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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI miss the flavours of South East Asia :( A small window into my experiences.
Being severely depressed of late has gotten me to thinking about times when I was happier. One of the happiest time of my life was WAYYY back when I was 5-6 yrs old living in Malaysia. I'm 1/2 Chinese (mother is Chinese, father is White) and my mother was born and raised in Malaysia. I lived in Asia for 4+ years as a young child and have been back a number of times. One of the things I really miss about the atmosphere there was the hot humid, lazy / languid and yet paradoxically crazy nightlife.
It's hard to describe if you have never been to Asia or the tropics but there is something wonderful about many of these countries come 7-8pm or so. I guess the best I can do is describe what was an average night for us back in those day (late 80s Malaysia):
We lived with my grandparents back then in a large house which had no air conditioning but which more than made up for it with an open floor plan with plenty of fans, stone floors and windows always open. Come sunset a cool breeze would blow through the house. In much of the tropics people try to limit their activity during the daytime as it's just too hot to do much. But come evening everyone goes out to enjoy the cool breeze and have some fun (cool being relative term here being the tropics lol). Quite often around 7 or 8pm we would walk across the street from my grandparents house to the local night market. Picture rows of small little hawkers stalls each specializing in some specific dish, along with people selling trinkets and what not. Some places were larger sit down restaurant type affairs but still open to the street, no windows. These places were usually run by a "drink" seller who would sell you the beverages and rented out his floor spaces to other hawkers who would sell you the food. And what amazingly good food it was, stir fries of every possible variety you can imagine, rice and curry cooked in banana leafs, fish head curries and soups, seafood, cured meats, desserts, ice katchang, dumplings, steamed buns, "pulled" coffee, coke and other pop from those oldschool little glass bottles, I could go on and on.
Of course Like everything in SE asia at the time, and still is, it was a messy, dirty affair. No such thing as a health inspection department and the stalls were all set up along side the street ditch. And yet we never got sick once eating out. Each stall ran off of groups of rather dubious looking propane tanks, with their burners turned up beyond max. All this lit with jerry rigged strings of florescent lights running from one stall to the next. Just being there is an intoxicating experience, a drunken mix of heat, chaos, wonderful (and sometimes awful) smells, amazing tasting food, the freshest fruit and vegetables you can imagine (you have not eaten fruit till you have tried it in the tropics!), crowds of laughing happy people out enjoying the night life.
You get your food and drink and sit down to a wobbly little metal foldaway table, surrounded by old worn out plastic chairs. Perhaps you are closer to the concrete sidewalk, by the ditch, or right next to the slow moving street traffic. Everything is too bright, too loud, too much, too hot, too wet, too dirty, done in too much of a hurry. And yet it's perfect too. Again it's an intoxicating mix if you have ever had the pleasure of experiencing it. After our meal we would walk slowly around the neighbourhood enjoying the sight and sounds and cool breeze. You'd see clusters of people walking along in the dark mumbling or laughing. Despite all the chaos it had an amazingly languid relaxed lazy feeling to it all.
I really miss that atmosphere. Having lived now in North America the past 25 years or more (in Vancouver Canada), there just seems something, missing. It's probably my depression speaking but there was something about that hot humid chaos in which things just didn't seem to matter to much, and those things that REALLY did matter were much more apparent and close at hand. Our world seems to be one increasingly of rules and regulations, perfectionism, getting things DONE, it's a cold world by comparison at times.
Locut0s
(6,154 posts)Not that you can convey the atmosphere really:
http://gallery.ankurb.info/download/10446/2/Singapore+F1+2010+-+Hawker+stalls.JPG
?zz=1
midnight
(26,624 posts)wonder you miss this...
cali
(114,904 posts)Maybe writing could/does help with your depression?
I have one question; what is "pulled" coffee?
Locut0s
(6,154 posts)refers to the practice of pouring it a long distance between on container and another. This is usually done several times before serving it. Not being much of a coffee drinker I'm not exactly sure what this does but I'm guessing it air-rates it and gives it a different sense of creaminess?
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)At least up north we get sunshine until late in the evening in summer.
I went for a walk around my neighborhood last summer mid-evening and there was that great evening air, you know when it's still light and it's not too hot...it's hard to explain.
Anyway, there was no one around, and I had a feeling that there was something missing and then I remembered the street vendors I've seen in tropical countries.
I thought would be nice to stroll to a town square and buy some spicy snacks and cool drinks on the street and shoot the breeze with passersby.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Could it have been partially about the people? Sounds like it was a very communal affair, that could have made it more joyous.
We have an Asian food court nearby, the Super 88 in Allston. A bunch of food stalls, very low-rent affair surprisingly grimy by US standards. Amazing food, lots of people, I love it.
Thanks agin.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)DCBob
(24,689 posts)I have spent quite a bit of time in the SE Asia and I love the streets with night time activities, food, bars, music, shopping, etc. Its someting we just dont have much of here in the US.
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)Anthony Bourdain's new show on CNN this evening. Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown"
It's the only decent new show on CNN and he was somewhere in Asia ( I walked in
late ) where they were serving all kinds of wonderful curries, amazing salads, a table
full of little dishes offering an amazing assortment of spicey, savory, salty and sour
delights prepared just a couple feet away. You could almost smell and taste the food.
Very similar to his show on the travel channel. It's aired a couple times a week, try and
catch it. You are so lucky to have those memories to help you get through these last few
weeks of gloom in North America.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I caught most of it this week and got a kick out of it.
I experienced the reverse, I lived in North American (Oregon) for almost 33 years and have now lived in South Korea for over 9 years. It is quite different. Not near as slow of a pace as Malaysia (a place I hope to some able to visit). I've visited Thailand, the Philippines, China, and Japan. Lived in China for 10 months as well.
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I've never been there. I'm trying to figure out what time that will be on here. I know it is on Sunday morning at 9am, but I wanted to find another day so my wife (who is Korean) can watch it with me. She's usually not here then.
Granny M
(1,395 posts)I can almost see it from your writing.
We actually walked through a similar night market scene in Stonetown, Zanzibar last year. Great atmosphere.
JCMach1
(27,556 posts)in the USA...
No matter how much you pay back home, it simply won't compare.
Locut0s
(6,154 posts)I love aromatic dishes with lots of spices and I whole heatedly agree that fresh spices make a HUGE difference. But some of my favourite dishes from the region don't use much in the way of spices and you still can't get anything here that's at all comparable. I think it's much more fresh ingredients in general. As an example I mentioned fruit in my OP, no matter how hard you search here in North America you just won't find a mango that tastes anywhere near what a fresh ripe mango tastes like from a market in South East Asia. It's night and day.
JCMach1
(27,556 posts)neither are very good in America... Yoghurt as well.
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)just don't inquire deeply into the origin of belacan.
Locut0s
(6,154 posts)it's made from small dried and fermented shrimp ground up into a paste mixed with spices. The fermentation process may not be the nicest sounding thing but the end product is tasty.
If instead you mean that there may be other mystery meat mixed in there with modern mass produced belecan that would not surprise me though it's not part of the recipe.
panader0
(25,816 posts)I was there for a moment while I read it.