down precariously atop their wind-blown faces, and definitely no helmets!
Often there are two or three to a bike but in the kampungs, the rules are waived, it seems, because the cops are nowhere to be seen - they are visiting their relatives' houses in the next village probably, and in many cases they are riding their bikes too!
This afternoon, on the way home from work, I passed a posse of the Raya Riders going towards town, all young, gaily coloured people and this time wearing their crash helmets like good boys and girls, because it was the main road. There was a happy innocence about them, like the bicycle rides I used to go on when I was a little boy.
How different this was from the last time I passed a gang of young people on bikes, when I went to see my son in KL recently. On that occasion, we were driving along the motorway at 2.30 in the morning when we were suddenly surrounded on both sides by 40 or 50 of Malaysia's very own Hells Angels, the Mat Rempit.
The Mat Rempit are a particularly Malaysian expression of male motorbike madness, and are very much the opposite of the Raya Riders, although they share some of the same characteristics (and members, I'm sure) in that they ride motorbikes, they are Malaysian, and often break the rules.
The Mat Rempits who zoomed past us in KL that morning were doing all the usual crazy Mat Rempit things, like weaving from right to left like stunt riders, zooming along doing wheelies like Evel Keneivel, and even hanging onto the handlebars and letting their legs flail outwards behind them!
But for some reason, the Mat Rempits, and especially their more peaceful seasonal counterparts the Raya Riders, just don't hack it in the Evil Biker Attitude stakes compared to the Hells Angels back home. I mean come on, folks, how can a young Malay rich kid doing handlebar stands on his souped up moped, or a Raya Rider going along kampung roads without a helmet hope to compete with the serious, mean-looking, hard-staring black leather-clad, bearded and tattooed Angels on their grumbling steel horses?
I mean, it's like Datuk Siti Nurhaliza recording an album with Metallica!
Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin to all my Malaysian readers (both of them), and may all riders ride safely, whatever your flavour!
These house visits, or Open Houses as they are usually called, start right from the first day of the Raya, and can last throughout the following Muslim month of Syawal, In practice, though, most open house visits, at least in my part of town, tend to happen in the few days following the first day of the Raya, which this year fell on the 1st October.
The Open House seems to be a uniquely Malaysian phenomenon - almost all of the major religious festivals now have them - Chinese New Year, Christmas and Deepavali, and the Open House concept is intended as a social, religious and even political leveller. Everyone goes to each other's houses during these times regardless of their social or cultural background.
Even the Prime Minister of Malaysia holds a huge open house, but I guess there are too many people who want to see him for it to be held in his actual house, so the PM holds his at a major Kuala Lumpur hall. And the Chief Minister of Sarawak even holds his Raya Open House in the local sports stadium.
But the rest of us hoi polloi are content to hold our open houses in, well, our own houses! Yesterday, my wife and I went on the first round of Raya visits, and tomorrow is the day of our own open house.
Now I am going to be a little bit naughty here and, rather than give you a blow by blow account of the Raya Open House, I am going to save that bit to another posting and rather describe a typical Raya phenomenon which in many ways epitomises the spirit of the Hari Raya as it is practiced in many of Malaysia's Muslim areas.
Now, as you can imagine, if everyone is visiting each other for the Raya, they have to get themselves around somehow! Many people of course drive their cars, like us, and a lot of people take buses, if they can.
But, those who don't have access to such modern luxuries as cars and buses must fall back on that other staple of South East Asian transportation: the motorbike. And, during the Raya, the roads, especially the rural ones, are festooned and clogged by a veritable mobile army: the Raya Riders!
The Raya Riders are mostly young men and women who get on their motorbikes to visit their friends and families during the Raya Open House season. You will see them, usually riding in clumps of ten or twenty, or waiting at the side of the road for more to join their convoys, all dressed in brightly coloured traditional costumes that definitely break the traffic laws, but somehow look so right at this time of year. Imagine riding a motorbike in heels, or simple rubber slippers! Very dangerous, you might be thinking. Yes, but very Raya!
In the rural areas, in the kampungs where the roads are often so narrow you can only get a motorbike though anyway, the Raya Riders are in their element - sliding between the paddy fields with happy smiles on their faces, calling to each other on their mobiles, the colourfully-dressed girls with long flowing black hair poking out from behind their helmets (if they are wearing helmets at all that is!), and the boys with their Malay songkoks (hats) plastered down precariously atop their wind-blown faces, and definitely no helmets!
Often there are two or three to a bike but in the kampungs, the rules are waived, it seems, because the cops are nowhere to be seen - they are visiting their relatives' houses in the next village probably, and in many cases they are riding their bikes too!
This afternoon, on the way home from work, I passed a posse of the Raya Riders going towards town, all young, gaily coloured people and this time wearing their crash helmets like good boys and girls, because it was the main road. There was a happy innocence about them, like the bicycle rides I used to go on when I was a little boy.
How different this was from the last time I passed a gang of young people on bikes, when I went to see my son in KL recently. On that occasion, we were driving along the motorway at 2.30 in the morning when we were suddenly surrounded on both sides by 40 or 50 of Malaysia's very own Hells Angels, the Mat Rempit.
The Mat Rempit are a particularly Malaysian expression of male motorbike madness, and are very much the opposite of the Raya Riders, although they share some of the same characteristics (and members, I'm sure) in that they ride motorbikes, they are Malaysian, and often break the rules.
The Mat Rempits who zoomed past us in KL that morning were doing all the usual crazy Mat Rempit things, like weaving from right to left like stunt riders, zooming along doing wheelies like Evel Keneivel, and even hanging onto the handlebars and letting their legs flail outwards behind them!
But for some reason, the Mat Rempits, and especially their more peaceful seasonal counterparts the Raya Riders, just don't hack it in the Evil Biker Attitude stakes compared to the Hells Angels back home. I mean come on, folks, how can a young Malay rich kid doing handlebar stands on his souped up moped, or a Raya Rider going along kampung roads without a helmet hope to compete with the serious, mean-looking, hard-staring black leather-clad, bearded and tattooed Angels on their grumbling steel horses?
I mean, it's like Datuk Siti Nurhaliza recording an album with Metallica!
Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin to all my Malaysian readers (both of them), and may all riders ride safely, whatever your flavour!
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