A ver-r-r-ry lucky per-r-r-rson - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

With the Pakistani restaurant behind my back, another Thai one that appears on my right and a Japanese hotel just in front of me, it's like walking on an imaginary map of Asia, from the bottom-left corner towards north-east. An Indian man walks out of the hotel, beard secured, big belly and turban. I start to play a solitary game, with background calculations of derivatives and integrals, analyzing the functions that govern our paths, seeking an inflection, a maximum or a limit, trying to determine a point of intersection. My mind is making involuntary calculations and my steps are following an ample curve whose inclination is gradually and imperceptibly changing. Without even knowing it the Indian replies, countering my opening with accurate moves, which hold our position in a dynamic balance, towards a clash in an immutable point, which we both relentlessly come up to. When I'm a meter away I decide to quit, I swerve to the left with a few ballet steps. He turns around and stares at me, with a hypnotizing glance that makes me smile, then shatters my illusion of being playing by myself: "Do you know that you ar-r-r-re a ver-r-r-ry lucky guy?" I'm in a hurry and I keep on going. While I walk away his masala "r-r-r" keep reaching me like the whistle of a train, modulated and distorted by the Doppler effect. "And do you know why?" "Yes, yes...of course I know." And with that last remark I disappear.

What would I have done had I not recognize him? But I of course I knew it all. The Sikh fortune tellers, those impostors in Bangkok, you saw them often in the tourist areas. The Filipino who was asked six thousand baht. I speed up my pace under the twelve o'clock heat. From behind a corner two more Sikhs pop up. Some general of the Army Corps of the North-west has unleashed a number of these mystic platoons, seeking palms to read and simpletons to rip off. They are walking towards me, along the sidewalk. "Do you know that you ar-r-r-re a ver-r-r-ry lucky guy?" "Yes, sure, of course I know." "And do you know why?" "Because I managed not to be fooled by your friend, as well as I'm not going to be fooled by you!" I don't know until what point I have pronounced that sentence and from where I've started to keep it for myself. But one thing is certain, declared, exposed: I am a ver-r-r-ry lucky per-r-r-rson indeed.

Image "Fortune teller" by Daniel Fort, from AllPosters.com

2004 Tsunami: What life is supposed to be - Phuket, Thailand

In the year 2004, after the South Asian tsunami, I wrote a long report about those days. I've recently shrunk it into a few paragraph post.

(End of 2004)

It's Christmas day. The course in KL will stop for a week, I buy a low-cost flight and land in Phuket. I was going to Kho Phi Phi but I've changed my mind: it's super-high season, expensive and packed. This will turn out to be a lucky move. I stay in Phuket town, a bit far from the coast, and that will be lucky-move-number-two. I join some friends at a party at Nai Harn, in a house with a swimming pool, not far from the beach. At about midnight we head to Patong, we do it Thai-style: three people on a bike. The snake-like road is a slide show of postcards, from the top of the hills we watch Karon and Kata, shiny scythes of sand with moving edges, caressed by the tide, palm leaves and moonlight. We are among the last souls who will see them like this.

It's beach party-time and we hang out until dawn. When we are looking for a secluded spot on the sand, to lie down a while and take a nap in the shade, lulled by the breeze and the sound of the waves, our fate flies low and grabs us by the necks, puts our butts on the bike and takes us home.

I wake up late and go to a cybercafe. Just when I'm about to read the news my mobile phone vibrates and rings. It's my father who from the other side of the planet is telling me what is happening here. I go to my friends' place and we follow the news. I tell them that I want to go to the beach but they say it's impossible, the roads are blocked: I will always regret not having tried. Anyway that gives me a chance to do something else: I go to the relief center, at the city hall, where I'll spend most part of the next two days. I help with the translations and assisting the victims, I talk and listen, observe and learn.

They say that at Christmas everybody feels good, and what a coincidence: it's Christmas time, but the festivity has nothing to do with this, people are good because of the disaster, good or bad, or good and bad. Every feeling seems to be amplified. It's true, there is a girl who keeps walking around, talk loud and pose, smile, laugh and cry, she has sensed an opportunity fluttering in the air and can't resist the temptation to show off a bit. But most of the foreigners are sitting in circles, some around their bags and some around nothing, silent and patient, waiting and thinking. The Thais are handing out clothes and food. An Italian guy walks in swim trunk and flip-flops and that's what remains of his belongings: no passport, cash, credit cards, eyeglasses. He asks me where people like him must report and after I tell him he smiles and thanks me. He still have the will to look nice and polite.

The atmosphere of these days has a surreal edge, it's as if one of those old record players had switched from 33 to 45 rpm. You feel the intensity and you want to absorb it, it fills your chest and drains your brain. After two days I get fresh news about some friends I was trying to locate. One is in Chiang Mai, where he fell in love and never got on the train to the south. One was in Lanta and was hit by the waves but he got away with some bruises and cuts. A Thai girl is working at a beach side resort: I don't know how, but she managed to escape.

The world slows down while I climb up Thailand, I get to Bangkok and I fly back to KL. The intesity drops, sensations are muffled. The more the situation gets back to normal the more I feel hollow, weak and confused. 
But there is nothing to be really worried about: this is just what life is supposed to be.

PS A few months later peacereporter.net published a report that I wrote about the effects of that tsunami on Koh Phi Phi.

Photo of a Tsunami warning sign, Koh Phi Phi, by Sergio Pitamitz, from AllPosters.com

Experiencing - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The standard of English in Malaysia is excellent. Malaysians often prefer to speak English instead of Malay, Chinese or Tamil. But there is a temptation they can't resist: an unrestrained use of funny formalisms. The expression "experience" is one of the most abused. The specialties of a restaurant are neither tasted nor eaten, Malaysians prefer to experience them. They don't drink a milk shake, they try the experience of it. The same thing can happen for clean air in a coach, which they cannot simply manage to breath. Malaysians experience, they are a nation of empiricists: if Galileo were alive he would like to come here, to throw his weights from the Petronas towers.

Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Leoni (P.D.)

The effect of a gesture - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I walk down the streets, uphill and downhill, looking for an inspiration and for something to eat. I find them both around a corner: a pan mee soup, in a small Chinese joint. A typical place, gloomy air, dirty floor: perfect for a soup, just what I was looking for. I could have gone to a shopping mall, some aseptic place, well lighted, modular, tables made of colored Formica. No nice sentences here, and very few smiles, but the little you get is authentic stuff, it shines of shyness, of half made glances: jewelery with carats, humanity from the mint. I use the chopsticks with a steady hand, I patiently lay the noodles on the spoon, then the ground meat, the vegetables, the anchovies. I spoon the soup out with lateral moves. I focus on the juice, the spices, the fragments, it's a swirl of flavors, pungent smells and texture. On the way out I stop and stand under the awning, the sky of Kuala Lumpur is a sponge of lead, issuing opaque layers of lukewarm liquid. The owner asks me where I want to go, then she says something to one of the waiters. He takes an umbrella out of a table, then we cross the road, skirting puddles and cars. I arrive to the shopping mall excited and embarrassed, a group of Indians are heartily laughing. I feel a smile grabbing hold of my face: I must look ridiculous behind this movie of gum. It's an idiot's smile, with an oyster effect: it's moving slowly, pulling open my jaws, like the tool of a dentist, installed and screwed. It's an idiot's smile and I can do nothing about it: the effect of that gesture will last for a while.

Image "Singing butler" by Jack Vettriano, from AllPosters.com

Tropical Christmas act III: festive distortion - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

There is no snow, still it's alright. You fend off cheesy songs with the shield of your earphones. But the festive distortion has reached its peak: it's a Carnival-intruder, a Halloween-interference. Malaysians are out, with trumpets and spray-cans, amid firecrackers and polimeric tentacles They're having fun, I smile and grin. Saint Francis Xavier, Jesuit and explorer - apostle of Asia - opens his eyes. He thinks “Am I dreaming or am I dead?”, he pinches his cheek and turns in his tomb. “Had I known about this I would have stayed in Navarre. A quiet monastery on top of a mountain. I would have been spared that eastern inferno, in a sponge of monsoons, between Goa and Macau.” 

Photo "Artificial snow battle", Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, by Fabio Pulito

Nostalgia for the present

Have you ever felt nostalgic for what is currently happening? The chromosomal nostalgic spends years on end floating in melancholy hot springs pools, glued to the floor of mental anterooms, where he keeps on watching shreds of recent memories, making them more novelized and sweetened at every loop, unable to get out and start to live again. After years of practice he's become an ace, a meticulous expert, a cheat when he needs it. He can recognize the circumstances and the people who are going to ignite the familiar sensation. He forestalls the afterward, compressing the process, feeling nostalgic for what he's living right now. It's an addictive feeling, a drug for the soul, a fix of moments, a snort of life. Detoxifying is impossible, the waiting unnerving, therefore this junkie becomes proactive. Detecting the opportunity is no longer enough, he learns how to seek it, drive it, compose it. The life of this person might not be conventional, it steals his sleep, turning him upside-down, but it's a pressure cooker of emotions and intensity. And he wouldn't be able to live a different one.

Image "Violin with Record Player and Nostalgia" by Martin Fox, from allposters.com

Without a fixed identity - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Changkat Bukit Bintang is a secondary street, leaning on a mildly slanted plane. It comes out of an area with luxurious hotels, shouldering its way among massage parlours and malls, to climb up a staircase of restaurants and bars, towards the peak of that little hill. It's a dynamic area without a fixed identity, like a face that changes eyes and nose every month. On the sidewalk the waiters invite you for a drink and if you like the place you'd better stop: the enterprises here have the lifespan of an insect, tomorrow that joint might no longer be there. 

Photo of Bukit Bintang by Esther Lim (CC), from wikipedia.org