Stall Culture

Very early one morning I drove to Sungai Besi. Few places I avoid in Kuala Lumpur, Sungai Besi is one. I did not have a choice, as I urgently needed to pick up a package from the General Post Office’s parcel warehouse.

I was driving around in circles. Earlier, when I had called for directions, I was told that the warehouse was across from the stalls. I was assured, repeatedly, that I couldn’t miss the stalls. Everyone knew where they were.

It was a higgledy-piggledy set up of ragged tables and chairs. Clusters of people sat around in groups tucking into hot breakfasts, blissfully unaware of the criss-crossing concrete highways above, uncaring of the rubbish strewn around them, and unconcerned about the wobbly tables where they sat.

An excerpt:

Served right off the precariously perched, scorching wok, just metres away from our rickety table and motley wobbly stools. The man frying the noodles always wore a thin, white, cotton T-shirt and shorts. His wife, in mismatched top and bottom, took orders, served meals and collected the cash. From the lowest branch of an old, gnarled tree hung an old-fashioned buai, fashioned out of rope and a clean sarong. In it lay a tiny baby, watching the azure blue sky peeking through the small leaves of the mellow and mature tree.

Zeroº magazine, May 2008