There I was, happily eating lunch and shooting conspicuous glances at celebrity chef Cheong Liew, who happened to grace the restaurant with his presence at the very same time as me. (Um, stop intruding, there’s only so much fame that 20 square metres can take and I didn’t leave room for you, Chef Liew.) I was trying in vain to work out what a chef eats – nay, daintily masticates – at a place with a $10 lunch menu when my attention was so rudely arrested by a Twilight book in a woman’s handbag. What a loser. I mean, if you simply must bring a novel to lunch, why not Tolkien or Dostoyevsky? (Then again, no point being cultured in a restaurant with a $10 lunch menu.) Distracted from Chef Liew’s midday consumption habits for a moment, I scanned the room for the owner of the offending book, but it rested in its sorry milieu all on its lonesome. As if to answer my endless queries, a short girl – or at least what appeared to be a girl, as I’m not entirely sure if Twilight fans are indeed human – flurried to the table and placed the handbag in her lap. This is when I had to harness my chin to my forehead: in a cloud of sparkles, a tall, pale man – let’s call him Edward Cullen II – swaggered to his seat next to her. Double-breasted military jacket: check. Man scarf: check. Copper brown hair that hasn’t heard of gravity: check.
Chef Liew must have been feeling somewhat neglected at this point, since I hadn’t stared at him for at least 45 seconds. He’ll learn – I have my priorities. As Edward Cullen II and the girl – let’s call her Not Bella – left the restaurant, the One with the Sparkly Skin reached into his pocket. Out came the Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL. There are three plausible explanations: a) he just happens to wear Wayfarers, man scarves, copper quaffs and double-breasted military jackets on a regular basis, just as Not Bella brings Twilight with her to lunch. b) he is a Twilight fan (i.e. not human). c) Edward Cullen is real and graced Wah Hing restaurant with his sparkles.
I pick c).
Any visitor of mine would have been treated to a showing of my impossibly huge (read: consisting of one record) Michael Jackson vinyl collection. Anybody who has ever been op shopping with me would have developed patience in allowing me to search through kilograms of vinyl just to find that nugget of ageless brilliance. Fortunately for my tired record player, I only ever found The Jacksons’ Destiny. Not quite Thriller, but a wonderful record all the same.
A nescience of my adoration of the man is practically a nescience of me. Nevertheless, I’m a fair bit over the shameless media flogging of the event. Yes, we know he died. Yes, we know he was a legend. Vox pop features are bad for the brain. For the love of my pure, sweet memories of my idol, stop.
Lord of the Rings is nothing less than oneiric. When I finish his entire legendarium, I will be ready to die. (Hi, Girl with a Pearl Earring. I’ll get to you soon.)
He waves me towards the silver Toyota. There he is. I get in. He is, ahem, burdened with more avoirdupois than I remember.
Where to? he says.
Home. Where’s Auntie?
A grunt exists where a reply should be.
Where are you from?
Grunts follow grunts. Why is my driver being so invasive?
Would you like to go shopping? Are you studying? Where were you before?
Weird.
Bloody oath, I’m in the wrong car.
Are you Suffian? I ask.
This man seems to be incapable of retort. I wonder if I could speak to him in grunt.
I think I’m in the wrong car, I say.
A hand makes its way to the back seat, where it rests limp.
High five! Go on, high five!
I’ll be right, mate.
No, high five!
Begrudgingly, I tap his pinkie. He reaches for my hand and proceeds to caress it.
I’ll get out here.
No, no, wait a moment, get out there! Abstract gesticulations serve as lazy definitions of ‘there’.
I will get out here, now.
A hand grips my leg. I forcefully remove it and open the door.
Bye, loser.
I adjust my inner GPS to my current position on Jalan Bukit Bintang. Thank God it was jammed.
Next week will be so crazy for me: three exams, one reunion and one eight hour flight. I haven’t packed yet. I have exams to study for, an eBay store to run, and clothes to pack. So I thought I’d make a congratulations-on-surviving-today’s-exam-now-you-may-procrastinate-for-a-little-while list…things I should never travel without. Self, take heed.
- My favourite pen. Silly as it sounds, I just can’t function without a nice pen and an unlined notebook. (Lined notebooks are too restrictive.) These are my memory keepers.
- A really good foundation. My face hates me when I travel, so I always bring my best – Clinique has never failed me. This technique developed out of a previous habit of avoiding holiday photographs because I couldn’t bear to look at myself…seriously, that’s just sad.
- My contacts and itinerary. Duh. Please, please don’t forget this…self are you listening?!
- Rules. Yeah, nah, even holidays have to have rules. On which shoulder will you hang your bag? The left, because that puts the zip at the front. After what hour will you never use public transport? 7pm. And the number one rule? Never, ever, whatever you do, get romantically involved overseas.
- Money. I don’t know how, but somehow I always forget to bring cash, and when I do remember, it’s on the way to the airport and I haven’t even considered how much I’ll need.
Rewind two years and a massive water bottle would have been on the list, but they don’t allow them on aeroplanes any more. Oh well, yet another item on the ‘to buy’ list. That’s for another day. Oh wait, just remembered the two most important:
6. An open mind. It is impossible to enjoy the culture and beauty of the world if you’re just going to compare and judge it according to the standards of your own country. The more I travel, the more I understand this, and the more I appreciate my own culture, not because it’s superior but because it’s different. The comparatively sterile efficiency of my city is worth nothing next to the artistic history of A Big Country In Asia, the colour of the USA, or the olfactory delights of A Country Above S’pore. I’ve learnt that joy and hope have never heard of wealth or economy, that community and family don’t have to be antonymous, that to stereotype is to set oneself up for a shock.
7. A language dictionary. Gong Gong told me one of his mottos is ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it.’ Turns out he was right.
