Tourist In My Homeland by Yin F Lim
Tourist In My Homeland
By Yin F Lim
‘Cabin crew, please prepare for landing.’
My body tenses up as soon as I hear the captain’s announcement and the thud of the landing gear being lowered. I don’t much like flying, and enjoy landings even less. Trying to ignore the whine of the wing flaps extending, I peer through the cabin window to focus on the landscape below: neat rows of oil palms, lush green against the occasional swathe of barren land. As we continue our descent, the rays of the late afternoon sun are almost blinding as they catch on the aircraft’s wingtip.
Grey tarmac comes into view. I close my eyes and clutch the arms of my seat. The plane judders as soon as the wheels touch the ground and a loud roar fills the aircraft. Pressing myself further into the seat, I tighten my grip on its arms even as the plane propels me forward. My body feels like it’s about to be pulled apart by opposing forces. Then the pressure eases as the plane taxies towards its gate.
Back on land. After twelve hours, I can finally walk out of this great, flying hulk that’s carried us across continents and oceans. I have no regrets about leaving behind its stale air, its overheated food and outdated entertainment, its crumpled blankets and crushed cups; the detritus of five hundred fellow travellers. But it’s not just relief that I feel upon finally arriving at my destination.
‘Kepada warganegara Malaysia, selamat pulang ke tanahair.’
Over the PA system, the flight attendant welcomes all returning Malaysians. I can feel a smile forming on my face; I see Nick do the same when I catch his eye over our son Khay’s head. We are home.
Leaving the airport terminal, I am hit by a blast of heat and humidity. Pushing my luggage trolley takes twice the effort, making my already-heavy head feel worse. How did we ever live in such a climate, I wonder, tugging my shirt away from my clammy skin as we walk across the parking lot to collect our rental car.
‘Air-con please!’ Khay insists as we finally settle ourselves in the vehicle. At the turn of a dial, chilled air streams out of the vents, bringing the temperature to a more comfortable level. We pull out of the car park and onto the highway, squinting against the bright sunshine and the shimmery lines on the road in front of us; a mirage created by the heat rising from the bitumen. My jet-lagged brain marvels at how surreal this all feels. Less than 24 hours before, we were driving on another highway – the M25 – towards London’s Heathrow, in a gloomy, drizzly England. Now, as I stare at a large sign that reads ‘Kuala Lumpur’, it feels as if we never left Malaysia in the first place. Twelve hours and 10,000 km – that’s what it takes to get from one world to another. From one home to another.
‘So, when will I see Mabel and Kai?’ Khay asks from the back seat, impatient to meet up with his cousins. For our 13-year-old son, who left the country when he was 3, our annual visits to Malaysia are fun holidays with extended family. But for Nick and myself every arrival in Kuala Lumpur – or KL as locals call it – is a homecoming. This is our country of birth, where we had built a life of forty years before moving to the UK a decade ago. This is home to many milestones, from my first day at school to my first job and first house. This is where Nick and I met, at university, where we graduated and began our careers, where got married and became parents.
It’s a return to the familiar. A return to where we know how things work and who to ask. Where much-loved faces welcome us.
‘Have you eaten?’
My mother calls out to us with her customary greeting, a broad smile wrinkling her face as she manoeuvres stiff joints down the front step. Wrapping an arm around Khay’s shoulders, she ushers us into her house, our home for the next month.
‘Yes,’ I reply, wheeling my suitcase into her living room, my bare toes tingling from the cool of the marble floor. From the airport we had driven to the hawker food centre where I ate proper curry laksa in true Malaysian style: perched on a rickety stool, head bent over the steaming bowl of noodles, sweat streaming down my face from both the tropical heat and spicy food, savouring every mouthful.
‘Good, you can have some chendol then!’ Mum laughs as she catches my look of delight at her mention of my favourite dessert. I flop onto a sofa and immediately I’m enveloped by its comforting scent; a musty mix of aged plush, hair cream and memories.
‘Careful!’ Keay, my youngest brother, tells his 6-year-old daughter, Mabel. She nearly collides into him as she runs to her room, followed by Khay and 9-year-old Kai.
Soon, we are enjoying ice-cold bowls of coconut milk and palm sugar chendol as we catch up with everyone’s news. My head is whirring along with the ceiling fan above as I try to keep up with the cacophony of ‘did-you-know-ahs’ and ‘you-didn’t-tell-me-lahs’, all intermingled with the children’s shouts and laughter.
Suddenly my phone rings, BC’s name flashing on the screen. I had sent my friend a text as soon as we landed. I move to a quiet room to answer her call.
‘Welcome home! I can’t wait to see you both. When can we meet?’
I match the smile I can hear in her voice: ‘How about tomorrow morning, breakfast at Raju’s?’
We continue chatting as if we had just spoken to each other yesterday, slipping back into the rhythm of our decades-old friendship. BC asks how long we’ll be back in town.
‘Four weeks,’ I say, laughing at her excited gasp as she lists all the new food places we can try together.
*
‘So, what do you do for four weeks in KL - won’t you get bored? Why don’t you come and visit us?’
We’re having dinner with my brother-in-law Danny, who’s travelled from Singapore to see us. He can’t understand how we are able to spend a month in one place. But for Nick and I, it’s not just any place, and four weeks is never enough time for everything we need to do.
There’ll be visits to our former neighbourhood of Sri Damansara to see Elaine, our hairdresser from before Khay was born. Trips to the local supermarket to stock up on prawn paste and Milo malt powder to see us through the winter months in England. Rushing to Raju’s after Sunday morning Mass to enjoy crispy roti canai and sweet teh tarik under the leafy shade of ancient trees. Morning walks at Bukit Kiara Park before the day gets too hot.
Four weeks a year is hardly any time to reconnect with old friends. The school and university mates with whom I had studied, partied and travelled, whose weddings and children’s birthdays I had attended, the same children who are now off to university themselves. The former colleagues with whom I had spent years working late nights on a fledgling newspaper, supporting each other as we cried over setbacks and celebrated successes. And four weeks a year is never long enough with family. With nephews and nieces who’ve grown taller and bigger since we last saw them, their youthful vigour a sharp contrast to the slower gaits of their grandparents, whose ageing seems more pronounced each year.
The first two weeks of our annual trips are akin to reuniting with an old lover – everything’s so intense. We’ll meet with friends for early dinners that evolve into late-night suppers, none of us wanting to end the hours of non-stop chatter as we make up for our absence in each other’s lives. We’ll revisit favourite food stalls and restaurants to satiate months-old cravings, as if it’s remotely possible to hoard flavours and tastes to last us until next time. The food has never tasted better, loved ones never seemed more dear, old haunts never more meaningful.
But when you’ve been apart from your lover, it’s easy to ignore the flaws. And this old lover can be very seductive. Before long we find we’ve slipped back into the cadence of our former lives. We walk faster, trying to keep up with the city’s hustle-bustle. We abandon courteous driving for defensive tactics that help us manoeuvre the manic Malaysian traffic. Muscle memory kicks in and we automatically know which back lanes to take to bypass gridlocked roads. We revert to Malaysian English or Manglish – the mash-up of English, Malay and various Chinese dialects that we grew up speaking.
‘Aunty, one plate of char kway teow ah. Tambah chilli but no taugeh.’ I order my fried noodles with extra chilli and no bean sprouts at the neighbourhood kopi tiam where we’re having dinner with Danny. At another food stall, Nick requests Hainanese chicken rice, speaking in Cantonese before switching to Malay as he gives our drinks order to a tall man balancing a glass-laden tray on his palm: ‘Bagi teh limau ais satu, Coke satu, Milo ais satu.’
‘It’s so easy to become Malaysian again,’ Nick says once we are seated at a wobbly table, waiting for our orders to arrive. Yes, it’s impossible to resist the draw of all that is comforting and familiar. This busy kopi tiam for instance, with its bright fluorescent lighting and hawker stalls offering all kinds of street food, from the smoky char kway teow wok-fried over an open fire to the chicken wings sizzling on a charcoal grill.
‘Do you think you could live here again?’ Danny asks between mouthfuls of his Hokkien fried noodles. I place my chopsticks on my plate and look around at the diners seated nearby. Like us, they’ve opted to sit outdoors by the roadside where there’s a better chance of catching a cool breeze than inside the coffee shop. Amidst snatches of conversation, I can hear pots clanging, vendors shouting, children crying, cars honking, motorcycles roaring – for many years the soundtrack of my life.
Could I live here again?
Malaysia is where I feel complete. It’s where I return to retrieve the missing pieces of myself, to rediscover the person I was in the first forty years of my life. I may have left my homeland, but I’ve come to realise that it’s never quite left me – that part of me only truly comes alive when I’m on Malaysian soil. The part that tells me this is where I belong, this store of countless memories. Snippets of teenage chats with my best friend Wendy come to mind whenever I drive around my childhood neighbourhood, past the newsagent where we would swoon over teen idols immortalised in magazine posters. Fragments of nursery rhymes play in my head along with a vision of energetic toddlers, every time I walk by the church hall where I used to take Khay to playgroup.
But could I really live here again?
I take a deep breath and immediately regret it; I’ve just inhaled a lungful of the noxious fumes emitting from the cars driving past. Coughing hard, I reach for my drink only to find an empty glass. Nick stops a young woman walking past with a tray.
‘Bagi air kosong satu,’ he says in Malay, only to be met with a blank stare. He tries again in Cantonese, the most common Chinese dialect in KL. She remains silent, uncomprehending.
‘She’s probably from China lah,’ Danny says, before speaking to the waitress in Mandarin. Recognition registers on her face as she nods and walks off to fetch my water. ‘There are so many migrant workers in the coffee shops these days, it’s becoming more difficult to order anything.’ He’s referring to the way we’ve always relied on instinct – honed through years of living in Malaysia’s multicultural, multilingual society – to identify which language to use whenever we speak to someone.
I take a gulp of water and lift my chopsticks to continue eating. From the corner of my eye I spy a sudden movement near an overflowing rubbish bin. A small furry shadow, long tail flickering, scuttles into the open drain. Suddenly, my half-finished plate of char kway teow no longer looks so appealing. I quickly turn to Nick and Danny.
‘Hey, are we finished yet? Let’s go soon.’
*
A silver Perodua MyVi pulls up to the pavement. I quickly check the registration plate against my Grab car-sharing app before I open the door and greet my driver.
‘I’m Pang,’ the young man responds in Manglish. ‘You going to Mont Kiara, right.’ I climb into the back seat.
I catch Pang’s eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror before he turns away, preparing to re-join the stream of traffic. Instinct tells me he might be more comfortable conversing in Cantonese, so I take a chance and reply in the dialect.
‘Do you know the way?’
I can see his shoulders relaxing as he switches languages.
‘Yes, I have Waze,’ he says, pointing to the popular GPS app on the smartphone clamped to his dashboard. I settle back into the seat as Pang navigates towards the New Klang Valley Expressway. As he drives, we discuss the state of KL’s traffic and what prompted him to become a Grab car driver. Suddenly, he glances at me in the mirror. ‘You’re not from around here, are you?’
Slightly taken aback by his question, I look out of the window before responding.
‘Of course I am. I’ve lived in KL for most of my life.’ I nod firmly, attempting to give weight to my reply.
‘Really? But your Cantonese doesn’t have a local accent.’ He sounds perplexed as he tries to figure me out.
Although I grew up speaking Cantonese, I’ve never had a good command of the dialect, thanks to years of schooling in the national language of Malay, working in an English-speaking environment and favouring Manglish at home. But this is the first time anyone in Malaysia has ever commented on it.
‘It doesn’t?’ I turn back to Pang. I’m not sure whether to feel affronted or ashamed. ‘I live overseas now,’ I say, finally.
I catch his grin in the mirror.
‘Ahh, that’s why lah!’
As we discuss life in the UK compared to Malaysia, the inside of the car suddenly grows dim. We’re passing through a corridor of limestone hills; high walls loom on both sides of the highway. I spy hazy shapes on the horizon and a feeling of anticipation runs through me. Any moment now, the corridor will open out to present my favourite view of the city’s skyline: a series of glimmering skyscrapers, the tapering needle of the KL Tower at one end and the twin rockets of the Petronas Towers at the other.
We leave the hills, but all I can see ahead of me is a cluster of condominium buildings, uniform in their oblong shapes and beige facades. I can barely make out the gleaming tip of the KL Tower beyond the roof of one dull block, like a crumb left behind on the greedy lip of this monster of development.
‘Hey, what happened? What are all those condos?’ I turn to Pang, trying to control my dismay.
‘That’s Mont Kiara, where we’re going.’
‘There never used to be so many blocks.’ I protest.
‘Waah, you haven’t been here for a long time ah,’ Pang shakes his head, and we leave the highway.
Half an hour later, I am inside one of those same condominium blocks, listening to my friends from university discuss the corruption scandal that has implicated Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and triggered a leadership crisis.
‘More than two billion ringgit and he’s still in office. Can you believe it? In other countries, they would have made him resign!’ Mei is almost shouting as she sets down a plate on the table in front of me. The slice of cheesecake quivers from the force of her anger.
Najib has been accused of channelling two billion ringgit from 1MDB, a company connected to the government, to his personal accounts. Investigative reporting by the media has uncovered a network of international fund transfers, leading to bank accounts being frozen and the US Justice Department initiating legal action to seize assets allegedly purchased with the misappropriated funds.
‘Look, look, doesn’t this make you sick?!’ Mei’s husband Lam scowls as he shoves his smartphone in front of me. It’s playing a video of Najib telling journalists that his government is serious about good governance, that they will fully cooperate with the investigations. ‘Talk about a hypocrite!’ Lam flings his arms in the air.
‘What’s happening to our country?’ Mei presses her fingers against her temples as if to soothe an ache that won’t go away.
I stay silent, unsure how to contribute. I share my friends’ alarm about my homeland. I’m saddened that there’s not much they can do until the next general elections are called – not for another two years. But I can’t help feeling like a spectator as I listen to them, unable to match their level of anger and despair. More than anything, their emotional state reminds me how I felt after the EU referendum. I shift in my chair and stare at the slice of cheesecake.
‘You guys are so lucky you no longer live here,’ Lam remarks, not without a hint of envy. I silently agree with him and the relief I feel is tempered by guilt, for having ‘run away’ from our country and its problems, even though we left long before the 1MDB scandal broke.
‘Yeah but don’t forget, we’ve got Brexit,’ I reply at last.
The conversation trails off. The three of us sit in silence, eating our cake.
Over dinner that night, I try to explain my sense of disquiet to Nick while the kids huddle over a game on Khay’s tablet. We are having dinner at a seafood restaurant called Fish & Co, as Khay has been clamouring for fish and chips.
‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’’ Nick replies as he tells me about his meeting with former colleagues earlier that day. ‘After a while, I felt we were running out of things to say to one other. Every year I come back we have less and less in common. I barely know what and who they talk about.’ My husband muses as he flicks his thumb against the restaurant menu. ‘They’ve moved on – but I guess I’ve changed too.’
I’m about to reply when a howl interrupts us.
‘What’s this? It’s not even real fish and chips!’
The waiter has placed a large plate in front of Khay. On it is a flat square coated in orange breadcrumbs next to a mound of crispy fries and a pile of peas. It looks nothing like the fish and chips from our local chippy back in England.
‘But these ARE chips!’ Kai says as he pops one in his mouth.
‘Hey! You didn’t ask if you could have one!’ Khay stands up to glare at Kai as Mabel looks on with her mouth open. And they’re not chips, they’re skinny fries!’ I can feel eyes upon us.
‘Sit down and eat your food,’ I glare at my son. Khay obeys, sulking, but refuses to touch his meal. A young waitress walks over, a friendly smile on her face.
‘Dik, kenapa tak makan? Ikan ni sedap!’ Speaking in Malay, she asks Khay why he isn’t eating the delicious fish. He looks at her blankly.
‘Ma, what’s she saying?’ Khay turns towards me and so does the waitress, her eyes wide.
‘Eh, dia cakap macam orang puteh. Dia tak fahamke?’ She’s startled by my son’s British accent and asks if he understands her.
I shake my head and explain that Khay has never learnt Malay: ‘Dia tak belajar Bahasa Malaysia. Kami tinggal diluar negeri.’
This is the second time today I’ve had to explain that we no longer live in Malaysia. I’m beginning to feel more and more like a tourist in my homeland.
*
The afternoon downpour has subsided. The wiper blades have left a watery sheen on the windscreen, transforming the tail lights ahead of us into a blur of red and orange. We’re in the middle of the city, inching forwards at what feels like half a mile per hour. Drivers around us, never patient even on a normal day, vent their frustration through their car horns.
I look at the clock on the dashboard and let out a loud groan.
‘At this rate, we’ll be lucky if we arrive in time for dessert.’
Nick frowns at the traffic-choked road in front of us. ‘It’s worse than the M25 on a bad day.’
I turn my head to peer out the window. Under the hazy glow of street lights, I can see rivulets of muddy water running down the side of the road by the grassy verge.
‘Are we there yet?’ Khay’s voice, thick with sleep, drifts towards us from the back seat. Bored with the delay, he dozed off half an hour ago.
‘Nearly there, Khay. Look.’
I point to my left, where I can see the curved tower block that is the Shangri-La Hotel. Its lit windows, glowing against the dusky sky, beckon us. It’s close enough for us to reach in five minutes of fast walking, but we can’t just abandon the car in the middle of the road. We were meant to arrive thirty minutes ago for dinner with Nick’s family. We thought we’d given ourselves ample time to get to the city centre, even taking into account how KL comes to a standstill after a monsoon deluge. But instead of following Waze, we had relied on our increasingly obsolete knowledge of local roads and had to backtrack. I glare at my husband who is oblivious to my annoyance.
Pulling my cardigan around me as a shield against the air-conditioning’s chill, I turn towards the back seat.
‘I know, you wish you were in Por-Por’s house with Mabel and Kai instead, right?’
Khay shoots me a look I can’t quite decipher.
‘Actually, no. It’s nice to have some peace and quiet.’
I raise my eyebrows as Nick throws me a bemused glance. The three cousins have been inseparable since we arrived in KL. The first thing Khay asks when he wakes up is when he’ll see them next.
‘No? You’re getting tired of them already?’ Nick asks.
Khay huffs before replying.
‘They make so much noise. Mabel and Kai are always fighting, and I have to be the peacemaker.’ He’s quiet for a second, before adding: ‘I wish I was home. I miss my room. I miss England.’
I face forwards again toward the sea of orange and red; it doesn’t look like we’ve moved at all. Khay’s mention of England is an invocation. Suddenly I too wish I were in my own home sleeping in my own bed, baking in my own kitchen. I want to hear birdsong early in the morning and stillness late at night, instead of incessant background noise from the TV or traffic. I want to smell the heady lavender in my garden, instead of rank, clogged drains by the roadside. I miss food shopping at our local Sainsbury’s, and walking or cycling to the city centre. If we were in Norwich, we wouldn’t be stuck in traffic like this. We would have been on time.
A few days later I’m in the suburb of Bangsar, trudging up a gently inclined road to reach the shopping mall. As I navigate my way over loose gravel, dodging puddles of stagnant water, I can feel the heat emanating from my body, my face flushed from the exertion and humidity. Just a few more days, I tell myself. Just a few more days and I’ll be back where I don’t break out in a sweat at the slightest exhalation.
A day before we’re due to leave, Nick and I are in my mother’s living room with my brother Seng, who is telling us about a meeting at his son’s school.
‘So, I told the teacher Kai won't be coming to school on Monday, but then she was like you know…’ Seng opens his palms in an upward gesture as he looks at me expectantly.
‘No, I don't know!’ I snap at him; I immediately feel terrible. My brother can’t help it if I now find exasperating what a few weeks ago had seemed endearingly familiar – the way most Malaysians never complete our sentences because we assume our listener understands what we mean. I’m about to apologise when we hear a screech upstairs.
‘Mabel!!!’
Three sets of footsteps thunder down the stairs. Khay runs to us, followed by his cousins.
‘Ma, Mabel messed up our game!’
‘Yeah, she took Khay’s iPad!’ Kai chips in.
‘No, I didn’t!’ my niece’s face crumples as she starts to wail.
‘You know, it really is time to go home,’ Nick says.
*
‘Returning?’ The Border Agency officer at London Heathrow greets us as he scans our residence permits.
‘Yes,’ I say. The word runs through my head: returning. That means coming back to something. I’m returning to my home in the UK. Another homecoming.
‘Welcome back,’ the officer smiles as he waves us through.
As we exit the airport terminal, a breeze on my face lifts me from my jet-lagged daze. It’s invigorating after a month of smothering heat and freezing air-conditioning. Approaching a zebra crossing, I wait for cars to pass before stepping onto the road.
‘What are you doing? You can go. We’re back in England now,’ Nick nudges me with his elbow before pushing his luggage trolley in front of the car that’s stopped for us.
‘So, can we get some fish and chips?’ Khay bounces on the pavement as we load our luggage into our car. As he climbs into the back seat, he rattles off a list of what he plans to do the moment he arrives home.
Later, on the M11, I’m reminded of how civilised British drivers are. There’s no incessant honking, no motorists overtaking one other, no daredevil motorcyclists weaving between vehicles. I look out my window at the English countryside, so gentle and soothing. The concrete jungle that is KL, the constant bustle that is Asia, feels very distant.
Groping in my cardigan pocket for some tissue, I find a small piece of paper instead. It’s a ticket stub for the circus performance we attended a week ago. I stare down at the creased face of a clown and can hear the children laughing. I can see my mother’s beaming face, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she reaches out to ruffle my son’s hair.
I shove the ticket back into my pocket and turn quickly towards Nick, trying to control the wobble in my voice.
‘Look at how green everything is. It must have rained a lot this summer.’
Tourist In My Homeland by Yin F. Lim first appeared in Hinterland Issue 2 Summer 2019 / hinterlandnonfiction.com