Thread *OT*
Another Note from Malaysia
I think I may have mentioned this fellow before. Loo Kam Wah is a person of fierce features. Sort of a Chinese Charles Bronson, even down to the thin mustache and rugged face. He is not the sort of fellow you would cross paths with if you could avoid it, at least from all appearances. His English is rough, but I am told his Hokkien is even rougher when he is bossing his crew of 8 electricians around on the job site. Awah, as we call him, is a man of many facets, or so I have come to learn. He speaks Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Bahasa and English. Though he had 6 years of Chinese school he dropped out early to work. He is the third eldest in a family of 10 brothers and sisters. His father died when Awah was 13. Work was a necessity. So, I was to learn, were some other things. But I'll get to that.
Awah is a distant relative by marriage, and he is also my brother-in-law's business partner. He is the one that does the rough work in that business. He runs the crews, argues with the general contractors, and occasionally does the collection work in a business that is squarely in the midst of the rough and tumble development industry in Kuala Lumpur. It is an industry that has taken a hard shot on the chin and, needless to say, is off about 50% since the onset of the economic crisis here. But it is a business they run in a tight fashion, with no debt, and they have kept all the workers busy and on the payroll with maintenance contracts and some pretty creative business ideas. The crew is like a family and there is a good deal of two-way loyalty. Awah is the fierce patriarch, quick to scold, and just as quick to lend a hand when the need arises. His young team of electricians adore him and will do anything for him.
I spent a good part of the day with him yesterday as a result of an invitation to join him for a breakfast of won ton noodles from a shop he favors. From there he took me to an antique dealer he had heard about. Awah and I share a passion for Chinese history, art, and culture. We also share an interest in fine Chinese tea, and whenever we are about, it often includes a trip to a teashop, and a resulting caffeine buzz that takes hours to wear off. With tea comes an interest in tea paraphernalia and we had heard that the dealer we were going to visit had some old Yi Xing teapots to look at.
The won ton mee (noodles) were delicious, as promised. After breakfast we made our way to one of those ubiquitous office buildings in downtown Kuala Lumpur, where the antique dealer had his showroom and workshop. What we discovered there kept us enraptured us for four hours. While the fellow did indeed have some old teapots they were not the work of masters. The rest of his many rooms of antiques and reproductions were worth exploring however. Furniture, lacquerware, porcelain, paintings, statuary, and stone carvings filled the rooms to capacity. The real bonus came, however, after we had a chance to become better acquainted with the proprietor, and after we accepted his offer of tea. It was then that we were invited to a back room where two attendants were busily setting up lighting for a special display. It happened that this particular dealer was entertaining a visitor from Christie's later this week and was considering placing several special pieces on auction. All of these were funerary objects dating from the East Han dynasty, almost 2,000 years old. The pieces of interest were all placed on a large worktable in another room to which we were escorted. The centerpiece was a terra cotta figure, about 30 inches tall in remarkable condition. Excavation dirt was still clinging to it but you could still make out the ochre colored dye in some places, where the statue had been colored. I was told it was the likeness of a courtesan of an important official, designed to accompany the dead master into the afterlife. There were several pieces of terracotta bowls, the hand painted decoration still visible. This state of preservation, the proprietor explained, could be owed to the fact that the location was very dry, a location criteria well practiced by the Chinese. All the pieces came from the same site and were excavated in the mid 1950's. They had been in the hands of one owner before the dealer had acquired them, and had left China only three years ago. I actually held a figurine of a beautifully gowned maidservant that, for all I know, was nearly priceless. I did not pick it up. It was placed in my hands by the proprietor. I returned it to the table rather quickly. As my friend Awah and the proprietor talked noisily about the upcoming visitor from Christie's, pouring over some recent catalogs of theirs, I stared at the antiquities laid out on the table. It is difficult for me to describe the affect on my senses when I contemplate antiquities. They move me in ways that I do not quite understand. Later, after some rather protracted negotiations on a simple, reproduction display cabinet that I had taken a fancy to, Awah and I dropped off at a tea shop for yet another pot of heong pin (Jasmine tea).
In our accompanying conversation we somehow drifted into the subject of “exotic” foods and the differences in western food and oriental food. This led him to a story of how he and his brothers used to capture monkeys and pigeons for table fare. Both methods were quite ingenuous.
In Malaysia there is very little hunting as westerners generally think of it. This is owing to the severe penalties for illegally possessing a gun and the difficulties in getting a permit to do so. But trapping is another story. He told me how he would drill a hole in a coconut of small enough diameter that would just allow a monkey to slip his hand inside. In the coconut he would place a piece of banana. More pieces would be scattered around the coconut to entice the unwary monkey. A piece of rope would be threaded through two additional holes in the coconut and tied with the other end tied up to a nearby tree. They would hide and wait for the monkey to fall for the bait. Quickly consuming the easy pieces of banana that lay about, the lured monkey would almost always try to fish for the piece that is inside the coconut. Once the monkey had managed to slip a hand inside the coconut through the hole described before, Awah would simply make a noise like a screeching cat. The monkey, screaming with alarm would invariably clench his fists and struggle to remove his hand which, of course, he could not. It was then a simple matter of dispatching the monkey with a club. Neither the moment of truth, nor the meal that came later are for the faint hearted in my opinion.
The method he used for capturing pigeons was equally ingenuous. A trench a few inches wide and a foot deep would be dug. Left over rice would be scattered in the trench. Again a wait in a hide was necessary until the pigeons discovered the rice and dropped in to the trench to dine. Once again an alarming sound would be made, at which point the pigeon would spread his wings to take flight in the reflexive action that always before had served him well. Except this time the walls of the trench would prevent the wings from spreading and the pigeon would become confused. A quick scoop and the pigeon was at hand.
These stories, while a bit ghastly to some, speak of needs I have never known and hope, always, to avoid. As such, they fascinate me. Incidentally, Awah's mother lives with him and told us today of how she would prepare these foods. Of Awah's four brothers and five sisters, seven live within just a few blocks of his home. As a group they are successful tradesmen, businessmen, and homemakers. The youngest, a girl, is a talented ballerina who is currently waiting for news of a scholarship award in which she is a finalist. Awah is a young man, 38 years old with two young children over which he dolts.
I admire Awah. I admire him for his ingenuity and his resolve. I admire him for being tough among men and gentle among children. I admire him for being inquisitive and largely self educated. And I admire him for the way he drinks fine tea, with the relish and enjoyment of a man who has drank much worse.
|
