Six days after leaving the winter of Waterloo we left the rain-cooled June of Singapore for the hot August nights of Kuala Lumpur. The early morning bus bound for Malaysia carried us off an island city-state that felt like a very safe, very wealthy, very modern haven-version of Asia, albeit sociologically altered, geographically compressed, and demographically concentrated. In the restaurants we ate in in Singapore, I was usually the only Caucasian. Outside the downtown tourists areas, I was certainly the only Caucasian.
After a very long all-day bus ride to K-L (made all the longer by the ubiquitous traffic jams on K-L's superhighways) we arrived in a city and a society where being the only Caucasian in sight would prove the norm. (Didn't see another Westerner for days).
Lucilla's youngest brother Sam was waiting for us at the bus station, a beautiful old building that was K-L's main train station during the colonial period. From the first moments of our arrival, it was clear that here we'd encounter far more preserved history than is possible to see in clean, condo-overrun Singapore ... Exhausted after the long day of bus-sitting, it was a relief to step into Sam's big comfortable---and powerful---BMW sedan. We were whisked up to Sam's mountainside home, which afforded a terrific view over Malaysia's capital city.
The Petronas Towers are visible from Sam and Belinda's backyard.
Our first night in K-L turned out to be another memorable family reunion. This time, the restaurant was a large local neighbourhood eatery, just at the foot of the mountain. The restaurant happened to be hosting a wedding reception; but there was one spare table, a very large table---and we needed it, because Lucilla's extended family turned out in force.
The full entourage encompasses four families, counting ours:
1) The Canadian contingent.
2) A cousin of Kathleen's, Kok Fah, brother to Lin in Singapore; both Kok Fah and Lin are the children of Kath's oldest uncle, Choong Pak, who lives in Ipoh. Kok Fah is accompanied by his wife Yang and their two children, 17 year old Hui (who goes by the English name Joseph) and ten year old charmer Ying Ying (who goes by the name Julianne).
3) Another cousin of Kath's, Yuan, accompanied by his wife Ping, and their children, two sons aged 11 and 9, and a bewitching 5 year old daughter, Ying Ying.
4) And finally, our K-L hosts Uncle Sam and Auntie Belinda, who have two children, both in their early 20's: Phoebe, currently studying at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island; and Amos, who lives here in K-L but is busy on this night, so cannot join our big dinner party.
Whew!
As the dishes are brought forth---many dishes sampled by all, the norm for meals throughout Asia---we are introduced to the various members of the family. Before long it comes out that the teen Hui, son of Kath's cousin, is a fledgling writer of SF stories; he switches seats, snagging the chair adjacent to mine and asks me about the craft of writing. I tell him of the long journey that lies before any teen who aspires to publish fiction for a living ... Hui's kid-sister Ni Ni joins us, and it's clear to me that brother and sister are close. When I say that I also have a younger sister, separated in age by seven years, in fact I have twin younger sisters that I am close to, Hui launches into the story of his sister's birth.
More dishes arrive, and Hui and I are cautioned for talking more than eating; I listen to Hui's description of the favourite SF books he has read, as kid-sis Ni Ni nestles in between Kath and I, wanting to be part of the conversation. Around us, the table is in a hubbub, as Marcus and Lucilla fill everyone in on their granddaughter Robyn. And around our table, the wedding reception grows boisterous, tables of wedding guests cheering and drinking.
Before long, the youngest children of Kath's cousins are squeezing in round Kath and I, wanting a picture with their new Canadian 'Auntie Kit Yee and Uncle Patrick'. 5 year old beauty Ying Ying, normally very shy we are told, climbs fearlessly up onto Kath's lap; Ying Ying understands Mandarin, and I show her photos of Maeve, and she corrects my pronounciation of 'xiao bao bao'.
More dishes arrive; I stand up, shoot video of the table (the wedding guests stare over at me, a fish-out-of-water Westerner who's landed a long way from the regular tourist routes through K-L). Our table becomes boisterous too; now Yuan's young boys are offering themselves for a hug, and wanting their photo taken with us.
We feel overwhelmed with love and honour in this magical moment, in this city so unlike HK or Singapore … Here in Kuala Lumpur we have reached a place that seems farther than the far side of the world. We are in another world altogether, one where glimpses of the deepest past are still visible, as we'll find out in the following days, journeying to Lucilla's ancestral hometown of Ipoh.
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