“Are you mentally prepared for KL?”
That was what my father asked me when he heard that I was travelling to Kuala Lumpur on the 27th and 28th to attend the launch of Royal Selangor’s Autumn ‘09 collection.
I couldn’t understand the question. Granted, it’s been quite a few years since I last left Singapore for work or leisure, but there is nothing so shocking about KL that a first-time visitor would require “mental preparation” of the sort my father appeared to be hinting at. In general, people don’t travel with their jaws clenched and their minds braced to ward off the impact of the difference between the destination country and their own. (If they do, they shouldn’t be travelling in the first place. They should be sitting comfortably at home, reading Lonely Planet or National Geographic to open their minds.)
(Speaking of National Geographic, I happened to read an article in a recent issue which described the pollination techniques of orchids. It seems that one particular species of orchid looks exactly like the rear view of a female bee, and pollinates itself by attracting male bees to do the wild thing with it. Prompted by the orchids decorating the little serving trays at the club where the launch was held, I narrated this story to the gentleman sitting beside me, and “completely ruined orchids for him”, or so he claimed.)
Regarding KL, at any rate – mental preparedness probably had nothing whatsoever to do with it, since the only views of KL I had were through car windows. Other than that, it was a whirlwind of airport-visitor centre-hotel-country club-hotel-airport, and two mornings in a row that I had to get up before six to catch a flight.
In an earlier entry, I mentioned that journalists who wish to blog may face a conflict of interest if they blog about their work, for fairly obvious reasons. (The observations I made in that post are also partly responsible for why I’ve decided to write about my little trip now.) And for those same reasons, I shouldn’t go into detail about Royal Selangor here, but I must mention that I find the company fascinating because I’ve never covered anything even marginally similar in Singapore. And I’ll post pictures of my favourite range from the collection at the bottom of this entry!
Back to the topic at hand: a first-time visitor’s impressions of Kuala Lumpur, with as few references to work as I can get away with.
The Airport
Changi Airport breathes luxury, the hushed sophistication of a five-star hotel; KLIA is modern and stylish, the casual contemporary cheerfulness of a trendy mall. But beware of unannounced patdowns in both. I almost jumped out of my shoes at the KLIA gate when one of the security personnel suddenly did a pat check on me without warning. Apparently my shirt hangs so loosely on me that it gives rise to suspicions of concealed…assets.
Aircraft Seating
I travelled by Jetstar, and I have absolutely nothing against budget airlines. It was fine except for one thing, my eternal bugbear when it comes to seating: headrests that protrude too far forward and collide with the back of my head, forcing me to crane my neck forward at an angle guaranteed to ensure slow cramp. I always suspect seats like this of having being designed for either (a) people with abnormally long torsos, or (b) people with hunched shoulders.
Urban Sprawl
In Singapore the houses go straight up in the air; in Malaysia they spread out to the sides. Ah, the beauty of having all that wide open space. Then again, people living in high-rises have space too, it’s just too far above their heads to see.
Skylines
The Singapore skyline by night is lit up like the F1 track, but the only bright things I saw on the KL skyline were the Petronas Twin Towers, which the PRC journalist sitting opposite me compared to glittering diamonds. I approve of energy saving on principle, but I’m rather glad I didn’t have to go out on the streets at night.
Airport Food
Some things never change the world round, such as the inflated prices of airport amenities. I had to leave the hotel without breakfast in order to check in for an early morning flight, and subsequently spent some time wandering around KLIA’s retail area looking for – what else – FOOD. The prices at the two cafes I discovered were deterrent, a favourable SGD-MYR exchange rate notwithstanding. I wound up in McDonald’s, where prices are fixed by a central authority and can’t be raised or lowered regardless of location. Oh well. Food is food in a pinch.
Flight
Sitting in the plane just before it reached the runway, I looked out the window and thought, let the karma be good because I’m too young to die. Then I quietly enumerated to myself all the reasons why I’d like to keep on living. And I did that twice or three times on each flight. I may have read too much about accidents, in-flight incidents and other aviation terrors.
When I wasn’t making my peace with the universe, I was thinking about the phrase “the miracle of flight” and considering human ingenuity, which found ways for metal to float on the air. And I was trying to figure out why people consider flight to be a miracle, yet think nothing of cars on the expressway. It may be something to do with familiarity, and brings to mind an Arthur Yap poem titled In Passing (and a derivative of it I wrote as an exercise, titled here to there).
What else? Those are the things that spring to mind; further impressions will take untangling before any single thread, let alone a web, can be formed from the colours filling my head. (Unlike the Lady of Shalott, I have no curse waiting to drop on me like killer litter.)
In the meantime, here are two lovely pictures of the Five Elements range collection whose launch I attended. Created by the incomparable Freeman Lau, whom I had the great luck to interview, it draws heavily on Chinese cultural elements (and the designer’s own preferences with regards to drinking Chinese tea!) and is my favourite range from the whole collection. I have a lot more to say about it, but the rest of my opinion is due to Pulses Magazine, so in lieu of text, here are the images, extracted from the media kit kindly provided by Royal Selangor: a tea set and five different pendants each representing one of the five elements.
