Chow Kit, KL

The Chinaman at the adjacent table steps across to the little bamboo cylinder holding the table number, a couple of pencils and the breakfast slips for orders. Fingering inside. Fingering, fingering. Nup. Turns and moves on to the next table, vacant in this case. Same again; no joy there either. Hello. Excuse me. You don't mind? all omitted.

         Might have had a turned eye. Short little fella in his early fifties, hair-cut, clothing and manner making him appear years older. Hard-to-keep-down type; resilient. Last few days a couple of dozen in a tour group down for breakfast spread across the dining area. The same town back home, or same factory or enterprise. Chap had been seated at a table of four, a woman with three males.
         A tooth-pick was the best wager. Done with his meal, he had lodgement. The woman at his table had found her pick earlier and was doing her row. She might have had her own little store. Last one perhaps, bad luck.
         What kind of Four Star place is this crap? the knotted brow had flashed. After a further reconnoitre, the fellow pulled up a seat directly behind and started with some metallic tongue-clicking.TockTockTock. Yep, it was him alright.
         Earlier the woman had watched for the reaction. Watched closely.

The tables were so close it was not necessary to meet her eyes. Close watching. Finally, for her benefit more than anything, the fossicker was appraised as he moved away. One of those blank, withering stares produced that a certain kind of superior gives the more humble of the species, the more unfortunate and benighted. Raised eyes over the rim of glasses; a brief tracking of the fellow as he moved to the next table....

The woman however waited for more. OK lady, OK. The smile too could not be denied her; and duly returned. Hopefully the head wag was not too contemptuous or dismissive.
         Sucking his teeth a beauty. What else was he supposed to do, waiting for the bus and the others to finish?
         Rich indeed. A fair old con presenting fine table manners to the new class of tourist unused to polite etiquette and ceremonial graces....
         King-sized beds in the rooms. With a footy you could practice stab passes from door to window. Rock stars might trash such rooms after a night of high octane. Four lamps in addition to the spots and down-lighting. Up for re-election shortly, PM Najib puts on his Mona Lisa smile x 3 on a billboard hung high on a tower outside the window. Two hundred and eight ringgit a day equates to $Aus64.25 at yesterday's exchange rate. The brekkie Cornies and oats thrown in mighty welcome after fourteen months of noodles and rice. Reviews on-line complained about impolite staff, dirty carpet and the all-hours whirring of the Mono-rail immediately adjacent. (Natural inflection rather than the Singaporean Ascot voice for travel announcements in the trains deserves mention.) Downstairs kids play in the pool, girls with tees over their bathers. Two dozen cheap dives in the immediate vicinity, without a move being able to be made a full week now.
         A half dozen stations to Sentral and short walk to Chow Kit, the red-light district and reputed drug haunt. No hint of the latter as yet. The ladies are confined to Indians and foreigners, and trannies without any surgery in the back lanes and along the river. Elsewhere in Malaysia prostitution is illegal; Chow Kit is the exception, as long as Malays are not involved apparently. (Transsexuals are deracinated for such purposes). A Malaysian version of Geylang, with the harder edge much more exposed and jagged.
        The Pakistani quarter is a draw, for the theatre of the robes and shawls if nothing else. One can never tire of the brotherly greetings. Thus far the Pakistanis and Indians have been found to use the striking kissing-call to attract notice quite routinely—hailing both for waiters and passing friends. Punjabis work in the rag trade, Peshawari driving and in construction, Gudjarati the service sector, the waiter at Restoran Mehran informs. Sixteen years working in Malaysia, wife and four children back home, where he returns each year, or each other. A U.S Drone strike a few days back targeting three extremists killed fifteen people, one news item baldly stated, as if a member of the newsroom was making a subtle point for readers to draw their own conclusions.

Muezzin (Chow Kit, KL)

The night before we had listened to some Qur'anic readings from the corner mosque. In Singapore there was no amplification from the mosques allowed higher than sixty decibels—judged to be the strength of the normal human voice. In Malaysia—and previously Batam, Indonesia—the mufti and also the muezzin had been heard a number of times through the speakers. The night before the reading had failed to claim Zainuddin's attention and we soon forgot about it. At first, with the dusk descending, the assumption had been that it was the muezzin's call to prayer. Din explained otherwise. 

         Over his hot milk, ordered to counter the effects of some strong food that had been foisted upon him by a dining companion, Din told of his dispute a number of years ago with a hafiz back in Singapore.  

         A hafiz earned his honoured title having memorized the whole of the Qur'an, numbering altogether some six thousand verses. In this case this particular man was a few years older than Din and at one point had been some kind of teacher of his. Nevertheless, the moment arrived when the teacher was challenged by the student. In this case the teacher was unhappy about the matter. The discussion had arrived at the contentious question of stoning of adulterer or adulteress. Din asserted there was nothing in the Qur'an to justify such a measure. The hafiz wouldn't have it. Din wouldn't back down. The hafiz asked whether Din meant to challenge a man who had memorized the Holy Book. With all due respect, Din drew attention to the specific Arabic: caning was mentioned, in the presence of three just men. Nothing whatever to suggest stoning.  

         Some time later the hafiz's wife conceded to Din that he was in the right. Evidently the hafiz himself was not able to concede the same.  

         Zainuddin quoted the repeated admonishments in the Qur'an: Do you recite the words but not understand? Do you recite but not understand….          One would not want a lesser scholar or lesser man than Zainuddin Ismail Mohammed sitting in judgment on anything of importance.          This afternoon it must have been the imam reading from the Qur'an prior to the Friday homily. Making one's way down after the jaunt to the shopping arcade within the Petronas Towers, the voice blared a little unusually. (Kinokuniya Bookshop sat within the small four storey building that spanned the two towers at the base of the structures. Nothing to report from the shelves: Murakami floor to ceiling in the double "Highlight" shelves, paper and hardback. A graphic novel apparently banned in Singapore—Harry Lee Kwan Yew, by an irreverent Australian author—was passed up; as well as another new Zizek volume. A small branch of Kinokuniya in KL; some of the local history volumes a little enticing.)  

         The voice from the loudspeakers seemed to strain more than a little. It would have been good to have had Din's opinion. The chap's voice broke at a couple of points, a kind of wailing effect.          The Friday homily or prayer usually lasted about fifteen minutes. The more even voice in that delivery was soon forgotten at the Eatery that was in the same street as the mosque, a short distance from the corner. The time passed; a half hour slipped.  

         It was never an especially busy street, Jalan Raya Muda Abdul Aziz.  

         The little stream had not been noticed at first. As it kept up, slowly it became apparent.  

         The Friday homily and prayer was over; the men out and away. A number had taken cigarettes and began to light up as they passed the Garuda eatery. One might think the difference in people after prayers at mosques, churches and temples should be apparent. That afternoon in Chow Kit, by repute a dangerous drug area, where trannies worked nearby back allies, it was not the case.          The foot-traffic had not been noticed immediately. As it kept up eventually the penny dropped. Some of the men came in pairs and small knots; in the main it seemed to be individuals, less than half with head cover. Dark faces, but with a deal of variation in shading.  

         As the stream slowly paced up the incline the realisation arrived. A kind of simple sauntering it seemed, without semblance of altered habit or thought.  

         The neat attire was not noticeable at first; the loose clothing, the shirts hanging out and the sandals gave a deceptive impression. This was not the Sunday best; at least not of the sort one was used to in an affluent country. There was a general sprucing. But contemplation and reflection was not apparent.  

         In one of the Paki places to which he had been taken a few days before, Zainuddin mentioned a certain remoteness in the North Asians he observed there. A man with roots in the Tamil South of India sensed little of Islam among the Pakistani foreign workers. They were preoccupied with something else, Din said. The men returning from the mosque may have been something similar. Many were foreign workers; some Arabs in long robes. One old man added a magnificent red and white checkered shawl. Malays seemed very much in the minority. 

                                                                                                               Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur