KL... how much I love (and hate) thee!

Since a few of my insignificant readers had commented on my lack of output in the past month or so--yes, it is because of the World Cup!--I feel compelled to at least put up a post, though not of my own writing. I do find this article by an Australian journalist currently living in Malaysia amusingly cheeky. It is a fascinating piece on the pandemonium-filled modernist wasteland I called home, my beloved KL. It's true what they say about home: you miss it when you're away, and you hate it when you're there. My feelings of KL exactly!

KL
Dean Johns
Jul 4, 06 12:08pm

As Malaysia's capital city is so routinely referred to by its KL initials, anyone could almost be forgiven for forgetting its full name, Kuala Lumpur. And in any case, "muddy river mouth", which I'm told is how it roughly translates to English, an appellation that may well have been entirely apt and accurate way back when, doesn't come even close to describing the modern-day metropolis of KL. For a start, if you've taken a look at the creek-sized Kuala lately, you'll see that these days it resembles not so much a "river-mouth" or "estuary" as my pocket Bahasa Malaysia dictionary defines it, as an open concrete drain. In fact the whole city consists of so much concrete, concrete and more concrete that if ever there was the archetypal concrete jungle, this is it: Konkrit Lumpur.

KL stands for so much!

Of course most of the concrete in contemporary KL, with the exception of that encasing the murky remains of the Kuala, is not really muddy at all, but a good deal of it is decidedly Lumpur-looking due to its layer of grime and mould. Maybe contractors water the paint so much that it washes off, or else that no masonry coating on the planet, however conscientiously applied, could possibly compete with the climate. There's the heat, for a start, which is sometimes so sizzling you could well be in Kuali Lumpur. Then there's the humidity, permanently hanging around like the proverbial wet blanket and permeating the whole environment with damp. And the rain can be like a deluge, dumping so much water all at once that the drains either just can't cope or more likely get blocked with rubbish, then back-up and turn whole suburbs into Kuala Limpah.

KL is awash with motor vehicles, too, and therefore prone to massive jams that, especially when roads are cut by the aforementioned flash-floods, so paralyse all movement that it could justly be called Kuala Lumpuh. On the other hand, at times when the tollways are flowing freely, many motorists drive on them at such breakneck speeds that you feel like you're competing in some kind of stock-car Kuala Lumba.

Of course all this traffic, be it high-speed, bumper-to-bumper or anywhere in between, emits such heavy pollution that, especially when it's augmented by a choking smoke-haze from Borneo forest fires, you could swear you were in Kuala Lemas. And also quite suffocating at times is the stench from the drains, especially those beside foodstalls, that can get so clogged with rancid grease and rotting garbage that some neighbourhoods smell suspiciously like Kentut Lumpur.

As for its impressively irrepressible populace, KL is inhabited by people of an amazing multiplicity of not just races and creeds, but also classes: from plain, unpretentious Kampung Lumpur folk through the fast-climbing, conspicuously-consuming Kiasu Lumpur crowd, on up to Kualiti Lumpur circles and finally, at the top of the heap, the big movers, shakers and powers that be of Kuasa Lumpur.

I've got lots of family and great friends here, and am embarrassed to report that though they all speak two, three or more of the local languages, most are also as fluent as I am in my only tongue, English. But even when language is no obstacle, conversation can be difficult at times, as the noise levels in KL, especially in pubs, clubs and eating establishments, often make it necessary to K yell.

Haven

But hey, let me not leave you with the impression that I consider KL some kind of K hell. Plenty of the people are, as I've already mentioned, as pleasant, polite and personable as you'd wish to find anywhere. Physically the city's most impressive in places, witness the Petronas Twin Towers and lots of other landmarks. It's also delightfully picturesque in spots, especially around old Chinatown, Masjid Jamek and the Law Courts; and even peaceful and quiet in several locations, notably Lake Gardens and a few lush residential enclaves with inhabitants rich and powerful enough to resist the rapacity of "developers," like Kenny Hills, otherwise known as Bukit Tunku, and also the area commonly known as Embassy Row. The food in KL, as everybody knows, is so varied, affordable and delectable that the city and its suburbs could justly be referred to as Kuala Lemak. And at night a good deal of it is so brilliantly illuminated that it looks for all the world like Kuala Lampu.

Mostly, though, to me KL is not so much about enjoyment and relaxation, like some kind of Kuala Lepak, as about about working, as in Kerja Lumpur, and doing whatever I can to help my younger, brighter and more ambitious and energetic colleagues to make it their Kerjaya Lumpur. With the result that sometimes, however much I love what I do for a living, I start feeling so pressured and shut-in by the city that it's like I'm trapped in some Kurung Lumpur. And that's when I need a break for a while to go Keluar Lumpur.

Sooner or later, however, I always find myself back in KL. Not that, even though my heart may be here, I can ever really call it home. Applying for permanent residency here is, as I gather, an endlessly frustrating if not utterly futile occupation. And in any event, however hard I try to merge and blend in, I'll always be something of an outsider, forever fated by my alien appearance and attitudes to dwell in some alternative version of KL. A KL that, in view of the fact that I happen to be an Australian alien, I guess you could call Koala Lumpur.

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DEAN JOHNS is an Australian freelance journalist now living in Kuala Lumpur
and a former occasional columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald.