The Little Blue Book
I live in an interesting neighborhood. My Japanese neighbors on the right are quiet and polite and always nod to me as they walk their dog past our drive; actually it’s more of a slight bow instead of a nod. On my left the Dutch family have five little pig statues in their front lawn staring at their Malay neighbors; sometimes the pigs point their little butt hole in that direction. Malays are Islamic. So that’s a neighborhood ‘faux pas’. A British family moved in across the street. It’s taking them forever to unpack, or maybe they just like living from boxes stacked under their car porch. Anyway, they shouldn’t let there little kid run around outside naked. They should at least put him in Speedos. The Swedes two houses down are friendly and always have a smile to give even when they’re coasting on their 5th mile run… unnaturally healthy and fit, they make me look down at my little paunch. My daughter plays with her friend just down the road; her friend is Russian so now my daughter greets me with a hearty ‘Privyet!’. The guttural chatting of the French women can be heard as they jog past, well tanned and surprisingly thin. The Americans laugh loudly and speak of the cost of Starbuck coffee. The Pakistan family live on the corner; their son likes to play football the daughter plays princess. I heard that the German with the sports car just got a divorce, a bit of neighborhood gossip. The Indians on the corner have a basketball goal in their driveway so the kids like to gather there.
I think I’m American. Well… I guess I know I’m from America. I just renewed my passport and it says right there on the cover, The United States of America. That’s a long name for a country. The short form, U.S., is easier to say and sounds less pretentious, though oft times as it rolls off my tongue it transforms into a curse depending on who receives it. I sometimes just tell people I’m from Canada; that cuts short any unpleasant conversation.
This weekend our neighborhood had a potluck dinner. I sat at a table with my wife but as the table filled with the neighborhood ladies I migrated to a man table nearby. I couldn’t tolerate the yoga talk that was twisted and bent into chatter about recipes and makeover secrets. The man table didn’t offer much better. We talked about the rising cost of steel bars and concrete and it’s impact on property development. Then the topic of Manchester United came up and I thought about Nabokov and the book Invitation to a Beheading. That’s the book I was currently reading. I was starting to empathize with the protagonist. Whenever talk turns to football, or soccer, as the Americans call it (the Americans?... that would be me right?), I tune out.
I used to like sports, football (American football) and basketball. But I no longer know the team names or towns that they represent. The rules I imagine have changed a bit and if I do catch a game on ESPN I’m never sure why the ref blows his whistle. It all seems foreign to me now.
Later that night my wife told me that all of the ladies at her table wondered why I was sitting with the Chinese and Malay men, the ‘local’ table, instead of the Caucasian table. Funny thing is I didn’t notice a Caucasian table. Funny thing is I no longer know what color I am. After 20 years of washing in foreign water a bit of me has faded to gray. Sometimes I pull out my passport and look at the cover. It has a nice blue cover with a golden embossed eagle stamped in the middle. The title still reads ‘The United States of America’ and the author’s name seems vaguely familiar, but it’s starting to look like a book I’ve never read.
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The following are a couple of answers someone asked regarding my 'neck of the woods' and the kind of food offered at the potluck dinner:
1. My neck of the woods is no longer in the woods. I live just on the fringe of downtown Kuala Lumpur in a *gasp* gated community (thus the number of expats). But don't worry, we still manage to have break-ins and my neighbor was arrested for drug trafficking so I do live in a somewhat normal environment. I’m not deprived. Outside the confines of the neighborhood things are a bit worse but nothing a can of pepper spray usually won't fix. It’s just life in a city much like any city in any country except we use mostly knives and machetes instead of guns, though guns are becoming more fashionable and in my opinion a cleaner option requiring less cleaning up afterwards.
2. The food was surprisingly a disappointment except for the curry crabs someone brought. Two families brought spring rolls (we were one of those families and my wife made them Thai style with chicken and glass noodles). There was some mee siam, a small rice noodle cooked a bit spicy, and some mee hoon, rice noodles cooked with dark soy sauce and fish cakes and prawn (mee is basically a word for noodles). There were two types of fried chicken, turmeric and chili. sushi. salad. two families brought rojak, a mix of pineapple and things I’m not sure about with a spicy sauce made of chili and other things I’m not sure about. Spaghetti. Fried rice. Japanese cheese cake though I’m not sure what constituted it as being Japanese (it was cooked by a Chinese lady). Fried bananas. A couple of basic bakery cakes. And for drinks a yellow concoction that tasted a bit like lemonade but left you feeling a little suspect. Alcohol and pork are not served because some of the families are Muslim. Thus the suspect yellow liquid and lack of bacon or pork chops. And someone ordered pizza from pizza hut... must of been the Americans.
