A Japanese painter unfamiliar with the quarter was given a brief tour of Chow Kit yesterday afternoon and evening—the market, back streets in Kampung Baru and a Pakistani eatery whose heavy, oily food tested a lass raised on rather different fare. Like many of her compatriots, women in particular, Kie needed to flee her homeland in order to pursue her art, the hills of Ubud, Bali, currently providing refuge. End of week bound for Yangon for a fortnight's Vipassana retreat: no speech, ciggies, cell-phone; &etc. Looked a fair chance, with the Fukuoka upbringing in her favour.
Prior to that encounter an unusual gathering was stumbled upon under an alcove on a sunken walkway immediately off busy Jalan Raja Laut. Schoolchildren they should have been quietly awaiting a bus, squatting many of them and the remainder sitting with their legs drawn close. A score at least as tightly bunched as infants at Story-time in kinder.
Up close the range was a minority of late teens through to early and premature middle-aged, chaffed and raw from the hard city streets. Males unshaven; women pinched and with the grey showing through (uncommon on both counts in these parts).
Only almost past did the silver of the chain become visible, strung through the massed body along the three lines, glinting bright with large, heavy links in all that gathered darkness. A few of the lads on their feet roundabout must have been plainclothes. Not that any real supervision was needed here—a chain-gang from the cotton fields; coolies in these parts.
Out of sight in our cities there must be the same recourse taken for security and public order. All the old TV movies of escapees fleeing over dale and hill bound to a joint fate. Here among the two dozen without exception all the faces shadowy and dark.
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