That King of Fruit... The Durian

Friday was a day set aside for visiting the plant nurseries down south in Johor near a town called Muar. Thousands of acres of plants are available for industrial use. This isn't the place for weekend gardeners to browse around trying to decide which Bougainvillea would look nice next to the Murraya. These are the nurseries where one can purchase hundreds of trees of varying species and thousands upon thousands of shrubs and groundcovers in every imaginable shape, size, texture, and color. My job sometimes requires that I visit these places with the Client and Contractor to settle the final selection of plants...

But this is not about the nurseries. This is about the real purpose of going to Muar and the real purpose the Client wants to tag along. This is about eating that King of Fruit, the mighty Durian which Muar has in abundance.

Now I could go on about the durian's creamy textured meat somewhat similar to a pudding but firmer, or it's arresting smell that has been described in terms of skunk spray to liquid petroleum gas. Or I could talk about the rich flavor when you first pop one of the mushy yet firm meaty seeds into your mouth, I could do all of that but Wikipedia does a pretty fine job of it. For example on the smell here's what wiki had to say:

British novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory. Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions. Anthony Bourdain, while a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit as thus: "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother. Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says “ ... its odor is best described as pig-sh*t, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.

The joys of eating durian extend beyond the love it or hate it taste (I happen to love it) It extends beyond the status of King granted to this fruit (along with a price for such royal recognition). It is a food enjoyed in part to the fellowship of a group of people that share the common love of sitting around a fly invested area eating pig poop smelling custard meat out of a prickly shell so sharp it will draw blood out of your pasty covered fingers unless you know what you're doing or wearing a gloves... and those kind of people are pretty cool!


Durians grow on trees. When they get tired of hanging on they let go and fall to the ground with a loud thud. That's when they're best eaten.


This is a durian stall. It reeks of durian and people eating durian.


Durians come with all kinds of exotic names like 'Wildcat', 'Red Prawn', 'D24', 'D101', etc... they all taste slightly different.


This is the fleshy insides of a durian... before the flies smell it.

Things That Go Eeeep in the Night.

Eeep…. eeeep… that’s what she heard while having dinner last night. My daughter claimed earlier while I was helping myself to some more chicken curry that she kept hearing a noise. “There, did you hear it?” she asked while looking concerned and worried toward the couch. Her spoon was slow to shovel as she kept an ear pointed toward the living area. Eeep… eeeep. I heard it that time but thought it came from the curtain. “It’s just a lizard or small gecko now eat your vegetables”. But my explanation did not whet her appetite. Eeep…. eeeep. Her head quickly whipped around to the living area again, her eyebrows squinched. “It’s probably just the light” said my wife.

After dinner I went upstairs while my daughter stayed at the table to do her homework. “Mom, I saw it. It’s a big bug!”. Then later affirming the daughter’s observation, “oh yeah, I saw it too”. Well now I was curious.

Walking down the stairs I asked if they saw where the sound was coming from. “I think it’s a dragonfly right under the edge of the small couch” my wife said pointinig. I was about to stick my hand under there and grab it when a sudden thought occurred to me, dragonflies don’t go eeeep, eeeep. I got down on my knees and raised the flap of the couch and stared into the small beady eyes of a bat, black and leathery. Eeeep… eeeep it told me.

I whispered to my wife that it was a bat. My daughter thought I said rat and jumped up on the chair squealing. Then I told my wife that I would drag the couch outside so it could fly away. “What? What did you say? Rats don’t fly”, shouted my daughter.

After getting the couch out the front door and flipping it slowly on its back, the baby bat stretched its winged stick legs and started crawling along the edge of the couch shouting eeeep… eeeeep. I put the bat in a small plastic container and poured it out on top of our mailbox. I stood and watched as it eeeeped and crawled around then drug itself to the edge of the box and jumped… gliding down gracefully on to my pants. As I danced the jig and sang the tune of ‘uh, uh, uh’ a black shadow shot out of the evening sky and whizzed by my head. I jumped back and saw the little bat crawling on our driveway. The zipping shadow was an older bat diving and circling the baby. I can’t say for sure whether it was the baby’s mother because I know nothing about the family life of bats, but the older bat guided the young one into the neighbor’s yard.

Back inside, I sat on the couch and began reading my book. My wife was at the table skimming the headlines, my daughter was taking her shower and the bats were outside doing bat things where they belong. Scritch… scriiiitch… “did you hear that?”, asked my wife. “Yeah, it was probably the light”.

DanSing Thru Broadway

Here's some more video clips from the show DanSing Thru Broadway. Songs include: Carryin' the Banner, One Singular Sensation, and the final Curtain Call.

Clip from DanSing Thru Broadway

Bay playing 'Dodge' in a scene from Oliver from the musical DanSing Thru Broadway.

Stood Up

Last night was the final performance of the show DanSing Thru Broadway. It was staged at Panggung Bandaraya, Kuala Lumpur, a theatre built in 1896 by the British in the Moorish architectural style. Though the theatre was gutted in 1992 by fire, the reconstruction and restoration respected its ornate and regal appearance and it still possesses the spirit breathed into it through countless performances.

Panggung Bandaraya

Shortly before the final performance began I was told of a ghost that called this theatre home. The ghost was of a Japanese lady who met death idly waiting for her in a ground floor seat after she fell from the balcony into his lap. The theatre caretaker claims to see her every day and on one occasion, she said, was even shoved by the Japanese lady. There was a chair reserved for this phantom in the balcony, back in the rear corner, safely away from the balcony’s edge. This was her preferred seat for the performances and a 'Reserved: Do Not Sit' sign was permanently placed on it’s back.

Well me being me, the can’t leave well enough alone guy, waited until everyone filed into the hall and took their seats before sneaking through the side curtains and up the old staircase. I eased open the door and carefully inched my way through the darkness lightly patting the back wall as guidance across the dark space. There were only about three people I could see sitting up in the upper section and they were lounging over the railing near the front looking down onto the stage, impersonal silhouettes against the spilt stage lights.

I saw the chair wedged in the corner and was a bit surprised to see that it was not a part of the regular regimental seating layout. It was a chair set-aside especially for the spiritess. The handwritten sign absorbed by the darkness was just a fuzzy white patch on the backrest. The chair was clothed in a gritty feeling red velvet material that bulged from the seat and stiff, upright back. The armrests were sleeveless, made of dark wood ornately carved and ending in two drooping fists.

I respectfully, carefully sat down; back upright, legs together, feet placed firmly on the floor and hands draped lightly over the chair’s fists. I was a figure study for right angles. I sat in this position and watched most of Act I. I enjoyed the first part of the show without interruption or disturbances.

After selling programs during the intermission I revisited the chair for Act II, but approached it less carefully, and less respectfully. I thumped across the back of the balcony. The tops of the silhouettes near the edge were still there and shifted slightly at the sounds of my carelessness. I dropped on the reserved seat making the chair sigh and saw firefly sparkles of long undisturbed dust fly upward twinkling in the spillover stage lights. My body was slouched, legs crossed, hands clasped behind my head. At the end of each scene I shouted, blew my whistle and clapped till my hands were sore.

And when the show ended I must admit a certain disappointment. Not a chilled breath or gentle spinal caress did I feel. Not a papery whisper of 'konichiwa' in my ear did I hear or faint kimono shaped light did I see. The lady it seems stood me up.

Interior of Panggung Bandaraya