Stories from Malaysia
Kampung Tanjung, Kuala Terengganu The last time I was here, the house was shrouded in darkness. I could barely see the tail light of a motorcycle, streaking to a halt between the stilts. The house stood alone on an empty plot of land, or rather the land around the house had been cleared. I promised …
Quite happy with my recent purchase of a small booklet of prints from the weekend flea market. I was only interested in the first 7 or so photographs but there was no way to purchase them without tearing the booklet. The negatives were unfortunately nowhere to be found. One booth had a small box of empty …
What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than browsing through a box full of abandoned memories at the flea market in Amcorp Mall. These old photographs are usually sourced from family albums, where the prints are stripped out and packaged to be sold individually. In light of how everything remotely old is being sold …
As someone who deals almost exclusively with fragments of the past, a favourite past time of mine is to look for old photographic negatives and work on extracting the images. Some time last year, my dear friend Audrey kindly loaned me a collection of her father's negatives from the '20s for me to work on. …
The Indian-Muslim masters of cendol A bowl of cendol pulut is a must. Rojak is optional. Time to head home and take a nap, I asked him for the total in Malay. He replies in Tamil. I start fishing for coins from my wallet. Haven't see you in awhile. How's your mother? he asks. She's …
On the 28th of February 2013, the one coffeeshop I've always loved visiting in Kuala Lumpur, Sin Seng Nam, goes into retirement after 85 years of operation. I arrived relatively late, 8.30am to be exact, to find most of the seats already filled with the regulars. I found an empty table upstairs and made camp …
Continue reading "Sin Seng Nam: The end of a very long chapter"
Mahen Bala 