NY in KL

Do the Malays have a Western calendar NY greeting? Islam naturally complicates the matter. Likely no, it does not translate. Cannot do so. Yet of course as a modern nation state they are inevitably enmeshed in the Western business/trading/holiday cycle. Will be expecting minimal courtesy greetings perhaps, as in the assumed case of Christmas just gone. (Awkward responding to the girl at reception at the hotel the other day on the matter. — You don't celebrate Christmas?... How to explain?... ) There might not be a single car hoot from the streets, though perhaps the young tear-away bikers will have something to say about that.

         Coming up the hill from the mosque the three or four tailors on the left this morning at their old Singers, cutting with their shears, needle and thread. Occasionally in Chow Kit one comes upon the ancient sight of house-wives catching the light before their entry-ways mending. Providing the help within the little tailor shops here are always males. In his down-time the barber in his booth amidst the rag-men sits with his newspaper. A tall angular man who eschews dye, sitting cross-legged within that tight space recalling the birds at the markets kept in cramped cages. Many of the Tamil barbers work in much smaller spaces, almost the proverbial telephone booths. These younger men come out to lean on a post when they are without customers. Not the tall, gray barber, sitting like an exhibit of some sort in a space measuring three strides and perhaps 1.5 width. As for the tailors, there is an outdoor seat in front of the barber's window shaded by the mosque from early afternoon. Perhaps the man cannot read in peace there. Going past this morning a double take was needed to verify a volume on his tight little shelf against the inner wall. Not a towel, nor tissues. No indeed not. Here was almost a replica of the four inch high holy Qur'an with all the commentaries gifted by Mr. Zainuddin down in Singapore. The red ribbon showed the first fifth—counting from the Western “rear” cover—had been passed in this current cycle of reading. (As in the case of fervent Christians reading the Bible in unending cycle a few generations past, here in this region numerous readers have been encountered reading their Holy text the whole of their lives.) A keener eye will now be needed at that window. To date it has always been the newspaper and cigarette in the Barber's free hands.

    Around in the side street a painfully thin, diminutive old blow-me-down Chinaman sits in his usual place a foot from the large flat-screen in the front of the white-goods shop showing the product’s best action-film colours. Judging by the perpetual grin and delight dementia has well and truly set in, brought on in this case by abandonment most likely; or else too long living. Against the pillar beyond the turn the early middle-aged Indian mother and child have not made an appearance for a couple of days. Normally the woman sits against the pillar with the baby before her, a spread of newspapers under the pair. The woman rarely raises her eyes, letting the figure of herself and child do the talking. A little plastic crimson receptacle provides the final clue for those a trifle clueless. Somehow the visuals to date have always been so gripping alms have not yet fallen there from this hand. In Georgetown, Penang the ubiquitous Chinese jewelers—invariably Chinese—employ security guards —invariably dark Malays and Indians—who perch atop stools out front nursing their rifles on their knees. Here in Chow Kit toughened glass cover the counters, leaving only a gap at the bottom large enough to allow notes to pass. Glass more often than grills. Transaction and closer viewings thus far escaped notice.