Offering love to a young Malaysia lady

Yesterday, Saturday 14 August, I did something rather unprecedented. I offered love to a young Malaysian lady in the presence of my wife. More of this shortly.

Malaysia Hall, London

We spent the afternoon at Malaysia Hall in Bayswater to support a friend at a book signing. Jan’s friend and former library colleague, Nooraini Mydin, decided to mark her 60^th birthday by travelling by train from London to Kuala Lumpur. She recently published (in Malaysia, so not currently available in the UK or USA, excep from the author) Aini’s Railway Odyssey: An exile’s 18,200 km journey home from London to Kuala Lumpur. I collected the money while Nooraini signed books, and her friend Farida charmed diners into buying a copy: well, nine diners at least.

Malaysia Hall is a hall of residence for Malaysian students in London and a place where expatriate or travelling Malaysians meet and enjoy excellent Malaysian cuisine. In addition to the canteen, there is a prayer room and ablution rooms for men and women to wash before praying. We ate early in order to get ready for the book signing. This is where the young Malaysian lady comes into the story. She served us our lunch and Noraini taught me to say “thank you” to her. The Malaysian phrase is tarima kasi (which apparently translates as “I offer you love”, a rather more effusive phrase than the restrained English expression of gratitude). The young lady replied sama sama (“same, same” or “you too”).

Lunch in the canteen

The canteen offers a wide array of dishes: I had a fish curry, Jan spinach, aubergine and rice. There was also a lamb curry, clams a curry sauce, salted eggs (delicious: we tried one), red snapper in a sweet and sour sauce, tiny fried fish. During the afternoon, new dishes emerged from the kitchen to replace those sold out. I asked about a dish of grilled chicken with bright blue rice: the rice is coloured with a flower which adds the blue colour and a distinctive flavour. Puddings are not recommended for those watching their weight or diabetics. They seem to be mostly fritters of various kinds or sweetened with palm sugar. We had a sweet of sago an

Sweets

d coconut, coloured bright purplish-red. Diners eat with a spoon and fork or with their hands.

Over the next four hours or so we watched the dining hall fill with students, family groups, and the odd non-Malay guest (non-Malays are allowed only as guests of a Malaysian citizen). We chatted to Farida, a lawyer by training who coordinates support for people with learning difficulties in a London borough. She also plied us with her home-made brownies, sardine rolls, and a sort of steamed banana and coconut pudding.

The dining hall

Nooraini teaches English to adults in London. One of her colleagues came to the signing, a Malaysian lady who came to London some 40 years ago. She had run a beauty salon in Virginia Water, not far from our home, but now lives somewhere near Winchester. She speaks impeccable British English.

We also met Sarah, a Chinese businesswoman, and student of Nooraini, who had been in London for four weeks to improve her English. We managed to expand her vocabulary, including a few idiomatic phrases which we urged her to use with caution. She and her husband established a trading company in Shanghai two years ago. They sell surfactants produced by German and American manufacturers. Sarah occasionally struggled to understand us, but speaks English with a rather charming British accent.

We also met a Malaysian businessman who was in London at the end of a long business trip (including Latvia and Sweden). He is a Bitcoin agent and also produces an energy drink made with two Malaysian plant-based ingredients. He gave us some samples.

The signing session ended with more food: a light flatbread to dip in a vegetable curry.

As we travelled home (Southwestern had cancelled the train we had expected to catch so our journey was longer than expected), Jan and I chuckled over a notice we had seen (respectively) in the ladies’ and men’s toilets. A notice in Malay and English requesting users not to squat on the toilet seats is accompanied by a diagram depicting the prohibited manoeuvre. We decided that two pensioners are not capable of the contortions required to squat in such a small space: indeed, we doubted that any of the diners that day had the required agility.