Teh O Limau Panas and Teh Tarik

My personal blogging is now at My Neverland; do visit it.


"You ar, you see things only one way!" said Ah Chai as the two of us sat over tea trying to kill time in a coffee shop, while the clouds let drops a heavy downpour. The chilling wind that comes our way every once so often, helped to cool the hot drinks, but cooled them too fast for our liking.

"Pren," Ah Chai continued "life is like a 2way street, you know. What you see from your side, other people see from the opposite. Sometime, the view not nice from your side; sometime, the view better from opposite, you know. Por instance, you like to call people clowns in your blog. Not nice, my pren, not nice."

Not surprisingly, Ah Chai has been following my Talkonly blog for a long time but hardly ever commented. Why he does not, I never did have chance to ask him. But perhaps, I do not need to for that night we were together, he gave his mind about my blogs, especially the name calling, "You like small boy, you know", he lets out.

I admit, yes, the name calling is childish. Having grew up in politics since one can remember when, one can, and does, feel sick with the antics of the other side that one feels frustrated and angry at the wrongdoings blatantly carried out by those same said people. Having said that, it does not give one the right to call names, stooping to the level where these people are.

"Pren, do yourself a favour, wlite ploperly. Then ar, when people read your blog, they will peel better. Op course lah, plovided they oso aglee with you." " Ah Chai went on ranting, sometimes mispronouncing the letter 'r' and sometimes not.


Ah Chai and I goes back a long way after having met for the first time in a building that no longer exist now. We are both of the same age, and was in our late teens when we met. A year after that first meet, we went different ways and met again in our late twenties. Since day one however, our views on many subjects may be opposite end of the other.

Being the legal-trained person, I admit he is more articulate in his thoughts than I will ever be. But that does not mean he is right all the time. And at times such as that this, we exchange words. Like our conversation that evening. Being the more uneducated barbarian of the two, I just let my tongue have its way, which, actually proved his point. And thus, I agreed not to make anymore name callings in my blog. Well, perhaps exceptions can be made for jackasses from time to time.

Then, in what think may be an effort to compensate for any hard feelings that may have been caused during our conversation, Ah Chai made one admission to a point I made in this blog not so long ago.

"You lemember that boycott thing," he suddenly mentioned as we were walking towards the car. "I think, you are light, my pren. Now, I no longer feel nice walking into McD or all those places."


Well, at least, now I can really say that that life indeed, is a 2way street. And it gets richer by the minute.
By the way, Ah Chai is not my friend's real name, and neither is he a Chinese. He is, in fact, a Malay. Well, lets make it of Javanese descent, though he will swear to you he is an English thoroughbred. What, with an almost flawless command of the language, many would find it hard to argue. Much to his liking, off course.

The reason for my calling him Ah Chai tonight, is an incident which happened soon after our first meet, though he may well have forgotten about it. As he himself told me then, he went for an interview for a University entrance. As he was walking out of the hall, a stranger tapped his shoulder and asked him "Are you a Chinese?".
It took him a couple of seconds to reply "Yes, from Jamaica".