This evening I drank a little too much red wine at cocktail hour, seeing as it was my last chance to take advantage of such things, and came back to my room to try on the day's loot. I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I realized I'd bought the very jeans I've told everyone not to buy--you know, those jeans that make your legs look like they're in sausage casing--but at least the process of buying them was fun. I haggled for them in this street stall in China Town this afternoon from an impossibly skinny and way too hip Malaysian kid, and only after he'd led me through a maze of racks and shoes to the tiny corner fitting room in someone else's store.
Now I'm back in my hotel room clad in a bathrobe and sitting down to write the last note from KL. I'll likely have a digest post when I get home, but till then this'll have to do. Sad to think about going home, really, when you've got this view out your window.
It's funny, I always find myself getting a feel for a place right before I leave. At least that's how it goes with the places I only stay in for a few days. I'm realizing more and more that I'm not the one-stop-shop type traveller; I like having a chance to really get to know a place and hate having to pack the highlight reel into a time quantified in hours. So far KL's highlights have only made me want to stay longer, immerse myself, try to figure out what the hell is really going on here.
Maybe I feel that way because of today's completely unplanned adventure. I was in the Central Market/China Town area again, picking up a few choice items that I'd had my eye on, when I found myself without much to do. I wandered back to that little art studio that I'd found the other day to see if Donald was around. I'd promised him that day that I'd come back and visit but hadn't yet. I wandered in. He was painting. I think he was miffed that I'd taken so long to return, but all he did was say "I can teach you to paint, you know." What? Teach me to paint?
I put my loot in the corner and sat in the chair that normally accommodates aspiring artists of the five-year-old variety. Donald suited me up with a kitty cat apron and then brought out what felt like a very large canvas. I have to say, I find painting incredibly intimidating. I can stare at the blank page and blinking cursor of any computer screen and feel more than confident that I can come up with some kind of drivel to fill it. A canvas, however, is an entirely different universe. I tried painting once in an old boyfriend's backyard when I was fifteen. It didn't go well.
But Donald felt like teaching me and I felt like I had a few days' debts to make up for. First he asked me what I wanted to paint. "What's in your mind?" he asked. "What kind of animals do you like?" I'm so bad at this... "I had two pet rats that I really liked?" For not the first time since I'd met him, he looked shocked. "Flowers," I said, "I like trees and flowers." Donald appeared relieved.
We started off with a skyline and background. He applied the first few strokes, and at first I was happy to just let him paint the whole damned thing for me. But as the colour took shape I found myself wanting to carefully remove the paintbrush from his hand and start in on it myself... maybe if I go really slow he won't notice... But then he handed me the brush and said "now you try."
So there I went, brushing blue and white paint into a skyline and green into what now looks like grass if I squint hard enough. The same Malaysian power ballad had been playing on repeat for a while when Auntie and her family came in to watch the grand daughter paint. I, being the anomaly in the room, was of instant curiosity to Auntie, so as I etched trees onto the canvas she and I talked about her kids and her English language skills and her lifelong dream to emigrate to Canada. Her big eyes had teared over a little from under her glasses and rose-coloured hijab when I talked about the cities I'd lived in in Canada. She said she's always wanted to move there, but her husband didn't want to go any further than inside his own cocount shell.
Auntie got wrapped up her grand daughter's handy work, so Donald took the opportunity to engage in some conversation about anything but painting. He asked if I'd been to Jakarta and was a little disappointed when I said no. "I'd love to go to Jakarta," he sighed heavily. He spoke of Jakarta with the same reverence as those who speak of Greenwich Village or Commerial Drive, young artists dreaming of a bohemian life of paint and cigarettes and cheap rent. "I wouldn't want to work there, though," he added.
It turns out he spends all day every day at the studio. He opens it at 10 am and closes it at 9 pm, Sunday through Saturday. He said his boss asks him to take breaks, but he always replies with "I would take a break, but I wouldn't know where else to go." The studio has become his home.
At some point during the afternoon I must have started to wind down. "Are you enjoying?" he asked. I realized I hadn't had any lunch aside from the third bowl of soy bean pudding in as many days from China Town. I headed back to the food court in Central Market for a late lunch and wound up eating some deep fried Thai amazingness at a table in the corner. Beside me sat a trio of gay, deaf Malaysian men signing animatedly over their lunch. I wanted desperately to be able to communicate with them, but I didn't recognize their sign. Not that it matters, the only sign language I remember is "I forget how to sign," but it didn't mean I wanted it any less. So I sat and ate and tried not to stare too obviously.
The studio was full when I got back--Auntie's whole family had arrived to watch the grand daughter paint. Sisters and brother wandered around me in circles while I added more detail to my painting, but because none of them spoke English we couldn't exchange much more information than names and countries. One tiny girl, Ayesha, looked like she wanted more than anything to paint with me, but when I offered her the brush and pointed to a fish that needed filling she blushed and shied away. I sat and painted while Donald and his friend of a name I never got watched and commented on how I should come back and paint more often.
I finished up the last edges of the painting I'd made only to find that Donald was missing. Auntie said she, too, was waiting for Donald, who'd gone off for lunch, so in the meantime she told me stories about how she'd finally gotten a chance to travel abroad. Her cocounut shell husband heard the first few strings of this long wornout story and made himself scarce, so I remained Auntie's sole audience member. She fed me traditional Malaysian cakes baked into fish shapes and told me how, six years ago, she'd been on a bus through France on her birthday and how the whole international bus tour sang her the American Happy Birthday song. More tear-glazed eyes as she recounted that she spent her birthday evening atop the Eiffel Tower. Then she told me that the train she had taken in Bali while she'd been there had been bombed two days after she'd left. "Praise God for long life," she said, and offered me more cake.
Donald returned as the painting finished drying, so showed me how to autograph it and bagged it up for me. Auntie took advantage of the lull in conversation to point out that I was a "soft-spoken Canadian" with nice clean cheeks... "Auntie, are you playing matchmaker?" Donald blushed, but I have to say, he's pretty cute if a bit young! I've promised to return on my last day, tomorrow, to say goodbye and maybe paint some more if I have time.
I'll have to juice up my camera and take a few photos of my teacher.