Breaking For Buffalo (Part 2)

It's only a short stroll from the airport building to the main road, where we (me and wife) came upon rows of small but pretty motels and inns with brightly-lit vacancy and price signs. They all looked tantalizingly cheap before we realized that they're in US dollars. After conversion (2.5 at the time), the price shot up to RM75, which was still reasonable considering that we'd nowhere to go. We just picked out the nearest one. As we strode up, the bored-looking black guy with Jimi Hendrix hairdo at the reception almost jumped out of his seat and, in no time, he's all over us, jinking and gesturing and trying his best to please us. He talked so fast that all I could figure out was our room number.

The First Week
Despite flying half the world, we're neither jet lagged or fagged out. We woke up the next morning fresh and fit. The Hendrix hunk checked us out, but he's surprisingly sober and subdued. Hard to tell whether he's sleepy or stoned, or both. We're now ready to invade Buffalo.

Did we say we'd nowhere to go? We fibbed. Actually we knew somebody in Buffalo. My wife's cousin was married to an Indonesian university lecturer who had a friend living in Buffalo, of all places. We had his home address and phone. For some strange reason, I still remember his address to this day: 185, Commonwealth Avenue, Buffalo 14214. His name was Harun Arrasjid. His wife, Doreen, was kind enough to prepare what looked like Malaysian/Indonesian fusion for our dinners throughout our short stay. They had only two kids,  teenage boys John and Eddie. Both were half a foot taller than me.

After a week with Pak Harun's family, we moved into a house at No 4, Rounds Ave, off Bailey Ave, a walking distance from the university campus. Doreen had negotiated the rental and assured the landlady that we're genuinely nice people and we're not Mexican migrants and we left our shoes outside and so on. That shoeless scam clinched the deal.

Back To School
The official name of the university was (and still is) the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. But nobody in Buffalo knew where  the university with that windy name was, because locally the university was known by its sexy moniker UB. With a student population of about 30,000, UB was the biggest public university in New York, but it's still considered small because Penn State had 100,000 students and University of Phoenix had 5 million. Among US college graduates in Malaysia, the university is known as SUNY Buffalo, where SUNY rhymes with Sunni.

My first day at the school passed without any rude shocks. My very first class was Economics (MGE 650). There were about 20 of us, mostly American whites, with a sprinkling of Asians (Indians, Koreans, me) and only one black. The class was taught by an Indian lady and a Columbia Ph.D named Ramaswami. My next class was Marketing (MGM 625). The teacher was ...an Indian. His name was Mittal. I remember him quite well because he called me Omar. Only two classes on my first day, and I was looking forward to the next day, partly to find out whether there's any non-Indian teacher in this school. It's Statistics class (MGQ 606) the next morning and I was dead certain that it's going to be another Indian. It's Professor John Boot, a Dutch.
 
I used to hate Chemistry with all my life but here's different. The teachers were passionate and knew their stuff inside out. They wrote textbooks. Some of them came to class dressed down and undone and you could mistake them for flood victims. Boot was the best of the lot. He used pornography to spice up his statistics class. Nobody missed his class.

I very rarely spoke in class, any class. On the odd occasion the professors had to seek my esteemed opinion, the whole class could be seen squirming to unscramble my thoughts and navigate my choppy English. My best friend was the lone black guy, who's exactly one foot taller. We hit it off at first sight. I wasn't sure why but my theory was that, in the absence of other blacks, he saw me as the closest thing. Of course there were Indians, but Indians were, well, Indians. He, like me, rarely spoke in class or anywhere.

Things took a comical turn in the third semester. We'd to write a paper at the end of a group marketing research project. The leader was so impressed with the part I wrote for the project that he secretly asked me to edit other members' write-ups on other parts. I declined. I simply had no stomach for a showdown with the guys once they found out that their masterpieces had been corrected by a Kelantanese. Hahaha    

He didn't ask me to present the paper.   

Melayu Met Melayu
I was into the second week, and I'd yet to speak to another Melayu other than my wife.  I jumped with joy when I finally found a name at the students association office: Razali Mohd Taib. He's listed as president of the Malaysian Students Association, with a contact number. I called the number but apparently it's out of service. I later learned that Malaysian students changed their numbers (and names) every semester as they moved around a lot. And got away with unpaid bills.

After three days of staking out, we finally bumped into a small-size girl in unmistakable tudung walking alone on Bailey Ave. She smiled, and it's the sweetest thing I'd seen in weeks. We knew we'd found what we're looking for. Her name was Mazni. We're so happy that we took her home and asked her "mana budak Melayu lain?" ten times. Word about a good-looking Malay family floated fast and the next few days we got to meet more Melayu: Fizal, Bakar, Anuar, Huda, Asiah (Hat), Haz, Jasmin, Kurshiah, Romi, Shimah, Sabariah, Pah and, of course, Razali Mohd Taib, now ex-president.


The following week, out of the blue, another three girls joined us : Yati, Marzita and Nazita. They all looked drained and confused. I forgot to ask these freshers why they came so late and why Buffalo, of all places.

I thought Huda had the natural pr personality and flair to sustain a healthy connection not only among us, but also with other Malay communities outside Buffalo, right up to far-flung Louisiana. Everybody in US called her Hud, except Fizal, who called her Huk.   

The Melayu population swelled further as more migrated to UB the following semesters: Azam, Azman, Rahuni, Md Nor, Sufian, Sufian, Asmadi, Norazman, Tahir, Megat, Ruzila, Puteri, Asiah, Faridah and a few others (can't recall their fancy names). All of them were from the surrounding community colleges, except Tahir, who didn't come from Poughkeepsie or Spring Valley. He came from Singapore.

Beautiful Buffalo (I'm Serious About This)
To be sure, Buffalo isn't Bologna, even if you don't know where Bologna is. But it's pretty enough in a rather unshowy and understated way, with its own character and charisma, whatever this catch-all means. The city centre, or downtown, is located on the shores of Lake Erie, bordering Canada, which is a different country (in case you're not aware). It's a real pity that the city and its sweeping skyline can only be fairly admired from the lake, at night, in a boat. Problem is, nobody wants to be in a boat on a lake at night.

The main tourist draw is the nearby Niagara Falls, one of the world's greatest natural wonders. I'd learned about Air Terjun Niagara in standard six Ilmu Alam but I'd never imagined seeing it in the flesh. Anyway Buffalo is globally known for its very own natural wonder: snow. The first time I saw snow in Buffalo, I felt my stomach drop.

Our house was actually not far from downtown, but the journey by bus could easily take an hour as the bus would stop at every corner to pick up or drop off old ladies. These lazy ladies would more often than not make small talk with the equally old driver before getting off. They're so slow and hard on hearing that your dark, sadistic side might find it tempting enough to push the ladies (and the driver) off the bus. For this reason, I'd rather go to New York City (700 km) than downtown Buffalo (10 km).

Baby, Born in The USA

It's life's little milestone as we welcomed our first baby in Spring 1983, in Buffalo, of all places. What an experience. For months the whole Malay community in Buffalo was buzzing with anticipation. For months everybody in the state of New York was eager and anxious. And why not, my wife and her baby bump had been sighted in all corners of the state: Downtown Buffalo, UB Campus, Niagara Falls, Manhattan, the Bronx, Binghampton, Syracuse, Rochester, Tonawanda, you name it.

To prepare for the baby, I bought a car. It's a 5 year-old manual-shift Mitsubishi Colt. For  $2200, I didn't expect it to move like a red Corvette, but it's good enough for grocery runs and campus commute.

It's late evening of 11 April 1983 when I'd to rush my wife to Buffalo Sisters of Charity Hospital. I dragged along one of the girls (Yati) just in case. The doctor was an Egyptian named Fuad Darwish. With a name like that, he should be a poet. The nerve-numbing wait was soon over, and my heart leapt when I heard my baby scream.

We're back home after three days at the hospital. "Home" now was no longer the "shoeless" house at Rounds Ave. We'd actually moved to another house, on a narrow cul-de-sac off Bailey Ave, sharing with Huda, Yati, Marzita and Nazita. It's a huge property with an uncanny Bates Motel architecture. (We named it Rumah Rados, after the landlord). Lucky thing we had these girls around, who helped us with the baby. We could never thank these instant aunties enough. 

We'd befriended a Vietnamese lady who owned an oriental store not far from our house. This Makcik Vietnam was our baby care "consultant" whose invaluable A to Z of baby bearing and baby bringing helped us and our baby brave the harsh Buffalo winter. On her advice, we immediately enrolled in WIC program, a state social (OK, welfare) program that handed out baby-food coupons to "deserving" families, like most black families, Makcik Vietnam and my family. It's not much, but it helped. We sometimes used the coupons to buy our own breakfast cereals (Hahaha, Melayu tetap Melayu). 

Lovely Sambal Rainbow Trout
Ah, rainbow trout. Smooth, silky, savoury. Fabulous food. I didn't miss home cooking because we cooked, I mean my wife cooked. Every weekend I'd prowl Wegmans, Bell or other grocery stores for rainbow trout on the cheap. Fried rainbow trout in sambal prepared by my wife for deep winter dinners is the best food I've ever eaten.

Fizal would occasionally drop by at mealtime to ask about our baby. This ploy worked every time. If he's in luck, he'd be rewarded with my wife's trout trophy. I can still recall his kind words like "Sedak miseh masok" etc. Very clever.

On The Road Again, and Again
We liked to travel and, boy, did we travel. Days and nights and days on end. We'd spend every semester break and long weekends on the lam somewhere far from Buffalo. Normally we'd travel in two or three rented cars with our housemates (Huda, Marzita, Nazita, Yati) plus a few other girls, with Fizal and Bakar as our drivers. Nobody drove like these two guys: they could drive without any sleep. And when they finally slept, they slept in the cars !

I think I'd covered more than 30 states in US plus the eastern provinces of Canada (different country), seeing not only the famous places and iconic landmarks, but also the lesser-known treasures like Yale, Old Montreal, Prince Edward Island, Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Navajo Indian Reservation. There were of course some forgettable duds I chanced upon, you know, places like Tallahassee, Baton Rouge and Kalamazoo, which didn't quite live up to their funky names. By the time I left Buffalo in June 1984, I would've easily logged 20,000 km, longer than Marco Polo.

Travel in US was cheap because car rental was only RM25/ day and fuel was 80 sen/litre. Divide that by four or five persons in one car, you actually paid a pittance. Lodging was free because Malaysian students could be found in every state (except Alaska, but you didn't go to Alaska). I can still recall, on our trip to Florida, we stopped off at Charleston, South Carolina. The Malay students there lived in trailers and they welcomed us with plenty of food and Mountain Dew. We're so hungry that we only talked to them after we're done with the food. That night I slept in the trailer home like a log. These people weren't rich and famous but they're just kind and proud to provide fellow Melayu with enough rest to recover for the next leg.

There's one trip that's absolutely out-of-mind in every sense. It's a 900 km drive to Orchard Beach, Maine. Nobody knew where Maine was, let alone Orchard Beach. Bakar and I were obsessed with photography, not so much with picture-taking skills, but with the hardware (cameras, lenses). Things got out of hand as we decided it's time to upgrade our cameras to capture the full glory of frozen Niagara Falls and the Adirondacks foliage. The cheapest place to buy cameras in US happened to be Orchard Beach. We reached the town late evening, parked our car in front of the camera shop and slept in the car until the store opened the next day. I bought a Nikon FE2, a real beauty and an excellent workhorse. Bakar bought a Nikon F3, top of the line model, and one up on me. I still have the FE2 with me in perfect condition but I'm using a mirrorless Fujifilm digital now. I heard Bakar lost his F3 in a flood or a fire. 

Another trip that's massively memorable was the coast-to-coast drive from Buffalo to LA and back to Buffalo in a two-week blitz in spring 1984. Until today I still wonder how in the world did I ever conceive the suicidal idea. The risk was so real. Imagine, our Mitsubishi was a near-junk, it could decide to break down and fall off any time during the 10,000 km drive, while we had our one-year old boy on board. We stopped and slept literally anywhere, including one nice rest area in Alabama. But it's fast and furious all the way as we crossed more than a dozen states, passing pretty sights like Grand Canyon, Mojave Desert and Las Vegas Strip, and sneaking into Mexico (another different country, haha) just for the hell of it. We got booked by police in Tijuana for no reason and had to pay $20 on the spot. We lived to fight another day, and were back in Buffalo in time for more classes.

Wrapped Around My Finger
It's hard not to notice that a lot of the students here listen to a lot of music. For the serious student, music would calm his or her nerves after the daily grind of classes and winter flurries. For the more serious one, it's the other way: classes are calm and comfort after a whole night of high music.

The biggest source of free music was the radio, and some radio stations played music, mostly the rockish and rubbish variety, around the clock. Some of the guys (not Azam or Azman) even wore loud rock t-shirts, attended live gigs  and so on, which I thought was fine since that would inspire them towards better grades in their studies (don't ask me how). Md Nor upped the octave when he bought a guitar to impress all of us although he couldn't even hit the simplest chords.

I had a radio that was perennially preset to the station that played only 60's and 70's oldies. Boz Scaggs, Three Dog Night and the like, hahaha, which I turned on whenever I was up late toiling on my homework. The strange sound would fill the whole house, but Huda and the other Rados residents never made an issue of my choice, probably out of respect. 

I'm no music maestro, but I thought the music tastes among the Melayu here weren't strikingly sophisticated or wildly imaginative. They're pretty much straight-line: the boys loved Bruce Springsteen, the girls would die for Rick Springfield. And that's that. Today Bruce Springsteen is still at it but is largely ignored. I don't really know what's become of Rick Springfield. Maybe he's a senator or prime minister of Australia, who knew.

I still have a radio now but I only listen in fits and starts, in between my two lovely grand-daughters. 80s music is mostly aired by the light-and-easy station, which also plays California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas. Whenever the likes of Wrapped Around Your Finger or Come On Eileen come on, they would shake my senses and conjure up the moods and memories of my Buffalo break. Nothing spectacular about these numbers, but, somehow, they're just.... there.

Bye Bye Buffalo
Time flies, even in 1980s. It's June 1984 and it's time to pack our bags and leave on a jet plane. Before that, on May 19, I had my convocation, or commencement, as it's called in US, a straightforward, low-key affair. The one I had at UKM five years earlier was really grand, as it was broadcast live over Radio Malaysia. Every graduate's name was announced, so the whole country knew I graduated that day. It's something to celebrate as there were only five universities in Malaysia and all graduates were locals. The radio stations have stopped this practice now that Malaysia has more than 100 universities and half of the graduates were born in Nigeria.

But there's still time for one final fling, the proverbial last kopek. Yes, one last road trip. This time to the New England states and eastern Canadian Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. Exotic names and pure, pristine places. Add them to your your bucket list.   

It's very early morning of June 18 and I can't recall who drove me to Buffalo Airport and saw us off. Probably Bakar and Rahuni. It's a short flight to JFK before a long, multiple shut-eye flight to Tokyo, and then another flight to KL the next day. We landed at the old Subang airport finally, and as I was waiting for my bags, a sister-in-law came in from behind us and snatched our baby away. It's her first nephew and she's not going to wait.

UB's Engineering Students

 

Niagara Falls When It's Not Frozen

My Boy Showing Off His Snow Skills

Second From Right Is Clint Eastwood. 

Doreen Preparing Nasi Padang For Her Malaysian Guests

Historic Place. Historic Hair

Ottawa, Japan

    

    



 











  

  







 








   

   


 
  



 

Poetry In Passing

 
                                                                                 I

When I was 18 and 19, I was literally prolific, which literally means that I literally wrote or produced loads of literally literary stuff, mostly poems. In the crystal ball of hindsight, I can confirm now that the quality was, generally, suspect. We're totally driven by a "publish or perish" mentality. There's a new poem by somebody every other day. Nowadays nobody writes and reads poems, not while we're being rounded for sedition or listening to Anwar Ibrahim.

I wrote only Malay poems. Not Pantun, you know, dua tiga kucing berlari and the like. But Sajak, "Aku ini binatang jalang..." and so on. You're right, Sajak is a lot more exciting. It's kind of free for all with no rules to obey: the lines don't have to rhyme, a line may contain just one word like "ah", and one glorious set of Sajak may contain just one line with one word "ah". The main advantage of this variety is, you can always blame the readers if they don't understand it. There's in fact a sub-genre called "Sajak Kabur" where only its writer and her husband know its meaning (if there's any). These grey products, just like the grey imports, are technically illegal.

I can't recall writing any English poems at any time. Not at school, not at home, never at work. I worked for 30 years non-stop but never wrote a single line of poem. Petronas maybe a fun-loving, Fortune 500 company, but it's fiercely poetry unfriendly. Papers and letters all had tight templates and standard words and expressions, leaving absolutely no room for poetry.

I'd never been exposed to English poems because the secondary school I went to was purportedly a serious science-stream school. We're groomed to become brain surgeons. This science-or-shame doctrine was understandable. In 1970, there were only 14 Malay doctors and 29 Malay engineers in the whole country. Compare that with 140,000 Malay doctors and 1,400,000 Malay engineers now. Latest available statistics show that there are more full-time doctors than full-time farmers in Kelantan now.

Instead of learning period poetry, we learned periodic table where Oxygen is O and Iron is Fe. Chemistry and poetry may have vastly different contexts, but they exist for the same objective: to confuse you. In my school, there's no written regulation but poems or anything that resembled poetry were practically outlawed. Aspiring writers were summarily dismissed as fringe and subversive and jambu or simply up to no good. So we went underground and found a clandestine  dead-poets society.

With an old Olympia typewriter, poems would just flow and flourish, pretty and plentiful. All in sajak form, in passionate Malay, some shone, some shite. One left-leaning guy wrote a poem with a stirring line "kita gantung kutang-kutang". I can't remember what had really pissed him. Nobody was happy that we're an all-boys school. He must be having some kind of premonition while crafting that precious line because he's now a high court judge. Gantung, your honour, gantung, ha, ha.

For more than 40 years I was in literary hiatus, which is a pity because I'm quite talented. At least, I think so. I'm now a passive follower of four active poetry social groups (Penyair Malaysia, Jom Sastera, Anjung Puisi, Puisi Maya). Plenty of poems posted but they all lack fire. Mostly dry and dreary, products of a persistent publish or perish mindset. But at least these people are very determined and brave enough to plod on and write. Even six years into retirement with mind now free of fuss and fetters, I've not written one line. Truth is, I'm still struggling to find the spark to restart my literary crush.
                                                     
It finally came.

                                                                       II

My mother had been admitted to Universiti Hospital (now called PPUM) since early December for something I could never understand. Her shoulder was bulging like a balloon and the pain was unbearable. The four of us  (her children) took turns to be by her side. She's officially 86 and dialysis-dependent. With an average age of 60, we're not much younger either. It's a four-bed ward and it's fairly comfortable for any age.

I can tell you that caring for the sick isn't easy. Well, you didn't say it's easy. It's not so much the physical part, she's not too difficult. It's the emotional side. Watching her struggle to eat and lift her head could break you psychologically. It's times like these you become contemplative, philosophical and, well, serious. Suddenly it dawned.  Why didn't I write? Yes, why not, since I'm talented and, now, serious? I could almost feel the adrenalin. I must write. I wanted to write. I wanted to write a poem.

I was soon on fire. Thinking and labouring for ideas and the sexy words for my poem. It's not easy to restart anything if you're already 40 years old. I'm past 60. You can't use the plebeian or prosaic words like makan, pencen, boss, mydin for a poem. It has to be the more pretentious language like senja, musim, berlalu, kamar,  aku.

My sick mother was my inspiration, my muse, if you like. Sitting by her bedside with my oversize android, it's easy to write and delete and write and delete. After toiling for more than two weeks, I finally managed to come up with some semblance of poetry. Born on the banks of Kelantan river, I couldn't resist an imagery and allusion of water and river. I can promise you it's an easy read since this is my first foray after 40 years.

berdiri di tebing kamar
mengusap jiwa yang terdampar
berkali aku diamuk soalan
begini jugakah akhirnya nanti?

nafas yang patah dan payah
meminggir bibir yang tipis.

matanya jernih
memandang tetapi tidak melihat.
namun suaranya pantas dan jelas
memanggil dan menerimaku.

betapa tenang dan bebas
hati yang sudah menyerah.
tiada lagi niat dan hasrat
resah atau amarah
di muara usia yang panjang.
kepedihan yang kaudatangkan ini tuhanku
mungkinkah buatku
agar aku lebih cair dan hampir?

apakah makna yang terkumpul
di fikiran yang sudah dihanyutkan
arus ubat dan air ini?

apa mungkin bertahun keperihan
dan kasih yang mengalir
dibayar dengan penantian sehari?

ah, siapakah yang dicari 
antara beratus nama yang diimbau
dari lipatan ingatan?

Soalan dan soalan terus melanda
bagaimana harus kurungkai
malam ini
di sini.


She passed away on 25 December.
I'll never write a poem again.





 

 

  

 

Breaking For Buffalo (Part 1)

 

Until now I can't figure out why I went to Buffalo, of all places.

It's hard to find a reason to go to Buffalo even if you knew that it's the second biggest city in New York. Perhaps it's hard to find a reason to go to Buffalo because it's the second biggest city in New York. The problem with the name New York is that 100% of non-Americans and 99% of Americans know only New York the city, not New York the state. So the second biggest city in New York  state is only meaningful in the way that Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic.

Maybe I just liked the name Buffalo. There were easily more than 2000 colleges in US, so how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? There were no full-blown college rankings in 1980. The only scams those days were black money and scratch-and-win. So choosing a college was pretty much an art and a game of chance.

All I'd heard was a couple of really good colleges in US I shouldn't waste my time on because of my appalling physics and chemistry grades in form five. Harvard accepted only very quick geeks and gooks, apart from future presidents and prime ministers or future sons of future presidents and prime ministers. And everybody agreed that it's easier to go to jail than Yale. So I didn't apply to Harvard and Yale.

Good thing that Petronas had no problem with my school choice. A good friend named Zainal had his application to do MBA at Moscow approved with no fuss. Moscow  was actually a town in Idaho, but I've no doubt that Petronas would've approved it even if it's Moscow in Russia. Getting scholarship at that time was roughly 100 times easier than it is now. The whole idea was, right or wrong, to encourage smart staff to get smarter, not the smartest staff to get smarter. All you'd to do was to fill a form and provide one good reason why you felt that you'd not been educated enough. Another friend wrote succinctly that " I just discovered that my current third-class degree in Malay studies wasn't cut out for all the challenges going forward". The committee immediately fell for this 'going forward' trick and approved the scholarship, with full pay and all allowances thrown in.

It's all different now. I heard that, on a scale of complexity, getting Petronas scholarship now is the midpoint between Yale and jail. You know, how you've to be clever and seen to be clever and how I hate this cliche. You've to be a potential Petronas president or son of a potential president or, better still, if you're the president himself. When you somehow met the criteria, there's still the small matter of an interview. There's no committee to interview you now, which is well and good until you discover that it's going to be a vice president instead. You and some maverick vice president, one on one or one to one, sizing up each other, over dinner. Lose your spoon, you'll lose your scholarship.

It's 1982 and it's annus mirabilis. I got married and we're breaking for Buffalo. My young wife (she's young at that time) admitted that she'd never been to Buffalo. She also admitted that she'd never been to Kelantan. At least, she's consistent. All the same, we're excited about the prospect of living through the next couple of years in the second biggest city in New York state, hahaha. We're further fired up by friends and former classmates who'd just come back from US with glowing tributes to US liberal education and cable TV. Most of them had attended schools in Athens, Troy, Syracuse and other ancient-sounding places, but none from Buffalo.

I don't keep any record of the exact date we left for US. But I'm sure it's either late August or early September 1982, just in time for the Fall semester. What I can still remember is losing all my sense of proportion after a long flight spanning over 12 time zones, three sunrises and four inflight breakfasts. And, of course, the long layover at Chicago airport and the smooth landing at Buffalo-Niagara Airport. Nothing striking about the airport. Those days an airport was an airport, not the whole kingdom. Immigration was fast, no body patting, no terror trivia, and we're allowed to keep our shoes and belts as part of our fashion statement. We picked up our luggage and eagerly wheeled out toward the exit just to see what's outside. As we pushed the door, gusts of cold air flooded in and froze my spine. My (young) wife smiled and shuddered slightly. She'd never been to Buffalo.

It's early evening, about six or seven. The sky was still bright, and cloudless. I was immediately overcome by the rush of fall foliage in the distance. What a pretty sight. All's fine, it seemed, except for one small problem: we had nowhere to go.               


        

  

Going Away

Early last month I was among a crowd of family members at KLIA to see Azra off to England for further studies. Azra is my wife's sister's daughter (technically my niece). It's a heady and joyous occasion, and a chance to greet and meet relatives I'd not met since....... the previous Sunday. Azra's all upbeat with no visible signs of distress or despondency normally associated with an impending filial parting. With her iPhone ringing off the hook, there's simply not enough time to be sad.

Her parents were equally relaxed and calm and just happy that their pretty daughter would get the much coveted overseas education. Who wouldn't? I don't have the statistics, but my guess is less than 1% of Malaysians of her age are lucky enough to go to UK instead of, say, UMK (Universiti Malaysia Kelantan). I'm not implying that Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, or Kelantan, is wrong or rogue or anything. It's just that Kelantan is not UK.

When the time came for goodbye, there were no bouts of chokes and tears. Her dad was a hard-driving businessman who deals with tools and turbines and he's not supposed to cry for any reason. At least not while I was around. So I didn't expect him to break new ground this time. Her mom, well, I could never guess or second guess what's inside although she's my wife's sister (technically my sister-in-law). She's less forthcoming than her sister (technically my wife) and it's hard to say here or now whether that's good or bad. Suum cuique (Latin). I supposed she's a tad sad, but she's determined not to let anyone guess. True to form, mom hugged her daughter and said some standard stuff like take care, study hard and so on. Well, what do you expect? 

That was it. Azra took the escalator and was out of sight in less than two minutes. She didn't look back. She didn't have to because she's never away. Cellphones, Whats App and other human inventions and interventions have compressed the world. No place is actually too far and too foreign now. 

I couldn't help but think of the time when we (me and wife) were leaving for US in August 1982. We'd been married for about four months. It's so many years ago that it could've easily been 1882. Anyway, things were different those days. For a start, it's the old Subang airport. It's more crowded than Old Trafford. You could get depressed in no time and for no apparent reason. People just next to you wailed hysterically and you thought they're part of your family and you just had to cry along as a courtesy. Internet, email and cellphones were a long way off. International calls to US were slow and expensive because they'd to go through six different operators.

My flight itinerary reads like Amazing Race: a stopover in Taipei, an overnight in Narita, a 6-hour lay-over at Chicago, and finally a late night landing somewhere near Niagara Falls in upstate New York, in a record time of under 50 hours. I suspect the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci took the same route and time when he discovered and named America exactly 400 years before.

Those days, if you're going overseas, you're going overseas. Far and away from everything you'd known. The cheapest way to communicate was by mail and you'd to write properly and in full because nobody understood LOL etc at that time. I've to admit that I was actually more worried about missing or wrong flight connections. I didn't want to go to Ottawa.

When our flight was called, my wife broke down and cried.

Learning and living overseas, even in frigid, far-flung places like St Petersburg, is a worthwhile experience. I've made it a point to be at the airport to see close relatives off for further studies, as if my presence would motivate or encourage them in some way (which I doubt).

But lately seeing-off students overseas has been mostly muted and low-key non-events, lacking the drama and trauma of bygone days. Maybe KLIA is too spacious, clinical and artificial. It lacks character and atmosphere (cliche much). Plus, flying is no more a novelty with AirAsia now giving away free seats every three days. Nobody wants to cry every three days. I've lost count of how many times I was at the airport to see students off to UK or somewhere to do medicine or some strange subjects, but I was left deflated every time. Except for one time in 2001, when my eldest boy was leaving for US.

It's almost 20 years after my historic flight, and the difference couldn't be starker. It's KLIA now, no more Subang kopitiam. In 1982, I was 29, fully grown, and married. In 2001, he's under 18 and, by law, couldn't watch Saving Private Ryan. He's among a small group of students flying off to US that day, very early morning, 2 or 3 am.

When we reached the airport, his hordes of friends, 40 or maybe more, had already stormed and occupied one-half of the airport, turning that part into a Formula 1 podium. What a rousing and rapturous send-off. I've never seen so much joy and jubilation in parting. These young people just knew how to do it, and I was stunned by the spontaneity. They sang, they hugged, they laughed, they waved. Even my tone-deaf brother-in-law sang along when the whole group broke into "Leaving on a Jet Plane".

When my son's flight was called, my wife broke down and cried.



  




      

       

Bangkok Dangerous

 
On 22 May 2014, Thai military seized control of Thailand, and imposed martial law and a nationwide curfew. Bangkok had never looked so dangerous.

Thankfully we're in Malaysia, a purportedly peaceful country. We had absolutely nothing to worry about, except for petty issues like reckless drivers, taxi drivers, Whats App, house break-ins, bank break-ins, political break-outs, crony contracts, water rationing, snatch thefts, Astro, GST, price hikes, diesel smuggling, illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, May 13, Sabah kidnappings.

So should we worry about Thailand? We should. Why? We're planning to go to Bangkok on 24 May, that's why. Five days, four nights with the army, guns, tanks, mortars, bombs and tear gas didn't sound like a mouth-watering prospect. No question, we're very worried. We had with us eleven Air Asia confirmed tickets for flight to Bangkok on that date, non-refundable, non-exchangeable, non-transferable. We're nonplussed.

Why eleven tickets? Because it's eleven of us. Me, wife and our two girls, a sister-in-law, a niece, a brother-in-law, his wife and their three kids. Magnificent eleven. The big question was, Should we go ahead with our plan? Or should we activate a plan B? Did we have a plan B? We'd bought the tickets two months ago and they're dirt cheap because Air Asia had spies with the Thai army and they knew about the coup as early as 2012. That's why they priced the tickets so low: RM204 return. Coup d'etat specials. Compare that with RM1204 one way if you want to fly to Lahad Datu just to be with all those Sulu soldiers.   

The Foreign Ministry people issued the normal cover-their-asses travel advisory: cancel all plans to travel to Thailand, and travel to Ottawa instead. TV3 rep who was in Bangkok, embedded in the army tanks and throngs of protesters, had this advice for us: Don't come to Bangkok. She's happy and smiling in Bangkok and we shouldn't be in Bangkok.

Among the eleven of us, three were school girls, two college girls, five boys and girls above 50 years old (including one above 60, you know who), leaving only one 19-year old boy who's technically able and ready to fight the Thai army if we had to. The odds were heavy. Should chaos and clashes break out in Bangkok, who's going to save us? Corrupt monks?

Finally we drew up a plan B. So Plan A was: Go to Bangkok. Plan B was: Go to Bangkok. Decision: Go to Bangkok.

Problem was, we're too negative. We must think lateral, outside the box, blue ocean, and consider the upsides: the army keeps the streets safe. Protesters have gone home. Curfew starts at 10, so my brother-in-law can't sneak out, his wife should be happy. Hotel room prices are rock bottom. Manicures are free with massages. Smelly backpackers are few and far. Best of all, it's a dream outing for our school girls, I mean, they'd been studying their hearts out, days and nights, non stop, LOOOOL. There's no better time to hit Bangkok.

So we went to Bangkok on Saturday, 24 May. From Don Mueang low-cost airport we headed straight to Pattaya low-cost city, two hours by road. Our itinerary was flexible. If Bangkok behaved, it's one day in Pattaya and three days in Bangkok with day trips to Ayutthaya and Floating Market. If Bangkok turned ugly, it's one day in Pattaya and three days in...... Pattaya, we skip Bangkok.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a livelier and more vibrant town than Pattaya. The only industry here is entertainment, all kinds, you name it. We're given rooms that faced a best-selling bar with loud music and laser lights that blared and glared with nerve-numbing intensity. Luckily everything had to drop dead at 10, when curfew kicked in. Ha, ha.

Just for the record, we had a lovely tomyam dinner at a food court in a nearby mall. The waiter was friendly and there's no communication breakdown. He's from Kelantan.    

Turned out, Bangkok was beautiful, no army, no tanks, no Molotov cocktails. Only go-go girls and lady-boys. Our base camp was Omni Tower, about 400m into Soi (Lane) 4, off the world-famous Sukhumvit Road, where 99% of the population were transient tourists. To reach our hotel, you've to literally navigate through blasts of high-energy music and spinning lights and rows of randy bars with pole dancers and, you guess, go-go girls. Our schoolgirls screamed with delight. I'd to literally calm down my brother-in-law. The 19-year old guy was quietly making plans to come again, without his mom and pop. Clever boy.

Chatuchak Sunday market was brimming over with real people and fake stuff. MRT and Skytrain rides were pleasant, without curious Banglas and Indons watching. We'd to buy 11 tickets each time, creating long queues and commotion every time. Our station was named Nana, but you've to say it with the right tone and tune. If you miss one note, the locals would think that you're asking for a body massage. Hotel was perfect, my brother-in-law and his wife had a room all to themselves. The half-day trip to the old capital city Ayutthaya was fun. The floating market at Damnoen Saduak turned out to be exactly what we'd expected: a floating market. Hahaha. The schoolgirls had a real dandy time, sleeping, giggling and eating in one big bed. What did you like best, girls? Lady-boys !


We flew back to KL on 28 May. In one piece.

The Magnificent Eleven: Nisa, Pak Lang, Mak Long, Mak Lang, Irina, Aida, Sarah, Faliq, Mak Ngah Yaa, Azra

 

Sorry, Girls. This Boy Is Prettier Than You.

The Guy Who Took This Shot Is A Pro

This Camera Works Only In Subang Jaya.

 

This Ayutthaya Temple Is 900 Years Old. This Couple Is 950 Years Old.

These School Girls Love Lady Boys

Aaaahhh ..... I'm Dreaming of My.......... Dad

 

Boats Were Empty Because We Bought All The Fruits

  

Thai Food With Free Sugar.

 

That Guy At The Back Is Smiling. He'll Be Coming Back To Bangkok With His Friends.

    

            

Random, Remarkable Persons

He's here. He's gone.

Have you ever been amazed by any person you've only met or known for a short while?

I've been amazed by an unbelievable brother-in-law. Thing is, he keeps on amazing me even after more than 30 years. I know you've been amazed by your mother or mother-in-law or the odd uncle but that smacks of nepotism. In our clean country any form of favouritism is now unlawful and is investigated by five different ministries. Instagram and infantilism are fine.

But, really, what I mean is somebody you experienced only very briefly, like a week or maybe a year, but long enough to leave a lifelong impression. You wish you knew him longer or had more of him. The irony is that, had he lingered on, he'd probably be no longer remarkable. Here's my short list:

1. Datuk Anwarrudin Ahamad Osman

I had probably ten bosses during my 30 years in Petronas. Some were good-looking, some were industry average, while one or two were simply acts of God. Datuk Anwar was the fairest of the lot. No scientific study has conclusively shown any correlation between CEO's physical appearance and his company's balance sheet. But for the average staff, a sexy boss is a good start.

By chance of structure, I'd to report directly to him when he was CEO of Petronas Dagangan. (I wasn't his driver, please). I've to admit that, the day he came in, I was very nervous for about two seconds. Two seconds. His smile practically disarmed the beast and the boy in me. He had this charming habit of switching freely from Free School English to Penang Mamak Malay in one single breath. I saw some of the most intimidating people swept aside by this ploy. During a meeting with Shell, the macho MD was visibly upset with his staff for forgetting to bring along a  file or  a letter. Datuk Anwar quickly defused the crisis with "I did that all the time" face-saver. I've never met anybody who's so cool and composed that nothing could possibly upset him.  In this age of intense competition and insane KPIs, Datuk Anwar was a whiff of fresh air.

We had our share of run-ins and lighter moments, of course. The most unforgettable one was when we'd to attend a cabinet meeting chaired by the then PM Tun Dr Mahathir. We'd to brief them on Petronas plans for bunkering business. I could see that Datuk Anwar wasn't too happy. He suspected that Petronas President was just washing his hands and sending us to the slaughter. We prepped Datuk Anwar until he's ready to melt PM.  In Malaysia, there's no bigger meeting than the cabinet meeting. Anwar (Ibrahim), Rafidah, Samy were all there. Before our turn, there were some strange projects discussed. So I got bored. And sleepy. I just fell off and was down in dreamland when I felt a sharp shove into my ribcage. Then I heard Datuk Anwar whispering "Apa hang nak mampoih ka, PM dok tengok hang tidok !"

2.  Professor John Boot

Don't be fooled by the name. Professor Boot was a Dutch. Dutch are broadly boring people. You name me one exciting Dutch person if you can pronounce it.

Anyway, this Dutch don taught me Probability and Statistics at a university in upstate New York in 1983. Statistics, like Dutch persons, is never exciting, unless you're a sadomasochist. The problem was, the quantitative part of my IQ hadn't developed much since standard six. And now I'd to pass graduate Statistics. If I failed, my two-year study leave would be reclassified as a two-year study tour.  

But this Dutch was no douche. He brought the dead subject alive with unorthodox teaching larded with plenty of wit and wisecracks. I still remember braving an early morning snowstorm to attend his class. Prof Boot used pornography to explain some sticky statistical concepts. So nobody skipped his classes. One day a dog strayed into our class, without a blink the clever professor declared "haha, random walk" alluding to another complex statistical tool. In his hands statistics was simply cool and fashionable.

I did very well. And not only that. My pathological fear of numbers was all gone for good, allowing me to lead a normal life. Ha ha ha.  

3. A Deliverer in New Brunswick

It all happened so fast I never got to keep his name. There's no Android in 1984 to catch him.

I was travelling through the eastern side of Canada after my last paper, with wife and our one-year old boy, in a rented Ford Taurus or Ford Taunus, can't recall which Tau. My object of desire was Prince Edward Island.

I was well on the way, cutting through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, when we're stranded. One of the tyres shot and went flat. It's almost dark and dinner, and the highway wasn't exactly Federal Highway. Cars passed by once in two or three days.

I was struggling with the tools and wife was comforting my wailing boy by the roadside when a car pulled over. A big-size man came out and told me not to do anything. "You wait here, soon as I get my kids home, I'll come back". In less than 10 minutes, he's back. Boy, he's bigger than my car. He changed the tyre faster than the Red Bull pit crew. Before I could say thank you and get his name, he simply vanished.  


4. Mariezka

Not an ordinary name, but who's to blame.

I was starting a Petronas service station project in Indonesia in 2004 when I first met Mariezka at our marketing company office at Bapindo Plaza, Jakarta. She immediately struck me as exceptional - only in the sense that she's so plain and ordinary. With all those Indonesian artistes and so on, my benchmark was high. Born in Bangka island, she had a degree in engineering, or architecture, or whatever.

The company CEO (a Jawa Batu Pahat named Faris Mustafa) proudly announced that Mariezka would be assisting me in Jakarta. I had about 25 years' experience and she'd three or four years of odd jobs. Faris must be on dope. He might as well give me a Mongolian model.

As it turned out, she's anything but ordinary. She had more talent than all those fake artistes combined.  I've not met anybody with so much flair for people. As we're starting a business, I'd to see a lot and all sorts, of people. Of course I'd had plenty of experience with Indonesians before, but they're maids and plumbers in Subang Jaya. Indonesians in Jakarta were different league. They're good with the language. No means No, and Yes means No. Plus they had this attitude that all Malaysians (except Siti Nurhaliza) abuse and iron their maids. Clearly this time they had the upper hand.

But we had Mariezka. Even the wackiest anti-Malaysian fanatics fell for her finesse. She bridged the gap and smoothed things out, and I had not even one problem seeing and talking with the people. It's tough for an Indonesian campaigning for Malaysia, but she took it all in her stride, with clear conscience that all this would lead to a more competitive Indonesia. We got our license, bought a piece of land, and built and operate our first service station in Cibubur. I could see her deft touches everywhere. 25 years experience counted for little in Jakarta. She simply turned the tables on me. I learned a lot from her. Of course she did also learn from me:  a few Kelantanese words.

The Bangka engineer or whatever simply took the Indonesian oil and gas industry by storm. I'm serious. Migas loved her. Shell wanted her. Pertamina courted her. But she loved Petronas, only to discover that the self-styled global champion was already in love with restructuring and will never, ever get tired of restructuring. One year before I retired, Mariezka joined Schlumberger as a global consultant, or whatever, earning more than Faris.

5. Haris Budiarto

An Indonesian, if you don't mind. We knew each other for a very brief period in 2004, but long enough to leave a lasting memory. Pertamina and Petronas were working on a joint service station in Jakarta, and Pak Haris was my counterpart.

Nothing spectacular about him. With dark Javanese complexion and retreating hairline, you'd never mistake him for Brad Pitt. But I could feel his glowing warmth and, most critically, his deep sincerity, a priceless commodity in a land crawling with cronies and showmen. He helped me navigate my way through Pertamina, and after three months its "kantor pusat" became my second home in Jakarta.

Pak Haris had this nasty habit of grabbing the bills. He paid for my rounds of sop bontot, bebek, pepes, gurame and jus sirsak whenever we'd the chance to settle down for nasi padang. His excuse was always the unimaginative one-liner "Nothing lah, Pak", which was one letter longer than his routine greeting "Bagaimana, Pak " whenever we met. To him, friends had no price.

After six months our bizarre project fell through, but we still kept in touch right into my retirement. He's later transferred to the provinces and we never had the chance to meet again. But he did promise to call me if he's in KL for any reason. This was the only chance for me to at least buy him lunch and reciprocate with "Nothing lah, Pak".

In June 2011, I messaged him: "Apa khabar Pak. Kapan ke KL?". No response. After two days, it came:

"Pak Haris meninggal, Pak. Kecelakaan di Surabaya".

6. Mohd Fadzil Man

When I was in secondary school, I wished I could talk and write like Fadzil Man. I mean talk and write in fast and proper English. My first language was Kelantanese, which was closer to Arabic. English was, to quote Paul McCartney, a long and winding road.

We're dorm mates in Blue House hostel when I was in form two and he in form five. He's a prefect, debater, rugby player and, for good measure, the best science student in school. In short, he's everything I wasn't. But we somehow hit off and got along very well.  I suspect he had a soft spot for Kelantanese.

But what really inspired me was a short story he wrote in the school magazine. The title was "The Vegetarian", about our world being attacked by a group of leaf-eating aliens in 1968. Funny? I thought so, so I thought nothing of it when I first saw it, I mean, I'd had enough problems with my meat-eating school mates, why bother with tree-loving aliens. But when I read it, I read it again. Man, it's so good. The English was crisp and the plot was tighter than any Jack Palance movie.

I'd started reading English books before that, but this alien tour de force reinforced my shaky belief that reading and writing wasn't a waste of time. I was high on Sherlock Holmes, and  he noticed that and wasn't too happy. One day he dropped by and handed me a copy of  "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie. Try this, same stuff, but richer, he said. He's right, Agatha Christie was fuller and sexier. I still keep some of the twenty or so titles he gave me, with his name "Fabima" inked on every copy. Of course, I never got to be like him. I didn't want to be the best science student and become a scientist.

I certainly write better now than I did in form two. Fadzil went on to become a very successful (and very rich) psychiatrist (yes, a shrink). All along his plan was to be a doctor, and he had no plan B. Occasionally he'd write on his Facebook, mostly about his travels and golf flings. The flair is still there, but that alien invasion is better.

7. Ustaz Arshad Ahmad

You may skip this one. You wouldn't know Ustaz Arshad. I didn't know him. I only knew that he was the imam at our USJ 2 mosque. I also knew that he's a part-time imam because he had a day job at UIA.

I liked him because I liked the way he read the surahs. He didn't showboat with the holy verses. He read with no tone, no tune, just tajwid and tartil. His lectures (tazkirah) were short and straight, with no jokes, no Hindi songs, no cheap, petty politics. Dull and dreary by the standards of today's crowd of ustaz-rockers, his old-school and minimalist ways impressed me as unique and most fulfilling. He's exciting in the way that door knobs are exciting.

My interaction with Ustaz Arshad was limited to formal salam and smiles. I promised myself that one day I'd approach him and tell him that I was his number one fan, and he shouldn't change his style. I kept pussyfooting until 2011 when I saw somebody else lead the prayers for one week, then two, then another person. Apparently Ustaz Arshad was very ill, and this reinforced my resolve to meet him.

He never recovered.

  

     

Why Manchester City (And Not Liverpool) Are Champions.

   
The English Premier League season has just ended. And what a season, a nail-biter right to the death. For those who watch only Liga Super Malaysia and Tiga Ustazah, let me break the news: Manchester City were crowned the EPL champions. Liverpool, despite all the media hype and histrionics, crashed. Chelsea were third. Or turd. The other Manchester team got found out and bombed big-time. Arsenal were Arsenal.

The "Oops, we did it again" banner flown by City fans at the Etihad was a deliberate misnomer and a dig at detractors. There's no oops or accident in City's triumph. It's a clever campaign contrived not only to storm the league, but to inflict the deepest possible pain on pretenders. It's easy in hindsight, you'd say. But how else can you explain it. Wenger's swagger and then Jose's ruse and finally Brendan's orgasms, all wilted under the weight of Pellegrini's poise and composure. City won with two points and 100 goals. Not much, you say, but that's the pain part.

I'm just happy that City came out tops  A gross understatement, of course. It's like saying Congo is corrupt. I've been passionately following Manchester City and Kelantan since my early Tiger Lane days. For a very long time I was the only supporter of these two teams at the same time. In 1983 this one-man fanbase jumped 100% when my eldest was born. Life around these underachievers hasn't been easy with a season of false dawn followed by another false dawn and the next false dawn. So there's plenty to savour and ponder over this victory. I'm no pundit, but here's some lessons and take-aways:

1. Class and history are fine rhetoric. But football is more serious than that. Money brings titles. So splash the cash. Buy players who can't speak English. Wenger whinged and dithered, then boasted that he's close to signing Hazard. He's also close to buying Suarez. And Maradona. Obama. For God's sake, just buy, Wenger, buy. Manchester United have been buying players and titles for the last 100 years.

2. Don't count the kittens. Rejoice only when you really, truly, absolutely, genuinely win. Win means win. An EPL team has to play 38 matches. Liverpool celebrated their EPL title when they won the 34th match, against, ominously, Manchester City. Daily Mail and all sex tabloids were all over darling Liverpool. The feelgood frenzy swept across the entire Merseyside, the whole House of Commons, and half of Uttar Pradesh. Then cometh Crystal Palace. This bout of triumphalism led to the colossal collapse.

3. Patience pays. Forget mind games bullshit. Big horses, small horses, dead horses. Liverpool can score 23 goals against Newcastle. All of Everton love Liverpool. Andy Carroll will hit four past City. Total tosh. City strode on, without a whiff of an attempt to wind up Liverpool, not even after Palace flop. Pardew was right about Pellegrini being an old c....His heavy hair-do is annoying. His post-match interviews are exciting if you watch only weather forecasts. And then the persistent and understated "title race isn't over" soundbites he bandied right into the last game. With no weight on their back, City easily nutmegged Liverpool to the title (picture below).

4. Manchester United are mortal. Just like Norwich are mortal. Old Trafford meltdown was one reason for City's flourish. Nothing motivates like a flailing neighbour. City's loss of league title to United by 11 points last season was a difficult joke. This year Man U fell apart and finished seventh, 22 points behind champions City. Remember the columnist at the Guardian (newspaper, not pharmacy) who'd suggested that City's defence of the title was worse than Brad Pitt's defence of the title "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"?  The lazy journalist was promptly sacked last week when he showed up with four fake reasons for Man U's title failure (Ok, I made up this one).

5. Now repeat after me "Yaya Toure is the best player in the world".

What's ahead of us? City will keep the cup, score 200 goals and beat up Barca for good measure. For all the brave talk, Liverpool will never, ever recover. The spot where Steven slipped will be declared a World Heritage site.  Manchester United and the sexy Dutch manager will buy the whole German national team and move to Bundesliga. Chelsea will be an attacking beast, with two big strikers and one big bus. Arsenal will be Arsenal.