My Malaysias

I was tagged by KG who was tagged by Sharanya as the next blogger to contribute to the 50 Posts to Independence Project started by Nizam Bashir. The idea is to write about anything that makes Malaysia special to that person. The project culminates on the nation's 50th birthday next year.

Here's a free-flow thing I've just knocked up, barely ahead of the deadline. More of a collection of notes than anything else (certainly not a poem ... or not yet). I enjoyed writing this and the memories it brought back and I'm nudged towards fleshing the whole thing out. (Great things about blogs is that they can be places to post stuff that's in-progressy!)

And in turn, I tag Eliza whose intelligent writing I enjoy ... both in my class and on her blog.

My Malaysias

My first Malaysia

Raub

goldmining town until the veins were flooded
when the Japanese came.
one street of Chinese shophouses,
one cinema, one supermarket
a school where I taught Form Three students
resisitant in their way to the invasion of English.

a memory of curfew,
imprinted itself on the town.
the last of the communists hung out
in the steaming forest.informers staked out the coffee shops
and army officers
drank whisky with discreet napkins around the glass
at the tenth hole of the golf club,
built by an Irish doctor
who never found his way home -
as i might not.

orang asli felled small game
with blowpipes along FELDA roads
distracting me from driving lessons.
the best Chinese restaurant was a zinc hut
behind the bus station
(the towkay's fortune gambled away),
kari ayam in Sempalit
the red tables cloths
of that place in Sungai Lui
that sold mee.

my second malaysia

Kuala Kangsar

"it was in Kuala Kangsar
if you will forgive the novelettish circumlocation
that i met the love of my life"

said Burgess (and hey, that works for me)

his writing drew my dislocated self
to his "estuary of ghosts"
with its sluggish river and footferry,
golden domed mosque, kampongs,
and scatter of palaces
(one a secret place with rotting floorboards
and birds nesting in the throne room).

i came to teach the elite
those white uniformed boys
who came wet to class rainy afternoons
(because umbrellas were not macho)
for Steinbeck.

in the Chinese restaurant
(how did i become an honorary man?)
we yang singed, and not with Chinese tea,
spun the chicken head on the empty platter
to see who would drink the next forfeit
or sing
and Bobby who slaughtered pigs by day
giving us Santa Lucia in the the richest
sweetest baritone.
and then him
back for a school reunion
asking "where can one get a beer in this place?"
his romantic chat-up line.the rest as they say is history
my history
and his.
my third malaysia is the malaysia of now
and here

a city of jams and flashfloods and too large malls
which leave me breathless with agrophobia
a skyline changing from one day to the next
but an excitement at being at the centre of things
and a feeling of the possibility of change.

corporate training
in golden triangle boardrooms
how to write the perfect business report.then a teachers training college
and mid-morning breakfast escapes for pan mee or utthapam
with the best colleagues of my life.
poetry classes under casuarinas -
teaching necessarily subversion
through poetry.

observing teaching practice on hot afternoons
in parts of the city i'd lost my way trying to find
proud of my students growth into teachers
and watching at the back of the classroom
the reactions of my hypothetical child
(the only one i'd ever have).

inheriting a family and customs
finding places to adapt and common ground.
carrying hantaran at weddings,
folding my too large self on the floor at kenduris
but never never neatly enough.
relatives scrambling through the bin for the
plastic wrapping of my Christmas turkey
to make sure it really was halal.the agak-agak versions of family recipes
scribbled on slips of paper
and consumed with fingers.

mat salleh I am ... but these are my stories to tell.
my credentials.
see how line by line,
Malaysia has written me.
so that these are the stamps in my passport
in lieu of the official one that says

i belong.

Cut and Paste Poetry

Oshun sent me this link to the Altered Books website a few days ago and I thought it looked such fun I'd have a go at it sometime soon. (Once I've got over the psychological trauma of actually cutting up a book!)

The instructions are these:

Cut the bindings off of books found at a used book store. Find poems in the pages by the process of obliteration. Put pages in the mail and send them all around the world. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And the results are as visually interesting as they are poetically:

I tried a similar exercise some time ago from the excellent In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet's Portable Workshop by Steve Kowit. (If you want to write poetry, I think this is a must-buy!)

Basically, you take a text and chop out of it any words or phrases that sound interesting. Then you reassemble the cut-out bits into a poem. Simple.

To prove it, here're my own experiments! (I feel like the Blue Peter team saying "Here's One I Made Earlier" - forget the reference if you're not British of a certain generation!)

The first came from a page in New Scientist, the second from an article on an Egyptologist in the Sunday Times Magazine.


(1)

Dull middle-aged scientist
Creates
Slippery concepts.
Slips unnoticed into
The mystery of consciousness.
(How deep the mystery is!)
Brainspace
Mindspace
Impenetrable language.
“This is what I am,” she cries “inside my head
A virtual world of spaces of the mind
An ever shifting pattern in the dark …
Brainspace is also mindspace!”


(2)

A commoner
Tomb-by-tomb
recording her quest (so secret).

Every movement:
swirls of ancient dust -
tomb dust.

Every footfall
on time-worn scrap:
dynastic detritus.

In the two-pillared antechamber,
the mummy - a flame-haired royal beauty
Eloquent as a hieroglyph.

Grasping her enemy by the shortened forearm
She threw her into the darkened void beyond.
(Sex always was a problem for Egyptologists.)

Sharpley Road

The council house was spanking new.

My mum was thrilled with the indoor toilet
And plumbed-in bath.
Wanted too a tradesman’s entrance
Round the side.

“Don’t you know my husband’s a professional,” she said
In her special voice that made her sound
Like the queen at Christmas.
To the man who came to sell brushes door-to-door.

My dad swotted for engineering exams
At the kitchen table.

Late summer nights
Light shone still through my bedroom curtains.
I heard kids yelling in the street outside
And envied them.
My parents didn’t like me to play with
The “proles” because
I was not common like them.

A bogey-man lived at number eight.
You had to run fast past his door.
But no-one had ever seen him.

Digging to Australia with a plastic trowel -
Dirt in my finger nails and knots in my hair.
Collected insects in jars.
Earthworms baked in the sun to a crisp
When I forgot them.

Awoke with night terrors -
Big yellow eyes in the ceiling of my room
And the scream frozen in my throat.

There was hell to pay
If I got fingerprints on the furniture,
Mum’s paid-for-on-the-never-never
Georgian repro stuff.

Opened doors for my sister who didn’t
Want to crawl like other babies but
Shuffled on her bum.

My father read me Alice in Wonderland
And The Water Babies
(With Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.)
Told me his stories of Malaya
Repairing bridges, rebuilding roads
R&R in Penang.

Playing Oranges and Lemons
In the road
(Chip chop the last man’s -).
And a ring game
One golden afternoon:
Simple Sally sitting on the sand.
My baby sis in the centre
Wearing a blue sunhat.

Speeding up and down the road on my scooter
Making neenaw police car noises.
Headquarters in a cardboard box.

Dad taught me to the trick of reading
One weekend.
I added the big words he used
To my store.

Hated frilly dresses
The feel of nylon party frocks
My favourite dress was brown and had fringing on the bodice
Like a Red Indian squaw.

We thought our washing had been stolen from the line
One morning.
Walked down to the phone booth with Dad
(Press Button A Button B)
To call the police.
Later found a neighbour
Had taken our clothes in at dawn
Because it looked like rain.

Watch With Mother
(Rag Tag and Bobtail, The Woodentops)
Was never
Watched with my mother
Who had a house to clean.

Riding on the upper deck of the bus to town
Turning over the Victorian pennies,
The Georges and Edwards in my father’s change.
Wondering at the strangeness of the past.

Told mum about next door’s dog
Enjoying bones I’d taken round.
“Licking her chops,” I said
Repeating my neighbour’s words.
Felt the full weight of her flailing fists
As she drove home her point:
“We speak proper English in this house.”

Dad walked me to school,
And at the gate wiped breakfast
From my mouth,
Cleaned sleep-encrusted eyes
With spit on his handkerchief.

One day when I refused to eat
Mum pushed my face down
Into my dinner
And mashed potato filled my nose.

Learned how to freeze time
One day
By as a simple effort of will.
Focused
Eyes shut
“I will always remember this moment.”

And have.


© Sharon Bakar 2005

How Do I Love Thee ...

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
Do all young men wax so lyrical?
I don’t remember.
Love’s a luxury, frankly, I can do without.
“Thee” and “thou”! My, the poetry he spouts.
Let him, I say. I’ll keep my counsel.
Me, I’ll
Count my blessings and embrace
The solitary life. I’ve
Ways of forgetting love.

©Sharon Bakar September 2004