Raya-lly Disproportionate
Whatever happened to the days when the further a place was, the longer it took to get there--and conversely the nearer it was the quicker you could get there? They've gone away apparently, and I'd very much like whoever's in charge of these things to set things right.
The reason being mostly that I just got back to my room, and I left at 2 from the grandfolks' house; which means it's been a five-or-so-hour journey, which is more or less equivalent to the time it takes to get between So Hour and KL--or, for that matter, Spore and KL. And the three journeys were conducted by bus, so you can't pull the different-methods-different-speeds card. Ha! My fourth aunt, who made the journey with me (she works here), was somewhat stunned too at the spectacle of a jam reaching back halfway across the Causeway, and even though she is something of a genius when it comes to finding the quickest route between places (though she does say so herself), she was utterly unable to shorten the trip any more than the aforementioned five hours. (Of course, we did spend ten minutes shopping for waffles and buns, which have become my dinner.)
I haven't been to the grandfolks' in almost a year, and they were quite happy to see me, even though everybody seems to be in conflicting opinion on my shape: the grandfolks found me skinnier than I should be, and the aunts and uncles found me (in their words) "soft and huggable", especially around the waist. This is understandable because apart from me, everybody works on the farm and therefore has little or no fat on their frame, rendering them... well, not soft or huggable. But it's somewhat embarrassing when your aunt insists on patting your belly as a form of farewell--still, it's family so it's okay.
And of course, it's near Raya; which explains why Malaysia was so hard to get out of: with about 60% of the population having sworn off food as long as the sun is visible in the sky, and a large part of that proportion being involved in the travel industry (buses, taxis, customs offices etc), you naturally expect everything to be rather... hmm, lethargic. Which it is; but a side effect is that the same population is busy preparing little biscuits and buns and cookies for the impending celebration (I think about three days' time? four? something), and my grandfather has good standing in his little town. Hence, gifts of biscuits and buns and so on have swamped the local equivalent of a pantry, and I ate plenty of those.
So my life, while amongst the grandfolks, generally consisted of waking up horrendously late (11.30am, 11.00am, 10.45am, and 8.30am on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively), having a horrendously late and huge breakfast--nobody, I tell you, makes nasi lemak or scrambled eggs--sunny side up--and fried hotdogs quite like the small-town folk do. This morning I had the fried hotdogs and... it's been ages, simply ages, since I had any that good. The skin crispy and the insides soft, and the entirety lightly browned... And then I usually retire to the room I occupy, switch on the computer, and the next hour or two passes by in a haze of studying and Facebook, and both of those cease when I'm called to lunch, which is usually two bowls of something--noodles, Teochew porridge, chicken porridge, rice--and then I retire to the room again, coming out for toilet breaks and water and Raya kuih and the occasional helping of fruit (duku and coconuts). The evening is spent either in the room amongst my books and computer, or strolling about the outside with camera in hand and snapping down random stuff around the countryside: trees, ponds, puppies (they have 7!), cousins (usually accompanying the puppies), and in fact anything I see except the passing Malays because apparently if you photograph a Malay, you can be cursed. A rather odd superstition if you ask me, but I deleted those images anyway. Dinner and a bath (the good old kind where you use a ladle to scoop water out of a large basin--in this house's case the basin is stone/concrete and is in fact part of the bathroom itself) follow after, usually not in that order except when I forget to bath before dinner. After dinner is when I retire to the room (you'll notice I spend a great deal of the day in that room) and remain there until sleeping around 1am; most of the house sleeps at 10pm.
I haven't eaten quite so freely gluttonously in almost a year either; in Spore, the prices and quantities of the food prevent it, and anywhere else there's parents or friends disapprovingly looking on. The grandfolks and aunts and uncles? They heap on the servings. The first two days (and nights) I attempted to control my intake by serving myself in two bowls, of medium size each; Saturday was when my grandma decided I wasn't quite plump enough yet, and took it upon herself to dish out my rice for me. The result was a huge bowl of chicken porridge on Saturday afternoon, which I (and my grandfather before me) accidently put too much pepper into, and so had to add more porridge into it to dilute the capsaicin burns; and that night came two large bowls of rice (admittedly I took the second one myself, but only to mop up the curry with), one large bowl of curry (meat and potatoes!), and one large bowl of wild boar meat soup. Today? Large bowls of Teochew porridge with the accompanying hotchpotch of dishes--no dinner, because I left the house after lunch.
The bloat will take awhile to go away, I think, but what a comfortable bloat it is! (Well, in retrospect in any case. At the time it rather felt as if I were a rubber balloon stretched to almost-bursting.)
The reason being mostly that I just got back to my room, and I left at 2 from the grandfolks' house; which means it's been a five-or-so-hour journey, which is more or less equivalent to the time it takes to get between So Hour and KL--or, for that matter, Spore and KL. And the three journeys were conducted by bus, so you can't pull the different-methods-different-speeds card. Ha! My fourth aunt, who made the journey with me (she works here), was somewhat stunned too at the spectacle of a jam reaching back halfway across the Causeway, and even though she is something of a genius when it comes to finding the quickest route between places (though she does say so herself), she was utterly unable to shorten the trip any more than the aforementioned five hours. (Of course, we did spend ten minutes shopping for waffles and buns, which have become my dinner.)
I haven't been to the grandfolks' in almost a year, and they were quite happy to see me, even though everybody seems to be in conflicting opinion on my shape: the grandfolks found me skinnier than I should be, and the aunts and uncles found me (in their words) "soft and huggable", especially around the waist. This is understandable because apart from me, everybody works on the farm and therefore has little or no fat on their frame, rendering them... well, not soft or huggable. But it's somewhat embarrassing when your aunt insists on patting your belly as a form of farewell--still, it's family so it's okay.
And of course, it's near Raya; which explains why Malaysia was so hard to get out of: with about 60% of the population having sworn off food as long as the sun is visible in the sky, and a large part of that proportion being involved in the travel industry (buses, taxis, customs offices etc), you naturally expect everything to be rather... hmm, lethargic. Which it is; but a side effect is that the same population is busy preparing little biscuits and buns and cookies for the impending celebration (I think about three days' time? four? something), and my grandfather has good standing in his little town. Hence, gifts of biscuits and buns and so on have swamped the local equivalent of a pantry, and I ate plenty of those.
So my life, while amongst the grandfolks, generally consisted of waking up horrendously late (11.30am, 11.00am, 10.45am, and 8.30am on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively), having a horrendously late and huge breakfast--nobody, I tell you, makes nasi lemak or scrambled eggs--sunny side up--and fried hotdogs quite like the small-town folk do. This morning I had the fried hotdogs and... it's been ages, simply ages, since I had any that good. The skin crispy and the insides soft, and the entirety lightly browned... And then I usually retire to the room I occupy, switch on the computer, and the next hour or two passes by in a haze of studying and Facebook, and both of those cease when I'm called to lunch, which is usually two bowls of something--noodles, Teochew porridge, chicken porridge, rice--and then I retire to the room again, coming out for toilet breaks and water and Raya kuih and the occasional helping of fruit (duku and coconuts). The evening is spent either in the room amongst my books and computer, or strolling about the outside with camera in hand and snapping down random stuff around the countryside: trees, ponds, puppies (they have 7!), cousins (usually accompanying the puppies), and in fact anything I see except the passing Malays because apparently if you photograph a Malay, you can be cursed. A rather odd superstition if you ask me, but I deleted those images anyway. Dinner and a bath (the good old kind where you use a ladle to scoop water out of a large basin--in this house's case the basin is stone/concrete and is in fact part of the bathroom itself) follow after, usually not in that order except when I forget to bath before dinner. After dinner is when I retire to the room (you'll notice I spend a great deal of the day in that room) and remain there until sleeping around 1am; most of the house sleeps at 10pm.
I haven't eaten quite so freely gluttonously in almost a year either; in Spore, the prices and quantities of the food prevent it, and anywhere else there's parents or friends disapprovingly looking on. The grandfolks and aunts and uncles? They heap on the servings. The first two days (and nights) I attempted to control my intake by serving myself in two bowls, of medium size each; Saturday was when my grandma decided I wasn't quite plump enough yet, and took it upon herself to dish out my rice for me. The result was a huge bowl of chicken porridge on Saturday afternoon, which I (and my grandfather before me) accidently put too much pepper into, and so had to add more porridge into it to dilute the capsaicin burns; and that night came two large bowls of rice (admittedly I took the second one myself, but only to mop up the curry with), one large bowl of curry (meat and potatoes!), and one large bowl of wild boar meat soup. Today? Large bowls of Teochew porridge with the accompanying hotchpotch of dishes--no dinner, because I left the house after lunch.
The bloat will take awhile to go away, I think, but what a comfortable bloat it is! (Well, in retrospect in any case. At the time it rather felt as if I were a rubber balloon stretched to almost-bursting.)
Comments
keep up the long posts =P