The Kuala Selangor Chronicles: The Delight of A Hometown
by YBLalat

[Tuesday, December 25th 2001]
The morning that I arrived in Kuala Selangor the temperature was 25 Celcius and the humidity was high. I had trouble adjusting to the climate, even with the frequent shower of cold water and rapid-spinning ceiling fan. Before the start of every prayer, I just had to change my clothes because they were wet with sweat. The night were comparatively milder but still I had a hard time to fall asleep. Sometimes the wind would rush in from the river nearby and into the bedroom, providing the relief I had longed for, but as cool as it was, the wind was also foul and dusty. All day long, all I did was managing myself in the condition of this new weather. "This is too hot to do anything, dammit." Watched a great deal of TV (what a boredom Malaysian TV is!), listened to a great deal of radio (what a crappy and outdated playlist!) and drank a lot of iced lemon tea (and by that I mean many, many 'a lot').

I was a bit surprised that I was not plagued by a jet lag from the 25-hour flight. I had no problem with sleep itself, just with the climate. The first day was fully an acclimatizing experience.

[Wednesday, December 26th 2001]
I woke up early that day, around six in the morning, just before my mom starts her day. I could not get a good night's sleep because of the heat of the night. The fan was at full throttle and my kid brothers complained to mom that the room was too cool, but mum just shushed them quiet. I had no plan whatsoever for the day, and so I ended up watching early morning talk show programs on TV. They were still the same loathed crappy ruling party's propaganda show from two years ago. I had a wonderful time laughing at them as I ate my breakfast. Breakfast was served not as heavy as it used to be and so I managed to stay awake for the whole day. Usually, I would take a late morning nap after a big breakfast due to the oil and fat from the nasi lemak or the roti canai, but since mom only did fried nangka and roti kaya, I was able to stand up to the sleep deficit from last night.

Around noon, I decided to take a walk around the old pekan of Kuala Selangor. I went alone. My kid brothers were busy playing with their computer games. Dad was busy at his office with his paperwork and mom was doing the daily mountainous laundry. The sight of her hanging the wet clothes onto the drying line under the glare of the red hot sun reminded me of my washing days when I was in the hostel. I asked mom about getting a tumble dry machine like the ones I used to dry my clothes in the US, but she just thought of the idea as a waste of money. I guess I forgot about the changing four seasons for a while.

"The sun is always reliable throughout the year, remember?"

The old pekan of Kuala Selangor is really old, and I don't mean the historical kind of old, but the garbage and rotting and dying kinds of old. The town has not changed that much in its atmosphere and noisiness but there were less people doing business there. Kuala Selangor has split into two parts: the old side of town at the north and the newer side of town at the south. Both are bordered by the great big Kuala Selangor mosque in the middle. The newer side of town is primarily a residence area but since the population boom in 1996, commercial buildings such as the newly constructed PKNS shopping area and the two-storey bus station have transformed it into the next expansion of the old town.

I did not find anything from my visit to the old town. There was not much to look at anyway. Small and cozy family-owned Chinese grocery shops are the common trades in Kuala Selangor. Since the town is popularly known as the 'town for the retired', because this group is the majority of the town residents, there is no such thing as a shop targeted for teens and youths. There is not a cinema nearby within the radius of 30 kilometers and the closest thing to a cinema is merely an illegal video games arcade operated at the back alley of the fish market.

The only thing that I bought was a bowl of cendol at an Indian stall near the taxi stand. It was so nice to drink cendol again after two years. The mamak made the 60 cents cendol with utter simplicity and sheer lacking of creativity that the bowl of cendol did not look at all delicious. It was just some green worms swimming in a brown-yellow goo, but how your eyes decieve you. A quick first slurp and my whole body shook. "This is way, way better than all the ice cream, all the Haagen Das, all the iced mocca, all the Haskins & Robbins in the world, all put together." Under a short, fat tree and on a hot, sweltering afternoon, cendol tasted like nothing that the US technology and science could offer. I am sure that I will be missing this drink once I got back to the States.

After strolling around town under the heat of noon for another 15 minuets, I walked home to a great and refreshing midday's snore.