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

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.

Reading, writing... not walking...

Where have I been you may ask... at work or reading. I haven't done as much walking lately (read: lazy and putting on a few pounds). But I've been reading... and writing. Reading has taken up much of my time (outside of work) and writing the remainder. Here's what I've gone through so far this year (UPDATED 29 JULY 2008):

Currently Reading

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Other Colors: Essays and a Story, Orhan Pamuk

2008 Completed Books

The Fugitive, Pramoedya Ananta Toer
The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker
The 210th Day, Soseki Natsume
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
Invitation to a Beheading, Vladimir Nabokov
Lamb to the Slaughter, Roald Dahl
Light in August, William Faulkner
July's People, Nadine Gordimer
All About Lulu, Jonathan Evison
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blurn, Heinrich Böll
Edith's Diary, Patricia Highsmith
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
The Palace of Dreams, Ismail Kadare
Candide, Voltaire
Zombie, Joyce Carol Oates
All That Is Gone, Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Junky, William S. Burroughs
The Waste Land and Other Writings, T.S. Eliot
My Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk
Taras Bulba, Nikolai Gogol
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Italo Calvino
Masters of Atlantis, Charles Portis
Dusklands, J. M. Coetzee
Wonderful Wonderful Times, Elfriede Jelinek
The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
The Box Man, Kobo Abe
The Master of Go, Yasunari Kawabata
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Yukio Mishima
The Dog of the South, Charles Portis
Liquidation, Imre Kertesz
The Futurist, James P. Othmer
War & Peace, Leo Tolstoy
First Love and Other Novellas, Samuel Beckett
Snakes and Earrings, Hitomi Kanehara
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, Henry W. Longfellow
The Successor, Ismail Kadare
The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky

... and here's my reading plan, though it changes regularly like everytime I set foot in a book store.



Go ahead... click on the image so you can see the bigger picture.

Jungle Spirits... Halloween Special

Sometimes the beauty of a place can mask the frightening truth behind it; and yet it is this same truth that helps to preserve its magnificence.

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It was not just another job but a planned 5-star hotel in one of the oldest rainforests in the world. As a landscape architect it was my job to visit the site before any works began to evaluate the existing vegetation, landforms, and natural site features. My initial report would help the project team to determine what could be preserved and included in the final design master plan.

It was mid-morning when I parked my rental on the side of the road and looked down the old survey trail that led down the mountainside to the beach below. The air was humid and warm as was normal for just about any day of the year on this small island. I started down the old track passing centuries-old trees and jagged rock outcroppings. The light under the jungle canopy had a greenish tint and was sufficiently filtered to prevent a thick under-growth from developing.


braided roots of a ficus tree on the mountainside

The steep face of the mountain cradled a flat area near the beach. This was the place for the new hotel. The beach was wide at low tide but I could see from the broken shells and small pieces of driftwood that at high tide the water approached the jungle’s edge.

I walked along the beachfront, the sand blinding white, the water a cool green. Just ahead I noticed there was a cut across the beach and water was flowing into the sea, defiling the aqua green colored sea with a brown swirl.

The brownish water came from a swampy area just behind the beach. The jungle trees dispersed leaving behind stubby mangroves stooped in a shallow patch of slow moving water. Water bugs skated on the surface and unseen creatures created ripples along the edge. I walked along the edge of the swamp, my feet making suction sounds in the rich mud.

I walked further inland following the swamp, curious about it’s extent and origin. I was leaving the flat area near the beachfront now and found myself in a thicker, heavier part of the jungle. I was following a series of small streams that braided down the side of the mountain. Branches from the mangroves hung low and I had to crawl below their bony arms. Shadows were muted by the lack of light. I was sweaty. Mosquitoes, buzzing, clouded around me. My shoes and legs were muddy.


monitor lizard on the edge of the swamp

Then I entered a bright room, and the source of the water. I stood up and looked around. I was in a rounded space the size of a living room. Short, bushy Rhapis palms, a dark green low wall of vegetation, defined the circular space. The floor was made of white sand, water bubbling out feeding the stream and further down, the swamp. In the center of this space was a short, gnarled tree. Its trunk revealed its old age, but its height spoke of a life of stress. Sunlight and fresh air poured into this space.

Monkeys began laughing all around me. I could hear them taunting me from the treetops but could not see them. I looked around, marveling at this natural little room at the foot of the mountain, when I noticed the sudden quiet. The monkeys stopped their cacophony. There were no sounds of birds or bugs. It was a quiet so loud I could feel its weight. Then I felt someone behind me. I could feel someone looking at me. I could feel their breath on my neck, their fingers caressing me. It was an unpleasant presence. I turned around but saw nothing. Electricity coursed through my body, my hairs charged on end. My heart rate increased. Uncontrollable panic overcame me. And then I ran, stumbling out of the circular room and back towards the swamp. The monkeys then started laughing again, louder than before.

I made it back to the beach but didn’t stop walking until I was back at the main road and unlocking my rental car.

I cannot explain what happened to me that day. I consider myself a rational person but know that something did touch me that morning, something menacing, something powerful. It’s not an event I discussed with anyone afterwards until much later…

During the course of the construction of the hotel one worker fell off the roof to his death. The main contractor lost control of his car near the site and died when he plunged into a jungle ravine. A Japanese couple on their honeymoon and staying in a nearby hotel crashed head-on with one of the construction trucks leaving our site. Flowers are still left at the site to mark their death. And at the end of a long site meeting, on our way back to the airport, we came across a couple that ran their motorcycle off the road. One of them died as we were wrapping his cracked skull with my ‘Meat Puppets’ tee shirt, bloody bubbles gurgling from his mouth.

The hotel later opened and was a success. An additional restaurant was needed. The site identified was not far from the main hotel block, in the jungle, just up from the swamp. Three surveyors went in to measure and map the land. Three surveyors ran out in hysterics. Two were hospitalized for unexplained trauma. They told of a spirit, a power that overcame them… possessed them.

A Bomoh (Malaysian witchdoctor) was brought in and he identified the spirit that resided in the jungles near the hotel. This spirit, he said, was thousands of years old and considered one of the most powerful. We were called into a meeting and instructed to respect this spirit, were told that if we found ourselves in its presence we were to explain our good intentions and back away quickly.


the completed hotel at the base of the mountain

I haven’t met this spirit again though I’ve been back to the hotel on numerous occasions and even visited the adjacent site for a proposed third hotel (that rainy site visit ended when an engineer bumped into a bee hive on the slippery slopes, fell, and broke his leg. We all heard the “snap” and then took turns carrying him down the mountain to a boat that was waiting to rush him to the hospital).

The beauty of the jungle and surrounding mountains is still overpowering. The hotel and facilities nestled snuggly among the bottom slopes and towering trees seem to have sprouted naturally in that environment.

That timeless rainforest on the mountain slopes is a beauty that evokes awe. There is no place on that island like it. It is a beauty that will last because it comes with a guardian, a protector.

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The only similar incident I’ve experienced was years before while working on a job on a small Indonesian island off of Singapore. This was another resort, but the works included having to exhume a cemetery. I remember remarking to the project manager after the project was completed how the area where the cemetery was located evoked no feelings; it was just another area of the job site. But, I told him, that area down by the bamboo grove and little stream, that area was creepy. He told me that the workers claimed that grove was possessed and always avoided it.