Catch Cheating Spouse

Beware philanderers and two-timing partners! Spotted this cab in Puchong with a bold ad by a private investigator, providing his professional service to track down unfaithful partners.

Hail the King!

The smell has arrived.

It’s that time of the year in Malaysia when the smell announces the arrival of the king. For the uninitiated (read Caucasian), the fruit attacks the nostrils like some odoriferous fart. In fact, the durian has not been accorded the royal treatment it so rightly deserves by the hotel industry. After 52 years of independence, I think it’s high time the hotels rolled out their red carpets to welcome the king of fruits. Just think of it: the king of fruits is barred from our hotels.

What ignominy!

If this happens in France or some other republics –I can understand– for they have no love for royalty. But this is Malaysia, man, and we Malaysians revere the fruit. And we Malaysians love our king – in fact, we have nine rulers who take turns to be the king every five years. Are our hotels off- limits to our king or Agung? Then, why ban the king of fruits from gracing the hotels?



For the life of me, I just can’t understand how our very own government could allow this affront to our beloved king to continue for so long. Is it because of some colonial hangover that we should protect over-sensitive white noses who simply can’t stand the sweet fragrance of our king- at our expense? Talk about our sovereignty! We can't even take durians into our own hotels!

Huh! - I would like to propose that parliament legislate the law of lese majeste to protect the dignity of this king of fruits. The law of lese majeste could then be used against any hotel owner for barring the king of fruits from their hotel. It could be used for other acts of disrespect like calling the king ‘smelly’, ‘ordoriferous’, ‘pungent’, or likening its smell to ‘damp socks’.

When the law comes into effect, we shall invite Chef Andrew Zimmern (of the Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern TV food documentary) to come to Malaysia and repeat his ‘rotten mushy onion’ remark against our king. We shall then shackle him with durians in the very same durian orchard where he made the offensive remark against our beloved king.

Honestly, I can’t wait for the day when hotels like the Hyatt, Hilton, and Sheraton will open their doors to guests bearing the thorny fruit. It should even be mandatory for doormen to give the durian bearing guest a royal salute – or at least a slight nod as a mark of respect. It should even be de rigueur for durians to be served at hotel buffets or banquets – during the durian runtuh season, of course.

Hail the king!

Virtual Real Estate

Off the road.

I took an evening off yesterday to listen to Internet Marketer Sunny Tan's enriching talk on how to make a living selling virtual real estate - online, of course! The talk was peppered with useful information on how to create marketable websites, outsourcing, traffic generating, buying and selling websites or blogs.

Organized by Internet Marketing guru Dechen Lau, the monthly talk was held at his business address: Power Success Marketing Sdn. Bhd. No. 3, 2nd Floor, Jalan USJ, Subang, Selangor, Malaysia. Tel: 603-5631 4899.

Spiritual Food, Anyone?

Tuck into your meal in a clean, unpretentious and, if I may add, spiritual ambience for an incredibly rock-bottom price of RM 2.00! Yes, you read right; it's only RM2.00for a plate of rice that comes with three vegetable dishes. For drinks- plain water or Chinese tea- pay 20 sen and it's unlimited free refills.



Yes, that's what they are offering at Four Guang Vegetarian Fast Food in SS 25/23 Taman Mayang.

And why spiritual?

Well, you'll eat amidst the strains of non-stop Buddhist Amitabh chanting, and a tele repeatedly showing a monk giving a dhamma talk.

Spiritual food, anyone?

Take the LRT and get off at the Kelana Jaya station. Then use the pedestrian bridge to cross over to the other side. It's a short walk from there. If you're coming down the LDP from the Sunway toll, turn left into Taman Mayang right after the St. Ignatius Catholic Church.

Walkabout in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown

A visit to Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown in Petaling Street is always worthwhile. The best way to explore the place is by walking. Here’s my record of the sights and sounds of Chinatown:



The thoroughfare along Petaling Street is a haven for bargain hunters who are looking for imitation branded bags, shoes, clothes, watches, and fashion accessories. The rule of the shopping game here is to haggle over the prices.




On the corner of Petaling Street and Jalan Sultan is Kwong Woh Tong, a chain store selling traditional Chinese herbal teas and the popular herbal jelly called Gui Ling Gao. The herbal teas come in two flavours, sweet and bitter. A bowl of the black Gui Ling Gao, which is made from a concoction of herbs and tortoise shell powder, costs between RM7.00 and RM8.00. It is usually served chilled with sugar syrup or honey to sweeten the taste. This black jelly is also reputed to be a detox and helps to relieve the body of its heat.




A stone’s throw from Kwong Woh Tong is the Purple Cane Tea Art Centre. This tea chain store sells mostly teas from China. The highest price tag is RM2,800 for a cake of ten-year-old Red Tea.. The store also sells teapots, reference books, tea drinking accessories, music, snacks, and hampers. If you want to learn the art of preparing and drinking Chinese tea, the store runs various training programs for adults and children. Purple Cane Tea Art Centre is at 11, Ground Floor, Jalan Sultan. (Tel: 603-20311877).


A short walk from the din of Petaling Street is the Old China Café, which occupies the premises of the seven-decade-old guild hall of the Selangor and Federal Territory Laundry Association. From the outside, you see the big bay windows of old.


Step inside, and you’ll be taken back to the past, with portraits of founding members and their descendants displayed on the walls. The shophouse still retains many of its original features such as the swing door and the back door with its wooden bolts.

The Cafe serves Nyonya food, a cuisine of the Peranakan or Straits Chinese, descendants of early Chinese-Malay intermarriages, whose culture is a fascinating hybrid of both traditions. Old China Café is at No.11 Jalan Balai Polis (Tel:603-20725015).

Catch the Putra LRT and get off at the Pasar Seni station.

An Evening at the Central Market Annexe, Kuala Lumpur

5:30 P.M. I see an artist sitting cross-legged on his art shop floor dabbing paint on a canvas. He is making a copy of an original piece of abstract painting. Meet Abdul Ghani Ahmad who has been painting for over 20 years. His business card says: MALAYSIAN WATERCOLOUR ORGANISATION, ARTIST NATURE & ABSTRACT. His art shop, which is on the ground floor at the Central Market Annexe, is a showcase of his two-decade-old passion.



6:20 P.M. I step into the century-old wood-panelled lift that takes me to The Annexe Gallery to watch TIKAM-TIKAM: MERDEKA! MERDEKA. MERDEKA? This public event was part of the EMERGENCY FESTIVAL! celebration which the brochure describes as an 11-day ‘explosion of histories, images, narratives and sounds from the first Malaysian Emergency from 1948-1960’. Three speakers (economist Tricia Yeoh, law professor Azmi Sharom, and political scientist Dr Mavis Putucheary) get together in this chance-game of tikam-tikam , randomly reading their personal (his)stories about Malaysia with Merdeka as the starting point.



7:30 P.M. One-hour dinner break. I browse in another art shop, visit an art exhibition on Journey into the Mind, which displays artworks by mental patients of the University of Malaya Medical Centre, and have a light dinner at Bau Bau Café. I order a bowl of curry noodle and a glass of special lemon grass tea and settle myself on the balcony overlooking the Klang River. Then I notice café owner, social activist, writer, and film-maker Hishammuddin Rais sitting across my table. What do I do? Fish out my camera, of course, and have my photo taken with this prodigal son who returned from a self-imposed 20-year exile in 1994.



8:30 P.M. It’s back to the Annexe Gallery to watch a play : New Village People and Pineapple Rice. The play recounts how the ‘lives of two good friends change forever when they are forced by the British army to leave everything behind and start afresh in a New Village during the Malayan Emergency’.



What a delectable evening! I have chatted with an artist, visited an art exhibition, sipped lemon grass tea on a balcony café, rubbed shoulders with a famous personality, attended a reading, and watched a play – all that in four-and-a-half-hours! And, there’s more. But that will have to be another evening.

Skip the Annexe and you miss the ‘Art and Soul of Kuala Lumpur’.

The best way to get to the Central Market Annexe is to take the Putra LRT and get off at the Pasar Seni station.