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 Paki eatery whose heavy, oily food tested the lass. 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 and the remainder sitting with legs drawn close.
A score at least as tightly bunched as infants at Storytime in kinder.
Up close the range was a minority of late teens, through to early & premature middle-aged, chaffed and raw from the hard 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 the gathered darkness.
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; uncooperative coolies in these parts not so long ago.
Out of sight in our cities there must be the same for public order. All the old TV movies of escapees fleeing over hill & dale, bound to a single fate. Here among the two dozen without exception all the faces shadowy and dark.
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