Oasis (Johor Bahru)

The memory was a much longer foot-slog, half hour or more. In fact fifteen minutes did it comfortably and the drop well worth the march under the hot sun. Big Tuan Besar Ali emerged from out back in his black trousers and white shirt today. (At the first introduction the man had worn a beautifully laundered white dhoti with black and gold inlay.) First up over to the mirror by the drinks counter combing back his fine salt and pepper quoif, watched by the lad brewing and smiles exchanged. A small 4-door Proton Elite it might have been in the car park, taking food out to an elderly neighbour perhaps with his wife of a similar age on the Friday. Such a joy sitting in the midst of the smooth, warm rhythms of the staff, foreign and local, from one end of the shed to the other. One felt immediately drawn to the big old guy for having enabled such an establishment. Thirty years ago Mr. A. had added the last improvements here: tiling over the wash-up sink and long bench opposite where the man had first been encountered a couple of years before dicing ginger from twenty litre tubs; a couple of additional fans in the gaps overhead and some of the plastic sheeting and blinds renewed. Let the youngsters make their improvements later, a comparable paterfamilias in Montenegro would say. Cash was not king here, nor Birkin bags or jewelry from Swiss houses of couture. There was no Bersih Zon sticker visible, but little doubt where the vote had gone here in the last election. Dicing the onions, boy in the corner smiling through his tears when a regular entered and took a seat near-by. Supreme cap would make no never mind: this lad was planted right—he would be able to negotiate the path of thorns. (So-and-So was nakrivo sadjen, planted crooked, the Serbs say.) And how the lad performed his task so deftly, bringing off the thin skin with lightest blade-work. They would sharpen their kitchen utensils regularly here. Kampung Italiano, satu, the drinks lad calls out to the Indo cook in back. One village nasi, Boyo—faulty grammar for the case of the femme. The latter’s consulate was a hundred metres away up off the road, built around the time Pak Ali was establishing himself and in remarkable state of disrepair.

NB. In fact the Bersih – clean stickers are municipal notices and not as assumed of the political group in the new governing coalition in Malaysia.

Warung Teh Sarbat Asli, Native Sherbet Teahouse at the head of Jl. Tun Abdul Razak, named after the second PM shamed by his son the recently deposed sixth Man of Steal.