During the pandemic I have gone through some of my notebooks to collect some material that I think is worth publishing on my blog. The next excerpt is from time I spent in Kuala Lumpur in the summer of 2019
The hostel I stayed at this time in Kuala Lumpur was run down but was home to an interesting crowd. There was the Palestinian young man who asked me what I thought of the Holy Koran. Maybe I am not the right person to ask. I have only read part of the Koran and I told him that I found it quite confusing. It seemed very unstructured to me with the Surahs ordered by length rather than in a chronological way. Not to mention the fact that it is unnecessarily repetitive with all the Most Gracious, Most Mercifuls and what have you. He seemed taken aback. Do you know, he asked me then, that the Koran already mentioned black holes? I said that I would think that very unlikely. But it does, he said. So we found a laptop to look up the relevant Surah. It didn’t mention black holes. And without Islam there would be no computers, the Palestinian went on, tapping on the laptop. That came as a surprise to me. Yes, it was Al-Khwarizmi who had given his name to the English word algorithm. Algorithms were essential to computers. Without algorithms there can be no computers. I looked at the guy and couldn’t believe anybody could be that dense.
I am going to bed, I said.
Then there was Abdul, an Algerian who lived in France and claimed to be a lawyer. He was Berber. The Berbers were the best, he said. He didn’t like Arabs. Berbers were civilised. Another resident was Sheikh, the Pakistani, who was a hanafi Muslim. He was also a self proclaimed English teacher and elevator engineer. They were all gossiping and taking each other down behind each others backs. It was hilarious. It was Abdul who came up with the name of Palestinian terrorist for the young man who had wanted to discuss the Koran with me. Sheikh didn’t believe Abdul had a French passport. BUT I SHOWED YOU MY PASSPORT. Yes, but you can buy fake passport here on every street corner. You are an Arab. I AM NOT AN ARAB. I AM BERBER! And Abdul claimed that Sheikh was not a real Muslim. He didn’t observe Ramadan, had I not seen that. And it was true that I had seen Sheikh eat nasi lemak in broad daylight. When I asked him, he smiled. There was also a Chinese Malaysian from Borneo who was very well educated and spoke good English. He wanted to start an organic farm on Borneo. It had to be self sufficient. He wanted to raise pigs. He had ideas, dreams, and I liked him for it. When he saw some of the drawings on my blog, he asked if I could make a drawing of a pig and of course I said yes. It came out quite nice. He said he would frame it and hang it on the wall of his farm.
The Palestinian terrorist left and then one day an American of gigantic proportions showed up. His name was Tom and he came from Alabama and he was enormous. He was another religious fundamentalist. It was beyond believe. Where did all these religious zealots come from and why did they gravitate to this hostel? Tom was so heavy that he had problems coming up the stairs. He had to stop at the landing on the first floor leaning on his crutch. He used the phone of the Filipino manager to order food from a nearby Chinese restaurant. Two meals at a time and a large one litre bottle of coca cola. More discussions followed. This time the story of Creation. Tom got his bible out and explained Genesis to me. No black holes this time. He did his best to reconcile the bible with an old earth. There is a comma here, he said thumping on the page. That means we have to interpret it differently. It is not a day. It could be any length of time. It could be millions of years! I argued that the Hebrew Old Testament didn’t have punctuation. Later it got worse and he argued that there was a genocide going on in America. They are killing white Christian Americans, he claimed. What do you mean they? He smiled. How could I not know? And of course they were the Jews. That was it.
I am going to bed, I said.
For some time there was an elderly Japanese guy staying in the hostel. He didn’t do much. He rarely went out and had no smartphone or computer or anything. He just sat at the table studying his guidebook and drinking tea. For days on end. He didn’t speak a word of English. One of the Filipino girls spoke some Japanese and they talked together. They were giggling, but she wouldn’t say what they were talking about.
In the morning, on the way to my breakfast place, I often wandered through a bustling little flea market where all sorts of rubbish was for sale. I saw a manual for programming 1970s computer mainframes. And many watches. Old Chinese men peering over watches. They love watches. I often sat there after breakfast, drinking strong coffee with a dollop of sweet condensed milk, and watching the old Chinese men discussing their purchases.
Most mornings I had wonton soup for breakfast. My favourite stall was run by two Chinese women, one fat and the other one thin. They always looked grim and they were always busy. The fat one shouts in Cantonese, the thin one is quiet. They wear Wellington boots as in a factory and the place is a ramshackle. But they serve the best wonton soup in Chinatown. A big bowl of soup filled to the brim with dumplings, pork and water spinach for only seven ringgit. A cup of Chinese tea will cost you an additional fifty sen.
Later I moved to a very nice hotel. It was breezy, brightly decorated and I had a room with a window. It was beautiful, but somehow I missed the nutcases…
The Grocer’s Inn, Chinatown. The hallways and a view from my window.
Chicken tandoori is one of my favourite meals. It is served with onion rings. Onions are weird. Onions have a genome that is almost five times bigger than that of humans. Yet, they have chosen not to conquer the world. The tandoori came with nan bread which was so hot that I frequently burnt my fingers. The nan is always served with three different curries.
One day I visited the Police Museum which had powerful air conditioning and was full of screaming children. If you like historic police uniforms, this may be the place for you.
Not far from the Police Museum is the Planetarium. In the garden they have rebuilt Stonehenge on a smaller scale.
Stonehenge with monkeys.
Both, the Planetarium and the Police Museum, are located in the vicinity of the Botanical Gardens. I often took my book there to read in the Hibiscus garden where I had found an airy gazebo which offered shelter from the sun and, frequently, the tropical downpours. The gardens, even though placed in the middle of an Asian metropolis, were always very quiet. Malaysians seem to prefer to spend their free time in air conditioned shopping malls.
Many of those in Kuala Lumpur.
Peter on the move 