Buying a Beer In Kuala Lumpur

    At the end of most days I enjoyed the pleasure of a cold beer. The heat and humidity of the day would fade and I would rest, away from the dust of the street and the rigours of an idle life. Here in the quiet of a local restaurant, I could sit and watch life around me unfolding as it did, day in and day out, whether I was there or not. I took this time out from sight seeing or exploring the city or countryside and found some cool, dark place to sit and enjoy one or two cold drinks. Sometimes, when I was in a city of some size I would change my usual clothes, don something that was as close to respectable as I could muster and would visit some up-scale hotel. There, amid the air conditioning, the potted plants and the piped in music I would sit and watch the tourists coming and going in their crisp, clean clothes. I could only imagine the lives of the men, all shaved and cologned and the women perfumed, not a hair out of place and wonder what it was like to have such money to afford this existence. I knew that I could watch it but that I would never live it. I lived in hostels and cheap hotels that had toilets down the hall. I washed my clothes in the sink at night and ate from food stalls, flirting with dysentery with each bite. A cold sore from a dirty glass was the worst I ever had to bear. I count myself lucky. But here in the lap of luxury I could only be amazed as I was treated with deference by waiters dressed in stylized local costumes who would bow at the waist, take my order and accept my money. They were aware of my charade. I looked the life I led even when dressed to try and disguise it. After an hour of this I would have had enough and would head back out to the heat and the dusty streets that were my part of the city.

   It was nice, upon occasion, to be treated as if I belonged and not as if I were sent as some cosmic test upon the owner or waiter of some back street food stall. At these places, where I more often than not would go in the late afternoon to quaff a cold one I seemed to be a phenomenon encountered for the first time. I was a white person, a white person who sat at a table and appeared to want something. Deference was not on the mind of those who were about to assume some sort of responsibility for my being there. This scene played out all over South East Asia and was played out with little variation regardless of the country or the number of white tourists in the vicinity. So long as I chose a place to have a drink that was a couple of blocks away from the main tourist area it ran true to form, as though there had been a script handed out for just such an occasion. 

    There were two main brands of beer that I remember, Tiger and Anchor and they came in two different size bottles, large and small. Every place had at least these two different brands and had the two different sizes. I, for whatever reason happened to favour Anchor brand beer and for economy of time if not cash would order the large size. The script was, as I said, always the same. The location and ambience of the place were the only variables but these didn’t matter. 

    I would see a place on my route back to the hostel/cheap hotel and decide on a beer. I’d walk in through the open door to the gloom of a small room lit only with the light from the window and a florescent tube at the rear of the establishment where a small group of men were engaged in a conversation. All but me were oriental, all but me spoke Chinese. I chose a table by the window so I could watch the street and waited. The conversation, which had been in full swing when I entered, now stopped and the only sounds were those from the street and the hum of the cooler full of beer. If I had looked I would have seen all heads turned, all eyes on me and then one short, staccato burst of Chinese would be spoken. There would be a reply or two and again silence. More words and then in the silence I would hear the slap, slap of a pair of thongs coming my way. A slight, middle aged Chinese man would appear wearing the national, cheap eatery uniform, a white undershirt called a singlet, a baggy pair of pants too short by correct sartorial standards, the thongs and a cigarette held in the lips and bleeding smoke into one eye. And the play would begin….

“What you want?” This was as much an accusation as a question as though I were there to cause some sort of, as yet undiscovered mischief.

“I’d like a beer please, a large Anchor beer.” I held my hands up indicating the size of a large bottle while I carefully enunciated ‘beer’, aware of the language differences.

“You want beer?” It was again more of an accusation than a question. There was a murmur from the back of the room and then once more, silence.

“Yes please, an Anchor beer,” my hands rose, “a large Anchor beer.” and now were held between us, shaking back and forth slightly to indicate the size of the bottle. 

“What kind of beer you want?” Now the tone changed slightly from pure accusation to part challenge as though if I ordered the wrong type of beer he’d have caught me dead to rights in some sort of conspiracy.

“I’d like an Anchor beer please, a large Anchor beer.” I glanced at the cooler. 

“You want Anchor beer?” His tone was now close to hostile as though the whole plot, the whole reason for my being there, was about to be revealed.

“Yes, a large Anchor beer.” My one hand held at the approximate height above the table my other indicating a drinking motion. 

“What size Anchor beer you want? You want large Anchor beer or you want small Anchor beer?” 

I thought I’d better get this right as it would be my last chance to get what I was after. One wrong word and I’d end up with nothing or a small coke. “I’d like a large beer, a large Anchor beer please.” My hands once more were held to indicate a large bottle. The group at the back were so engrossed in the play that a cigarette burnt down to the fingers of one man and a flurry of words and activity suddenly erupted. My waiter turned and for a moment I thought that I was about to be out of luck at this place but he once again resumed the script.

“You want large beer?” He forgot to say the brand. Did this mean that we’d have to begin the whole thing over again? 

“Yes please, a large Anchor beer.” This was the pivotal moment, it all was about to happen or was going to fall apart and I’d be told that there was no beer even as the cooler hummed away in the distance. 

“Large Anchor beer?” For the first time I thought I might be winning, it was a statement that verged on being a question. 

“Yes.” It was all in his hands now. Would I drink or move on, parched, to the next place I could find? He looked at me as though trying to decide what to do or if he had heard me correctly and then he turned and walked away.

    The conversation at the back of the room once again began in earnest. My waiter spoke with the group, all looked at me, a man spoke and gestured, I smiled. Then he walked to the cooler and took out a bottle of the beer I had been asking for. A glass was found, one of those small, firm glasses usually seen in the bathrooms of hotels and both would be brought to my table and laid before me. An opener was produced and the bottle uncapped. I tilted the bottle, already laden with dew in the humidity of the afternoon and poured a glass full as the waiter retreated and for the moment I could be ignored if not forgotten. 

    In the street outside nothing of consequence took place other than the daily routine of a world that was fascinating for me because of the unfathomable secrets that it held. If I lived there for the rest of my that life I felt I’d die an old man still trying to figure out the mysteries of the place. 

    Some times as the sun would begin to set and as my drink was about to finish I would hear the sounds of the kitchen. Pots and pans would be set heavily down and something would be tossed into a heated wok and the hissing and spluttering of cooking would remind me that I hadn’t eaten yet and so I would begin act two of the play. 

    A look at the back of the room revealed a menu in two or three languages hung on the wall. Usually I could figure out what was being offered and so would decide on some special of the day. After some studious ignoring I would finally get the attention of the same benighted man that had first been forced to deal with me. He would slowly disengage himself from the rest of the group and make his way to my table. 

    “What you want?” He was as eager to serve as always. I would point to the menu and ask for the meal of my choice. He would turn to gaze at the board as though it were the first time that he had ever realized it was there. He paused as if contemplating some greater reality and then turned again to me. “No got food!” Dishes clattered beyond the beaded curtain that separated the two rooms. I would begin to protest but a wave of the hand and another “No got food!” would dismiss me and he would turn to rejoin the group. I was left standing in the middle of the room, the smells of spiced chicken and sesame noodles wafting on the air and I would turn to leave, defeated at last. Just then an old man bearing a tray of food would come through the curtain and into the room. Some, if not all of the men would turn to look my way, hoping perhaps that I was gone or at least dull enough to not realize what was on the tray. I’d look and smile and all would turn again to the task at hand and I would be forgotten. 

    The street corners were occupied with men selling chicken satay cooked over charcoal fires or roti makers tossing and stretching the dough in the Asian way and so tonight I would eat standing up on a darkened corner of a side street in Kuala Lumpur. 

1973.