The City

Times Square New York. Definitely a must-see place before you die.

The city means different things to different people. For some it’s a place where they grew up, and they knew of no other place than the tall buildings and the shopping malls. For some it’s a place where they chase dreams (this may be divided into two, ambitions or rich men in good suits). For some it’s just a holiday destination. For the rest of us, well, we’re not really sure what we’re doing here just yet.

There are two sides of the city. One that I like and one that I totally despise. The part that I like is that at night the lights are gorgeous and it always seems alive. You get up, dress up and show up. I love the fact that you’ll always have an excuse to dress up and look nice. You meet friends and good people, and eat good food and have a good laugh and a good time. And you meet all these people – some you like, some you really, really like, some you don’t, but at the end of the day you feel like your life has witnesses. Like if you were gone tomorrow these people would say, ‘hey, I knew that girl.’ You become a part of this incredible chain of humans and you feel like you’re living the high life of a twenty-two year old. The right way any other twenty-two year old should be living.

Then there’s the harsh side of it. You wake up, go to work, go back home, and before you know it your day is over. You get stuck in a public transport for hours where a certain tall guy would stand over you and dude, please get a deodorant stick or something! All those time, working and travelling, that’s the time in your life you will never, ever get back. And then you get this feeling like you’re only a part of a herd – like a herd of sheep, almost. There is a routine. You won’t often find days where you wake up and you know something exciting or different is going to happen. You all do the same things, but you’ll never speak or know things about each other. In a city, you know you are never alone, but you’ll always feel alone.

Nevertheless I do miss it a lot. I think it has something to do with the fact that when I go back home from work, I’ll walk out of the office in Twin Towers and I see tourists taking pictures of it. And then I think to myself, ‘Better yet, I am actually working here!’ and then I go out for drinks with friends and have a good time, and when I go back I’ll sit next to the guy who just came back from construction work, and it makes me feel grateful because some people have it worse than I do. And then right before I go to sleep, that small space of moment, I feel totally alone and it’s quiet and dark and this really is, believe it or not, one of the things I look forward to the whole day.

Fancy a Bus Trip Home?

Right now I am sitting in a huge bus station in Ipoh, waiting for the bus to get here. It’s Ramadhan and my absence at home during the fasting month for the past three years has taken its toll. My parents insist that I come home every week this month. And since this weekend my Dad couldn’t come and get me, I have to take the bus instead. And thus our story begins.

I always envy people who are born to be travelers. You know, the sort who can sit anywhere on earth and look perfectly like they belong there. Apparently I am the total opposite. If I am lost, I look like a five year-old who just lost her mother at the grocery store. Right now I am at this unfamiliar bus station, with people walking around like herds of sheep. They all seem to know where they are going. Meanwhile, here I am sitting right in front of a guy who has a weird tick going on. Every two minutes he’ll start nodding his head like crazy for like ten seconds. At first I thought he was nodding at me, and being the dimwit that I am, I grinned back at him and said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ But when I realized that was just a tick he had when he started nodding at me enthusiastically every two minutes I felt stupid and ignored him.

On my right is a guy who’s definitely an immigrant, one of the labor powers brought from other parts of Asia. He’s wearing a funky orange collared shirt tucked in blue slacks (so you know how I knew he’s an immigrant. Yes, I am aware that it’s a mean statement, but hey, I’m just saying what’s on everyone else’s minds). He’s looking left and right, left and right, suspiciously at everyone around him. I have a theory about this guy. I think he’s an illegal immigrant, and judging by how he’s eyeing people around him I suspect that he thinks one of us could be the immigration spy. (oh sure, I’m an immigration spy. I’m wearing two inch heels and am looking completely lost) And because right now I am typing in a laptop he’s probably most suspicious with me. He might think that right now I’m typing, ‘Reporting from Seri Iskandar Bus Station. This is spy #009 reporting suspicious behavior of an illegal immigrant suspect. He’s wearing a seriously unflattering orange shirt paired with hideous blue slacks…’

Ohh the bus is here! Gotta go.