i was looking at pictures from Tali Tenang, which is the latest Random Alphabets project. so many people were wearing the I <3 KL t-shirt (i have one too!). i spotted a handful of familiar faces in the gallery, i.e. the usual ones who attend Random Alphabets events, folks i bump into at shows in KLPac, writers, poets, student leaders, entrepreneurs, greenies... and at the same time the crowd was so huge and so full of unknown people that i couldnt help but wonder what each of them stood for, or enjoyed doing, or spent their saturdays. the thing about KL is that it's such a new city and so bogged down with social problems, but KLites, and Malaysians, are just so cool. we do so much stuff. i was talking to Joe about how working in Hanoi would be so good for his soul, and that if he had free time during the weekends he could sit by the sidewalk and paint, just like the Hanoian artisans do in the afternoons. but i wonder if people from other countries tell their friends the same thing– that working in KL would be good for the soul. if a KLite could dissociate herself from her entire history and background with the city, and live anew like a stranger to KL, how exciting that would be. it’s quite like how people always talk about being just a face in Tokyo, being completely immersed in the neon lights, the moving streets, the hidden ramen shops underground– living the silently adventurous life.

i worry about a lot of things surrounding KL. i fear that my favorite marmite chicken haunt wont be in Pudu the next time i go back there. i fear that Brickfields will morph into an unrecognizable gentrified park of glitter. i’m scared that i’m growing up too fast and that by the time i graduate, there will be no more old people in KL left to talk to. and i’m scared that i may one day not want to go back to malaysia. right now i feel so strongly about needing to go home, but maybe by 2030 people will live on the moon, and i’d want to be there too, because all of my friends are there. maybe by the time i find my footing, everything will have changed, and we will need to find our zion.

the city has always been such a big part of me. whenever i return home from NYC, i look forward to reuniting with KL more than anything else- even friends and family. its streets, its doors, its windows, its parrots, its coffee shop uncles, its clubs, its pasar malams… how can these things be replaceable. what if people just keep getting younger and younger and we’d want to eradicate all of the ashes that we were born from? there’s this place, on jalan loke yew, that sells only bolts and nuts and it is the most wonderful and awe-inspiring place in the world. and there’s a nearby cemetery shrouded in wispy flowing trees that i promise you is the best place to sit with your favorite person in the wee hours of sunday morning, to just talk. also, a shop, on the shores of bukit bintang that deals in ‘bamboo chicks’, whatever those may be, that has beautiful chipping turquoise-painted window frames, on which the lady boss always idly leans, while she smokes her cigarette. then there are the infamous motels with the dingy pink corridors. i was lucky enough to once get a tour of such a motel from the owner’s son. he told me stories of the KL sex trade — where to go, who to find, how much to expect. and the clubs… i felt such pain when i heard about the jalan p ramlee clubs. everything will be quiet when i go home next. my family and i moved out, and i miss my old crime-laden suburb. that den of vice. i lived dangerously when i was there; now i’m just another grown-up in just another peaceful, clean, flowery gated community.