Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Durian and divination: a tour of Penang
I'm all templed out! I joined a tour (well, a brisk Hokkien guide and a Thai mother and daughter) to see the awkwardly-located sights of Penang. We began by riding the earliest funicular train very slowly up 700m to the top of Penang Hill. The view at 9am across the city and harbour to the mainland was breathtaking, the vast expanse of water twinkling with shining morning tranquillity.
At the top I was able to get a cup of kopi, the exceedingly strong local coffee served with evaporated milk. It's so thick and rich you savour the mouthfeel of it, even though it's joltingly intense. For breakfast, I asked for nasi lemak, which normally comes as a tiny pyramid the size of a tennis ball, parcelled up in banana leaf. However, it arrived on a plate and for the first time I had to stare the little fishes in the eye ... For those not acquainted with this Malaysian delicacy, it's rice cooked in coconut milk, chili paste, boiled or fried egg, slices of cucumber ... and tiny, crispy, salty morsels with the taste of Scampi Fries and the texture of crispy bacon. Staring at them exposed on the plate for the first time, I realised these were the tiny dried whitebait I'd been shrinking away from in snack shops because ... you know ... they've still got eyes in. They are tasty, but only if their shrivelled faces are hidden within a forkful of rice. Sorry.
On the way down, a grandmotherly lady chattering in one of the Chinese dialects found herself next to a baby boy, whose family looked Indian. She chucked him under the chin and cooed away to him, but his solemn dark eyes remained fixed on her. No smiling, no chuckling, just a serious assessment of her. He seemed an old soul.
We visited the nearby Chinese temple, a colossal, exuberantly coloured complex from 1891, aligned with the sea for good feng shui with the wind and water. The guide explained that worshippers offer piles of 4 of 5 fruits, burn joss sticks, and light candles in front of the aspect of Buddha they choose. There were 6 or 7 different Buddhas in this temple alone, each dealing with a different area such as health, business and education. The shape and colour of the candle depends on which Buddhist culture you come from - Thai and Burmese worshippers take pink lotus-shaped ones, writing their names on them before settting them alight; while the Chinese faithful use yellow pineapple-shaped ones.
Next, we went to the Botanical Gardens, where in accordance with the Lonely Planet we ensured that we carried no food, and that should a monkey challenge us we would not look it in the eye: an ineffective-sounding solution akin to the dingo safety advice on Fraser Island ("Cross your arms across your chest and don't go to the toilet alone.") Walking through the gates I honestly expected a screeching primate attack at any moment. After cautiously peering up into the trees, I realised the truth - there were no monkeys. No, wait - five or six on a far-off lawn saw our movement and scampered away. Perhaps the Lonely Planet writer had provoked them unwisely, taunting them with bananas or something. The gardens, though, were nothing spectacular - all the Houses (of cacti, orchids, bromeliads etc) were padlocked closed, much to the dismay of the Thai girl's mum who was a retired horticulturalist.
After lunch, featuring sliced jackfruit (another first for me, tasting rather like a mango but with smooth, non-fibrous flesh), we headed out again to visit two more Buddhist temples opposite each other. The Burmese one was serenely beautiful, with light golden roofs; ponds and water features outside (with the cryptic instruction not to put turtles in the pools); and sentimental paintings of scenes from the life of Buddha, reminding me irresistibly of the sentimental paintings of scenes from the life of Jesus found in Christian churches.
Over the road was the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, apparently the third largest of its kind in the world. It's 33m long. There's not much more to be said about it - I didn't find the figure that attractive visually, although of course there's the challenge of trying to take a photo with the whole thing in it. Why build a Buddha longer than a swimming pool? It's too much to take in. The temple was built by the Thai community, but with Chinese influences. There were separate Buddhas for each day of the week, and each animal in the Chinese zodiac. You could buy squares of gold leaf to smear onto your favourite statue: the popular ones looked as if their faces were crumbling and disintegrating into metallic fragments with each gust of wind.
We made some commercial stops, at a pewter factory where we weren't allowed to photograph the rapid creation of a tankard handle, the liquid metal setting in around 5 seconds. Then we saw an expensive batik factory, where fast-talking women placed one wax stamp on a sample sheet of fabric for our benefit, then funnelled us into the shop. The White Coffee factory had some tasty samples, but again sold their coffee at vastly inflated tourist prices. I sampled a durian-flavoured boiled sweet. This is the infamous fruit you are not permitted to slice open in hotels, stations and various public places because of its indescribable smell. Well, this small sweet tasted like sweaty feet smeared with antiseptic; like biting a tart onion but with the acrid reek of garlic breath; like Parisian sewers; warm clotted cream left out in the sun; Amoxyl (was that the name? The artificial banana-flavoured medicine for children with a sour aftertaste.) Well, I bought a packet, along with nutmeg and sweetcorn flavours, to challenge my cousins with at Christmas.
Reunited last night with a couple of friends from Tanah Rata, who had described Penang by day as "a s***hole," I'd heard their accounts of getting ripped off, taking all day to get out to see the sights, and finally discovering with delight a Tesco where they spent 4 hours frolicking in the air-con. I walked through the streets by myself this afternoon. Maybe my taste in cities is different. Maybe I'm more accustomed to the heat and dust. But I see such beauty in the peeling pastel shutters, the crumbling tiled pavements, the surprising patterns and elegant carvings here. Most of the buildings are no higher than two stories. Many are over 200 years old. But the architecture is so different, so far outside my experience, that I'm as charmed by Georgetown's elegant decay as I am by Venice's.
Just a few doors up from my hostel is an incredibly ornate Chinese temple. I chatted to a man there for divination purposes, and watched, fascinated, as he stood behind the high altar at the feet of the huge Buddha statue, shaking a tin full of carved sticks. When one dropped out onto the floor, he cast two painted stones down, examined how the three lay together, then selected a corresponding slip of paper with advice on it. He explained the significance of the artificial pink plum-blossom tree in the open courtyard: on Chinese New Year, people tie tags with their prayers and wishes onto its branches.
I stepped back out into the street with a new appreciation of this religious culture. On the way back I noticed just how many houses have the little red shrines outside.
In other news, I was able to tell Felicia how interesting I find her blog . She's one of the many people online that I check in with occasionally for inspiration, and I was delighted to find that despite her new book deal and associated excitement, she found the time to write back! When I figure out how to add a page of links to this blog, I'll do it.
At the top I was able to get a cup of kopi, the exceedingly strong local coffee served with evaporated milk. It's so thick and rich you savour the mouthfeel of it, even though it's joltingly intense. For breakfast, I asked for nasi lemak, which normally comes as a tiny pyramid the size of a tennis ball, parcelled up in banana leaf. However, it arrived on a plate and for the first time I had to stare the little fishes in the eye ... For those not acquainted with this Malaysian delicacy, it's rice cooked in coconut milk, chili paste, boiled or fried egg, slices of cucumber ... and tiny, crispy, salty morsels with the taste of Scampi Fries and the texture of crispy bacon. Staring at them exposed on the plate for the first time, I realised these were the tiny dried whitebait I'd been shrinking away from in snack shops because ... you know ... they've still got eyes in. They are tasty, but only if their shrivelled faces are hidden within a forkful of rice. Sorry.
On the way down, a grandmotherly lady chattering in one of the Chinese dialects found herself next to a baby boy, whose family looked Indian. She chucked him under the chin and cooed away to him, but his solemn dark eyes remained fixed on her. No smiling, no chuckling, just a serious assessment of her. He seemed an old soul.
We visited the nearby Chinese temple, a colossal, exuberantly coloured complex from 1891, aligned with the sea for good feng shui with the wind and water. The guide explained that worshippers offer piles of 4 of 5 fruits, burn joss sticks, and light candles in front of the aspect of Buddha they choose. There were 6 or 7 different Buddhas in this temple alone, each dealing with a different area such as health, business and education. The shape and colour of the candle depends on which Buddhist culture you come from - Thai and Burmese worshippers take pink lotus-shaped ones, writing their names on them before settting them alight; while the Chinese faithful use yellow pineapple-shaped ones.
Next, we went to the Botanical Gardens, where in accordance with the Lonely Planet we ensured that we carried no food, and that should a monkey challenge us we would not look it in the eye: an ineffective-sounding solution akin to the dingo safety advice on Fraser Island ("Cross your arms across your chest and don't go to the toilet alone.") Walking through the gates I honestly expected a screeching primate attack at any moment. After cautiously peering up into the trees, I realised the truth - there were no monkeys. No, wait - five or six on a far-off lawn saw our movement and scampered away. Perhaps the Lonely Planet writer had provoked them unwisely, taunting them with bananas or something. The gardens, though, were nothing spectacular - all the Houses (of cacti, orchids, bromeliads etc) were padlocked closed, much to the dismay of the Thai girl's mum who was a retired horticulturalist.
After lunch, featuring sliced jackfruit (another first for me, tasting rather like a mango but with smooth, non-fibrous flesh), we headed out again to visit two more Buddhist temples opposite each other. The Burmese one was serenely beautiful, with light golden roofs; ponds and water features outside (with the cryptic instruction not to put turtles in the pools); and sentimental paintings of scenes from the life of Buddha, reminding me irresistibly of the sentimental paintings of scenes from the life of Jesus found in Christian churches.
Over the road was the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, apparently the third largest of its kind in the world. It's 33m long. There's not much more to be said about it - I didn't find the figure that attractive visually, although of course there's the challenge of trying to take a photo with the whole thing in it. Why build a Buddha longer than a swimming pool? It's too much to take in. The temple was built by the Thai community, but with Chinese influences. There were separate Buddhas for each day of the week, and each animal in the Chinese zodiac. You could buy squares of gold leaf to smear onto your favourite statue: the popular ones looked as if their faces were crumbling and disintegrating into metallic fragments with each gust of wind.
We made some commercial stops, at a pewter factory where we weren't allowed to photograph the rapid creation of a tankard handle, the liquid metal setting in around 5 seconds. Then we saw an expensive batik factory, where fast-talking women placed one wax stamp on a sample sheet of fabric for our benefit, then funnelled us into the shop. The White Coffee factory had some tasty samples, but again sold their coffee at vastly inflated tourist prices. I sampled a durian-flavoured boiled sweet. This is the infamous fruit you are not permitted to slice open in hotels, stations and various public places because of its indescribable smell. Well, this small sweet tasted like sweaty feet smeared with antiseptic; like biting a tart onion but with the acrid reek of garlic breath; like Parisian sewers; warm clotted cream left out in the sun; Amoxyl (was that the name? The artificial banana-flavoured medicine for children with a sour aftertaste.) Well, I bought a packet, along with nutmeg and sweetcorn flavours, to challenge my cousins with at Christmas.
Reunited last night with a couple of friends from Tanah Rata, who had described Penang by day as "a s***hole," I'd heard their accounts of getting ripped off, taking all day to get out to see the sights, and finally discovering with delight a Tesco where they spent 4 hours frolicking in the air-con. I walked through the streets by myself this afternoon. Maybe my taste in cities is different. Maybe I'm more accustomed to the heat and dust. But I see such beauty in the peeling pastel shutters, the crumbling tiled pavements, the surprising patterns and elegant carvings here. Most of the buildings are no higher than two stories. Many are over 200 years old. But the architecture is so different, so far outside my experience, that I'm as charmed by Georgetown's elegant decay as I am by Venice's.
Just a few doors up from my hostel is an incredibly ornate Chinese temple. I chatted to a man there for divination purposes, and watched, fascinated, as he stood behind the high altar at the feet of the huge Buddha statue, shaking a tin full of carved sticks. When one dropped out onto the floor, he cast two painted stones down, examined how the three lay together, then selected a corresponding slip of paper with advice on it. He explained the significance of the artificial pink plum-blossom tree in the open courtyard: on Chinese New Year, people tie tags with their prayers and wishes onto its branches.
I stepped back out into the street with a new appreciation of this religious culture. On the way back I noticed just how many houses have the little red shrines outside.
In other news, I was able to tell Felicia how interesting I find her blog . She's one of the many people online that I check in with occasionally for inspiration, and I was delighted to find that despite her new book deal and associated excitement, she found the time to write back! When I figure out how to add a page of links to this blog, I'll do it.
Labels: a distinct lack of monkey attacks, Buddhism, divination, exotic foodstuffs, Malaysia, Penang, temples, the flaneur explores a new place, the taste of durian
Monday, July 30, 2007
In which I am undaunted by sports.
It's been a weird weekend. On Friday, a challenging day in my new department (Accounts Payable, otherwise known as "the one where we send out money to pay for things we buy from other companies") we commenced with choc chip muffins ... just because. Then a former employee brought her new baby in to be cooed over while we crowded into the lunch room and shared a Nando's takeaway. At one point the pram caused a log-jam in between cubicles, causing one guy to ask, bewildered, "There's a queue to hold this kid?"
Then - and this is how I know I've Arrived - I was invited to end-of-the-month free drinks, or "Beers in the Boardroom", where I encountered the CEO. I'd never seen him before in my life and was on the verge of asking him what he did, when I realised how much louder he was than everyone else, and quickly bit my tongue. Only the mighty get to shout with joy and be applauded! A group of blokes were trying to think of the word "scanning," but couldn't, so - and I love when this happens - they expressed it with sign language which turned into an interpretive dance. Three were doing smooth arm-waving movements, while the other two, trying to comprehend, mimicked the arm waving with added flourishes. They looked like a camp forest of seagrass. I could just see them back in their clubbing days, "stacking boxes" to house music. Incidentally, the whole dance genre of music has a derogatory yet onomatopoeic Aussie name, "doof doof".
I also spoke to cute-guy-who-looks-like-Charlie-from-Numb3rs, whose name I forget.
Every lunchtime he and another IT guy run 7ks in preparation for the 12k charity walk we're all doing at the end of August. Well, they'll be running it, but I'll be walking: my only sport is belly dancing. He recalled a toe-curling occasion when he'd been in a restaurant with his parents and a belly dancer had made some suggestive moves on his father. I was momentarily silenced.
On Saturday I re-read Harry Potter 7 - I so want to write a review going into spoilers! and on Saturday night met up with my wonderful bubbly marine biologist friend Marjolein to go to FloorPlay, a dance extravaganza widely advertised on TV with the tagline "Burn The Floor!" The dancing was spectacular, and the costumes were just amazing (I want a dress entirely covered in sequins!) although I didn't think the series of black elastic straps actually did much for the woman who wore them instead of a dress.
Unfortunately, we were sitting in the balcony. We could see the stage just fine, but at the beginning an usher asked us not to stand up when we couldn't see the dancers, as this would interfere with the lighting. Well, this show has been at that theatre for at least a month, and frankly to have everyone disappear into the aisles - while a lot of fun for the audience in the stalls - is just poor staging! If you can't send a couple up to the balcony, at least leave someone on stage for us to look at! Otherwise, regardless of verbal warnings, people are going to stand up and crane over in an attempt to keep up.
Who goes to a show like this? Well, women are in the majority, although the chaps dragged along didn't seem too henpecked. We were in awe of the cougars, though - reeling ladies in their fifties, slamming back cocktails then backing young men into corners and attempting to rumba with them. Some of their outfits, like the head to toe red leather ensemble or the fishnet tights fluffy with ostrich feathers, were fantastically striking, as if the spirit of Isabella Blow had glided across Subiaco. As we left the theatre they prowled off in search of innocents leaving the bars. I hope that whe I'm in my 50s and 60s I'll still have that reckless sense of adventure!
On Sunday it was too rainy to watch Brendan's footy game, so I went for a wander to check out other Northbridge hostels. I got photos of those trees that have struck me for weeks now as being amazingly sculptural, and strolled like a true flaneur through Highgate and Mount Lawley. I saw coffee shops, bookshops, bakeries, and a shop selling "everything you want - nothing you need," exemplified by the colossal birdbath, over a metre across, on its front lawn. I also witnessed a drunken argument with incoherent shouting followed by a man striking a woman down. It was sickening. The police were already crossing the street so I guess the dispute must have been going on for some time, but I didn't expect to step out of the dreamy suspended-time atmosphere of a second-hand bookshop and suddenly be back in that world of violence and drunken rage again.
Perth is generally one of the safest cities - certainly nothing compared to Alice Springs - but like any city there are a few drunken characters I'd rather cross the road to avoid a discussion with than walk past.
I have two links for you. Here is a great account by literary critic Michael Berube of how his son, who has Down's syndrome, learned to follow a story's narrative through reading the Harry Potter books. And this is a parody round-up of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" - containing ALL THE SPOILERS - but if you want to laugh till you spray tea across your computer screen, and you've already finished the book, you may check it out. You may wish to keep a tea towel handy.
Then - and this is how I know I've Arrived - I was invited to end-of-the-month free drinks, or "Beers in the Boardroom", where I encountered the CEO. I'd never seen him before in my life and was on the verge of asking him what he did, when I realised how much louder he was than everyone else, and quickly bit my tongue. Only the mighty get to shout with joy and be applauded! A group of blokes were trying to think of the word "scanning," but couldn't, so - and I love when this happens - they expressed it with sign language which turned into an interpretive dance. Three were doing smooth arm-waving movements, while the other two, trying to comprehend, mimicked the arm waving with added flourishes. They looked like a camp forest of seagrass. I could just see them back in their clubbing days, "stacking boxes" to house music. Incidentally, the whole dance genre of music has a derogatory yet onomatopoeic Aussie name, "doof doof".
I also spoke to cute-guy-who-looks-like-Charlie-from-Numb3rs, whose name I forget.
Every lunchtime he and another IT guy run 7ks in preparation for the 12k charity walk we're all doing at the end of August. Well, they'll be running it, but I'll be walking: my only sport is belly dancing. He recalled a toe-curling occasion when he'd been in a restaurant with his parents and a belly dancer had made some suggestive moves on his father. I was momentarily silenced.
On Saturday I re-read Harry Potter 7 - I so want to write a review going into spoilers! and on Saturday night met up with my wonderful bubbly marine biologist friend Marjolein to go to FloorPlay, a dance extravaganza widely advertised on TV with the tagline "Burn The Floor!" The dancing was spectacular, and the costumes were just amazing (I want a dress entirely covered in sequins!) although I didn't think the series of black elastic straps actually did much for the woman who wore them instead of a dress.
Unfortunately, we were sitting in the balcony. We could see the stage just fine, but at the beginning an usher asked us not to stand up when we couldn't see the dancers, as this would interfere with the lighting. Well, this show has been at that theatre for at least a month, and frankly to have everyone disappear into the aisles - while a lot of fun for the audience in the stalls - is just poor staging! If you can't send a couple up to the balcony, at least leave someone on stage for us to look at! Otherwise, regardless of verbal warnings, people are going to stand up and crane over in an attempt to keep up.
Who goes to a show like this? Well, women are in the majority, although the chaps dragged along didn't seem too henpecked. We were in awe of the cougars, though - reeling ladies in their fifties, slamming back cocktails then backing young men into corners and attempting to rumba with them. Some of their outfits, like the head to toe red leather ensemble or the fishnet tights fluffy with ostrich feathers, were fantastically striking, as if the spirit of Isabella Blow had glided across Subiaco. As we left the theatre they prowled off in search of innocents leaving the bars. I hope that whe I'm in my 50s and 60s I'll still have that reckless sense of adventure!
On Sunday it was too rainy to watch Brendan's footy game, so I went for a wander to check out other Northbridge hostels. I got photos of those trees that have struck me for weeks now as being amazingly sculptural, and strolled like a true flaneur through Highgate and Mount Lawley. I saw coffee shops, bookshops, bakeries, and a shop selling "everything you want - nothing you need," exemplified by the colossal birdbath, over a metre across, on its front lawn. I also witnessed a drunken argument with incoherent shouting followed by a man striking a woman down. It was sickening. The police were already crossing the street so I guess the dispute must have been going on for some time, but I didn't expect to step out of the dreamy suspended-time atmosphere of a second-hand bookshop and suddenly be back in that world of violence and drunken rage again.
Perth is generally one of the safest cities - certainly nothing compared to Alice Springs - but like any city there are a few drunken characters I'd rather cross the road to avoid a discussion with than walk past.
I have two links for you. Here is a great account by literary critic Michael Berube of how his son, who has Down's syndrome, learned to follow a story's narrative through reading the Harry Potter books. And this is a parody round-up of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" - containing ALL THE SPOILERS - but if you want to laugh till you spray tea across your computer screen, and you've already finished the book, you may check it out. You may wish to keep a tea towel handy.
Labels: Australia and Aussie customs, conflict resolution, dancing, friends, grand plans, Harry Potter, hostels, the flaneur explores a new place
