Rediscover Kuala Lumpur with POSKOD.MY

Get the low-down on another side of Malaysia's capital city in Stories from the City: Rediscovering Kuala Lumpur, a collection of articles from online magazine POSKOD.MY, edited by Ling Low and Dhabitah Zainal of POSKOD.MY and published by MPH Group Publishing.

Stories from the City, a compilation of selected Kuala Lumpur-centric
articles from online magazine POSKOD.MY

How is the Coliseum, KL's oldest cinema, still in business? Can you make a living from hunting ghosts? Where do migrant workers (from Myanmar, for instance) go for a taste of home?

Find the answers to these mysteries and more. Get off the beaten path and rediscover the city with those who know it best. From makcik traders to hip-hop stars, cosplay fans to urban farmers, meet the people who are the beating heart of the city.

"When we visit a place as tourists, we look for the obvious monuments, the postcard icons marked as ‘unmissable'," writes Low, the outgoing editor of POSKOD.MY. "But often, it's the smaller details that stay with us: the smell of the subway, perhaps, or the toothy smile of a fruit seller. If someone is rude or polite to us, it sticks more vividly than the most impressive scenery."

Hence, from 2012 to 2015, "POSKOD.MY has made it a mission to rediscover Kuala Lumpur," Low states. "We wanted to ask questions about the city, to unravel its daily mysteries, from the mundane to the profound. What happened to Sungai Buloh's leper colony, once the largest in the Commonwealth? Who is the woman who runs the hidden bakso soup stall in Kampung Baru? Can you make a living from hunting ghosts?"

The mission was undertaken with some urgency, as parts of the city, mostly the historic and rural holdouts underneath the towering spires of modernity, are being eclipsed by development.

"Every day, a new high-rise building would go up and a few more bricks of history would be lost," says Low. "As I write, well-loved kopitiams are replaced with hotels and public parks razed to make way for towers."

It's not just these enclaves that are disappearing, but also the people who are the life of these places – and the custodian of their histories.

"KL is a city obsessed with renewal," Low says. "We are rarely encouraged to look back. Yet, as more communities fight to keep a piece of their heritage alive, the past becomes ever more compelling. To live here is to live with a constant sense of loss.

"But this is the silver lining: with each change, people adapt. When I look at the articles in this book, the common thread is resilience. It’s the people who work in grey areas; the people who transform abandoned spaces; the people who reinvent the city by necessity."

Indeed, the stories of those featured in this book serves up a compelling smorgasbord of the kind of things that make up the character of KL - the Big Durian, if you will, that is home to the locals and those who have ventured here to find something better.

"It's the people who make the city tick," says Low. "But you have to spend time with them and listen to them. This book is a start, but it's simply a drop in a wide, muddy confluence."


Stories from the City: Rediscovering Kuala Lumpur is available at all good bookstores. And apologies for extracting so much from the intro written by Low. She's so quotable in this book.

I know I said I didn't want to do any more "previews" of the company's products, but something about this one compelled me to come out of retirement. Maybe I'll just choose what I want to feature - tengok anginlah.

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Stories from the City

Rediscovering Kuala Lumpur - Selected Stories from POSKOD.MY

edited by Ling Low and Dhabitah Zainal
MPH Group Publishing (January 2015)
148 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-415-339-7

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Book Marks: MH370, Scripture, And Putting One's Foot Down

Perhaps reacting to an event called "Let's Read the Quran", the Home Ministry stated that it is a crime to publish or read the Quran in languages without the accompanying Arabic.

(Well, it's book-related, isn't it?)

The chairman of the Home Ministry's Al-Quran Printing, Control and Licensing Board also said that "Translations of the Quran without the Arabic text are prohibited and it is feared that they may be misunderstood and that spiritual rewards cannot be gained by reading them."

Uhm ... interesting. Has the Home Ministry also heard about The Study Quran? If they have, then I suppose we won't have troublesome belated bannings of this book because we're not getting it anyway.

I don't think I'm qualified to comment, so I'll just leave a couple of opinion pieces on the matter by social activist Azrul Mohd Khalib and Malay Mail Online journalist Zurairi AR here.

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A marketer created a fake best-seller by "putting his foot down" - and got a real book deal. Brent Underwood "uploaded a satirical book and turned it into a 'No. 1 best seller' ... to reveal how hollow the claim 'best seller' is by 90 percent of all the gurus and experts)," according to Ryan Holiday in Observer.com.

Underwood's stunt seemed to be a protest of sorts against "all sorts of cringy infomercial-like sites that promise secrets, hacks, summits and webinars to make you an overnight 'best seller.' I found that, more often than not, the people running these sites have no clue when it comes to creating or marketing books. Because they know they can crank out a best seller by way of gimmicks, they do it, and they prey on an aspiring author's desires for status and success."

It's an interesting interview. Speaking of such...

Anybody know Steve Alten? Well, seems the the guy who wrote novels about a kind of "dinosaur shark" recently chummed the writerly waters by dipping his toes into book publishing. Author Chuck Wendig was among a few who had a look at the pay-to-publish service and thinks, well, "you shouldn’t pay anything to get published." But Wendig might have tripped a nerve when he stated that "It smacks of a vanity press."

Alten has responded to Wendig's post several times, but many of the other commenters are, for clear reasons, firmly on Wendig's side of the fence.

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It's been two years since Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. Prior to this, many news agencies have released commemorative features and op-eds. But a new book on the mystery plane?

So, CNN's "aviation correspondent" (is there such a thing?) Richard Quest has come up with a book, which, according to The Daily Beast, "shines less light on the mystery of MH370 and more on CNN."

The Vanishing of Flight MH370 pretty much chronicles how the 24-hour news network went "all in" - seemingly building a weeks-long media circus around the tragedy to boost ratings. Some of those antics can be seen here in this Daily Show segment.

And in that clip, Quest himself (looked like him, anyway), prompted by a featured tweet, suggested employing PSYCHICS to help find the plane. "It sounds incredible, but they have been used before." Stewart then sarcastically recommended the services of Paul the Octopus. Or did they forget about the bomoh and his coconuts?


Also:

• In this Q&A with Tom Bissell, author of Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve, he speaks to National Geographic about whether Christ's twelve apostles were real(!). "There was probably a Peter and a John, definitely a James (the brother of Jesus), and probably a Thomas. Beyond that, there's nothing historical that verifies their existence other than the gospels themselves. So I think they're a mixture of fact and fiction."
• "Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing." Italian author Elena Ferrante (a pseudonym) is interviewed in The Guardian. Would this work here?
• Singapore-based publisher Epigram Books is in the running for the Bologna Prize for Best Children's Publisher of the Year. Congrats!
• The self-published The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers makes the Baileys prize longlist, along with works by Kate Atkinson, Geraldine Brooks and Anne Enright.
• "Some of these diets are really just political (or religious) manifestos with the word 'diet' stuck on them," argues Carrie Arnold in The Daily Beast. "Many people turn to diet books when they need to shed some weight. If that's their goal, they should probably look elsewhere."
• These thirteen "self-published books you won't find at a book store" sound interesting.

Back To Mobile Computing, Sort Of

And it's the Asus X453S, probably among the cheapest models in its range. This was an impulse buy after the desktop unit finally went bust after almost five years of excellent service.

Despite being warned that its lifespan and that of its ilk won't exceed three years (it only has a one-year warranty), I picked it up. Turned out I needed a PC in the house after all.

(Apologies to all those who warned me against budget laptops. They will probably be proven right.)

It runs Windows 10, and some of the grouses circling online about it seem warranted, such as updates in the background without notice - not to mention Asus-installed bloatware - and the machine is slower performance than its predecessor. Getting it primed and scrubbed for use was nerve-wracking.

If this is the future of computing, it looks pretty bleak to me.

I don't even plan to take it out of the house much. Which means I might return to static (as opposed to mobile) computing at some point.

Though I managed to find a USB 2.0 hub that allows me to use the mouse (I never am a touchpad person) and the modem, freeing the lone USB 3.0 for external drives, the design is such that I can only use, maybe, two ports at a time because the ports are so close together.

At least I have a PC. And I plan to make it pay for itself. Write, write.

Book Marks: Copyrights For Compilations, Etc

A piece on issues of joint authorship and copyright with regards to The Diary of Anne Frank. Owners of the book's copyright contend that Anne Frank's father Otto was a co-author (he wrote parts of the book) and, thus, the copyright should completely expire 50 years after Otto's death.

What caught my eye is this bit in the New Zealand Herald, which has ramifications for Malaysia as well: "Under the TPPA, we [in New Zealand] will have to extend the duration of copyright for literary works from 50 to 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies.

"...the book is likely to still be protected as a compilation whenever the legislative changes come in to force, but it will not have any impact on copyright that has already expired, like that in Anne's diaries."

Not sure how that works, but as a signatory to the TPPA ("unwilling", some would say), Malaysians in the book and publishing industry might want to pay close attention to developments in the trade pact.

Elsewhere:

• Yang Jisheng, author of Tombstone, a book on China's Great Famine, has been barred from going to the US to accept award.
• Ramin Ganeshram, author of A Birthday Cake for George Washington, spoke up about the controversy surrounding the book. Many of the comments are disheartening; the critics don't seem to want to let go.
• Dream of the Red Chamber, China's greatest novel? Michael Wood, at The Guardian, thinks it's time Cao Xueqin's [紅樓夢] gets the attention it deserves.
• Google opens Editions at Play, an online store for "books that can't be printed". Sounds like Google is also trying to catalyse the creation of digital books, those that work - and make sense - only in cyberspace.
• "I don't think you're doing the artist or the audience or the art form itself any favor if you pat things on the head." In Salon, New York Times writer A.O. Scott speaks about "monsters of ego", criticism and "how Twitter makes his job more lively". Of course, Scott has a new book out, Better Living Through Criticism.
• Fifteen words invented by authors, according to the blog by the Oxford Online Dictionary. Some of these are surprising.
• Is the Malaysian Home Ministry and government going to appeal the lifting of ban on Irshad Manji’s book, Allah Liberty and Love? OH FOR GOODNESS'S SAKE TAK HABIS-HABIS CERITA NI SHOULD THIS EVEN BE PURSUED NOW?
• "Hindu nationalists are now demonstrating that there are many ways to assassinate a writer." Pankaj Mishra on the forces involved in Arundhati Roy's trial for "contempt of court", which he (or whoever wrote the standfirst) calls "a crime against art and thought".
• In The New Yorker, the story of New Directions, publisher of such titles as Eka Kurniawan's Beauty Is A Wound: "New Directions evolved as it did because its founder was as far-seeing in business as he was in matters of taste," writes Maria Bustillos. "[James] Laughlin wasn't looking to corner a market or to disrupt anything; his ambition was to create an institution that would last."
• Publisher's Weekly is covering the Havana Book Fair 2016 and the US publishing mission to Cuba, which PW co-organised with the American promotion and book marketing company, Combined Book Exhibit. Insights include a glimpse of the Cuban publishing industry.
• So, the presses for the UK's Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers are stopping in March as the paper goes fully digital. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's tweet about it was met with derision. But things aren't rosy at Murdoch's News Corp either.

Tranquility (And Other Deliciousness) In Petaling Jaya

I'd planned to have a shorter title and reveal the name of the place only at the very end. And someone pointed out that there's no clear indication that "Melody" and my makan kaki were one and the same - duly noted.

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The Augmented: Serving up tranquility (and other deliciousness) in Petaling Jaya

first published in The Malay Mail Online, 02 February 2016


Well-lit spaces. Soft music. A comfy chair. The promise of a good meal.

Lulled by the latter, I slumped further into my seat, melting into a mellow, contented blob. It'd been a long day, one of many, and the ambience hit the spot.

Months ago, Melody's little godbrother and his girlfriend brought Melody to this tiny place in SS2, Petaling Jaya. They were all blown away by its pasta dishes, and Melody became enamoured with something called a BCGT.

Tucked away from the main roads in SS2, The Augmented café is the
perfect spot to relax after a long day.

Last week, the makan kaki dragged me to an out-of-the-way bakery in Damansara Perdana, where this BCGT - a Belgian chocolate ganache tart - was made. For her, it had been a religious pilgrimage, after having stalked this bakery's social media feed for so long.

This evening, at this place, I experienced a bit of what she'd felt. Tucked away from the main roads in SS2, this café was how I'd imagine King Arthur's Avalon to be: bright, balmy, beatific, aired with angelic voices and soft lilting melodies.

At the back, a dining area and a reading nook, complete with bookshelves, a sofa and a cushioned, high-backed chair, added a homey albeit less Arthurian touch. Crowds, stay away.

The hearty Met Lambeef Pasta in creamy Lescure sauce. Don't let
the plating fool you - it can be filling.

Picking a dish to wind the day down with was hard, because the menu only sported less than 10 items, including several breakfasts and a few pasta dishes. I eventually settled on one, and earmarked another for my return.

Some time later, a savoury note perfumed the air in front of my nose, followed by the warmth and colours emanating from the plate on my table. There it was, my "Met Lambeef pasta" in Lescure cream sauce. I straightened up.

I loved how the sauce seasoned the chunks of lamb-and-beef mince so well, though it could use less salt. I wasn't prepared for the diced onions, which crackled as I chewed - was it part of the sauce or the meat?

The roasted garlic shiitake Poachero spaghetti (partaken during
another visit) is light on the gut and a delight to the taste buds

Despite the pasta being so rich and delicious, and me being famished, I slowed down. I had no other plans for the evening.

Of course, slices of BCGT were in the chilled display case, adorned with a coat of cocoa powder on top. Unfortunately, I'd already had a slice at the Damansara Perdana bakery; weeks would pass before I'd even think of another taste of what's just a wedge of smooth, rich chocolate. And it was too late for coffee.

Passing the time here at an empty table, however, seemed inappropriate. But my gut didn't fancy any more things with cream. Thank goodness for the banana and walnut slice, which the lady boss warmed up in a toaster oven. I believe it's the only cake here that's baked in-house.

Banana and walnut slice: eat one and gift your friends another.

Surprisingly crumbly. Subtly fragrant with banana. No discernible hunks of walnut anywhere.

Belly full, I melted back into my seat, swathed in contentment.

Dare I tell the makan kaki where I was now? If I did, I would risk a scolding for not bringing her here. "You've been here already!" I'd protest, which she would ignore.

And she did say she was unwell...

So I ordered another banana and walnut slice as a peace offering. She was in no condition to stomach anything rich and creamy, either.

When you're in SS2, Petaling Jaya, look out for this sign.
Step inside and get away from it all.

I informed the lady boss of my intentions with the bagged banana slice, triggering a flood of questions.

"Has she been here before? What's her name? Maybe she's one of our regulars. Can you describe her?"

When I did and no bells rang, she asked for my name. Caught off guard, I froze. Few café proprietors endeavour to learn about their clientele. I wasn't ready to open up, though, not this evening. It was late, and I had something to do.

I sped into the night with a slice of Avalon in a brown paper bag for Melody, hoping it would help get her back on her feet. As a fellow foodie, I know the agony of having your movements and diet limited by illness.

And there's so much she's missing out on.


The Augmented has changed hands and now serves cakes, pastries and beverages. Most of the food described here is no longer available.

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The Augmented

149, Jalan SS 2/6
47300 Petaling Jaya

Mon-Wed, Sat-Sun: 11:30am-10pm
Fri: 2:30pm-10pm

Closed on Thursdays

+603-7865 0728

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/theaugmentedcafe

Book Marks: Buying Used Books, Geraldine Brooks

After news that used bookstores are making a comeback of sorts, the question of the ethics of buying used books popped up, since not a cent from such sales goes to the authors. This commentator sees no shame in that. To end this note, I'm pulling something Neil Gaiman said in that piece:

What’s important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read.

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Pulitzer-winner [Geraldine] Brooks "has never written a bad book", Sian Cain boldly proclaims in The Guardian:

The most confounding thing about Geraldine Brooks’s writing is how consistently good it is ... every book is remarkable. Working as a journalist did not beat the poet out of her – Brooks’s fiction is frequently beautiful, poetic at times, packed full of sentences to relish aloud – a river of “water as unlike our clear fast-flowing freshets as a fat broody hen to a hummingbird” in March; the hero who “walked through the woods like a young Adam, naming creation” in Caleb’s Crossing.

Cain also suggested five of Brooks's books for beginners and doubters to start with. Incidentally, someone reviewed Brooks's Foreign Correspondence some time back and seemed impressed with it. Might be a while before I can give Brooks's books a shot, though.

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Ten things about Marco Ferrarese, novelist (Nazi Goreng), travel writer (Banana Punk Rawk Trails) and musician, in The Malay Mail Online. Have a taste (emphases theirs):

As a child with a stammer problem, I was very lonely and got easily attracted to horror films. They helped me feed my anger. The covers of early Iron Maiden albums that arrived from England were horror, too. I loved how Eddie held that pickaxe on the cover of Killers. My parents hated it, of course, which was another great reason to go for it.

...English is my second language and requires more attention and editing, but I know that almost everything I write in English will get published. On the other hand, Italian is a much richer language, as we have adjectives, expressions and shades of meaning that you can’t recreate in English. But most of what I write in Italian remains unpublished, because there’s no interest nor money for writers in Italy.

Also:

• In a restructuring exercise, British education publisher Pearson plans to axe 4,000 jobs. The AFP report picked up by The Malaysian Insider states that "Pearson has been hit hard by a difficult education market in the United States, where fewer people are going to university, instead seeking to go straight into employment in a buoyant jobs market. It has also been impacted in the UK as high costs have seen fewer students take vocational courses."
• "...bookshops are portals ... a good bookshop shows us what we didn’t know we wanted." Bookseller and author Jen Campbell on the magic of bookstores and how important that magic is to children.
• The e-book industry is in a state of decline, apparently. I guess it's harder to treat more expensive and bulky paper books as throwaway items, unlike digital files, which you can hoard till kingdom come.
• Celebrated sci-fi author Zen Cho will be holding court in Kinokuniya KLCC on 13 February 2016, from 11am to noon. Drop by and say "hi". Maybe buy a book. And get your copy signed.
• Some weeks back, an online hailstorm erupted over a supposedly lewd passage in a school-syllabus novel, Pantai Kasih (Love Beach), said to be a sex scene. The novel is not about beaches but a private hospital for VVIPs. Khairul Nizam Bakeri, author and social media editor for ASTRO Awani, read the book first and here's what he found (in Malay). In short: not lewd.
• A Snow White book based on the Disney adaptation was removed from a school library in Qatar for its "indecent" illustrations. What, more "indecent" than the Gulf nations' poor record in its treatment of migrant labourers?

I've dropped the ball for a bit to write up my recent trip to Melaka with several others, which would turn out to be the longest writing project of my life so far at almost 10,000 words. A shame I didn't take enough good pictures for it.

Sugarcoating The Unpleasant

Ron Charles, editor of Washington Post's Book World, proclaimed that "There are no winners in this controversy over A Birthday Cake for George Washington".

This children's book features a chapter in the life of George Washington's slave, Hercules, who manages to bake Washington's birthday cake despite not having any sugar on hand. Critics are upset at the rosy portrayal of slavery and the slave-master relationship in this book, and Scholastic, the publisher, pulled it from shelves. It didn't matter that the author is not white or racist, or that they were apparently not doing what they were accused of. Slavery was horrible and must in no way be presented in a kindly light.

"While it is perfectly valid for critics to dispute a book's historical accuracy and literary merit, the appropriate response is not to withdraw the volume and deprive readers of a chance to evaluate the book and the controversy for themselves," according to a statement from the National Coalition Against Censorship and the PEN American Center.

Scholastic has responded to the criticisms, saying that they pulled the title because no, we were not browbeaten into it. It was because the title "did not meet our publishing standards."

On a somewhat related note, Kate Breslin's For Such a Time was also panned for using the Holocaust as a backdrop for a tale of romance (with Christian undertones) between a German SS officer and a Jewish woman.

I'm inclined to believe that this is just a couple of cases where two publications were shouted at without addressing the sources of the outrage. In the US, blacks in general are still treated as second-class citizens; and modern-day slavery in many parts of the world contributes much to our 21st-century lifestyle: in fashion, construction and gadgets, for instance. Bigotry is still rife in many societies, and not just towards Jews.

Reading these reports, we're not sure whether these critics have anything to say about forced labour, racism and anti-Semitism today. Maybe all that ended up on the cutting-room floor because of the media's supposed tendency to curate the news to suit certain agendas. So all we seem to get from these people are along the lines of "Nothing good happened during those times! Stop looking, and stop imagining!"

But who's to say that the above scenarios are implausible? Can a slave not be resourceful and proud of his work, even under oppression and inhumane treatment? Is it impossible for two people to have a romance, despite being on two sides of an unbridgeable ideological chasm?

For me, these small specks of brightness cast a light not on the already well-documented horrors of slavery or the Holocaust, but upon the humanity buried underneath the muck. Even in adversity, there is still a small part of us that strives to be the best we can be.

If we can't tell stories like this anymore, then what? The shouty types don't seem to have any other solution than "Don't write them". They appeal to their audiences with horrific images of "what really happened", burying any attempt by others to mess around with the official narrative, even in fiction.

I like the idea of a slave who, despite his circumstances, takes enough pride in himself and his job to find ways to solve a problem. He can think, strategise, improvise. He has potential - why not celebrate that?

And it's a children's book. The way the critics were howling you'd think they'd want the young 'uns aged two and up to be aware of just how nasty the practice of slavery is. Is that wise?

Besides: "It's possible, though not encouraged by our screaming online culture, to raise serious objections to this book without calling into question the motives or talents of the people involved," Ron Charles wrote in that WaPo article.

(This is why Charles is one of my favourite book people.)

Let little kids be themselves. Treat them with small slices of real life they can stomach and digest. They will grow up eventually, and when they finally have questions about what really went on as Hercules baked that birthday cake, that's when you know they're ready for the answers.

Books - and the Internet - aren't supposed to teach our children everything. That's our job. And maybe we shouldn't scream those lessons into them either.