Leah’s Cafe

I really dislike driving down to the city center during weekends. As this is a tourist town, the crowds downtown are usually 7 times 7 times more on weekends compare to weekdays. The weekend traffics are horrendous, you can get stuck at the narrow streets for the longest time that feel like almost your whole life.

Today, it took me more than 90 minutes to drive to this place that usually took me less than 30 minutes to arrive! On the way home, it took another 90 minutes, so I have spent a total of 3 hours on the road today!

The other day, I went to Tesco to pick up some groceries. Two of the girls in my preschool, one Chinese girl and one Indian-Filipino girl asked whether they could go with me. And because I promised to get them their favorite sushi and they have been really good that day, so I brought them along. Both these girls are 5 years old, the Chinese girl is quite fair and the Indian-Filipino girl has darker skin, they certainly don’t look alike, so one can tell they may not be sisters.

Actually, it never cross my mind that people could think they are my children. The girls were looking at the ostrich feathers and kept asking me to buy for them. I did notice people were looking at us, but I thought it’s because the girls were cute.:-) I did not realize that people were looking at us out of curiosity, until one auntie could not contain her own inquisitive desire anymore, she approached me and asked “Are they your children? Is your husband Indian?”

I had a good laugh. Only then I realized that people were looking at us not because they were wondering how many husbands do I have that my children are of different colors.:-)

Actually, I would think interracial marriages are quite common this days, especially in Malacca, we already have Baba-nyonyas and Serani for hundreds years. Guess people are also curious and “keh poh”, like to pop their noses into others people life. :-)

Though Malacca has been officially upgraded to be a “city” few years ago, it’s still very much a small town. In fact, living in Malacca is very much like living in a big village, the people in the neighborhood still talk to each other and know each other.

I was born and bred here, except for the 10 years I spent in KL/PJ/US, I came back to live here in 2001. I still like the small town atmosphere and the big village community. I never get used to the big city life! Though I did meet people that I was good friends with in KL/PJ, I find it hard to maintain friendships with all the commuting, work stress and traffic woos that one has to battle on a daily basis.

Malacca is small geographically, it takes less than 30 minutes to travel from one end to another end. Traffics are usually quite alright, so long we could avoid the downtown tourist hubs during the weekends. Malaccans think our house is in the middle of nowhere when we tell people where we live. Actually it’s less than 10 minutes drive from Jusco and 2 minutes from the toll plaza.:-)

In Malacca, people call me “teacher” or “teacher Chong” wherever I go, though I am not their teacher and never taught anybody related to them. I like this close knit community atmosphere, but also dislike this because privacy is not something people respect very much i.e. the strangers I met in the market told me I should quickly get pregnant since age is catching up, the “chap fun” stall auntie wanted to know how much I make, …:-)

Though snatch thieves are rampant especially in downtown tourist areas and crime rate has been rising in recent years, there are still many neighborhoods where people live without layers of locks. But of course if you have valuable jewelry and rare gold coins it’s better to keep them in the rented safe deposit at the bank. We live in the gated community, we seldom lock the gate and the grill, just the wooden door will suffice. There was a break-in in our neighborhood last year, but the police was able to track down and arrest the thief on the same day the crime took place, because the dumb thief left his IC at the checkpoint, and the security guard deligently took down particulars of every visitor.

Cost of living is still relatively lower in Malacca, RM2 can still get you a plate of “wan tan ” noodles for lunch if you know where to find it, sumptuous dim sum buffet at a 5 star hotel ONLY RM30++ per person niah. Houses are still relatively inexpensive. I know I could never afford to live in a gated community in Klang Valley. Our house is in the price range of a medium cost flat in certain area in KL/PJ. In fact, for the price of a double storey link in PJ/KL, one can get a pretty impressive bungalow liao. Though people may not get paid as good as in Klang Valley in certain professions, but I still think it’s a nice trade off for a better quality of life. :-)

* No, I don’t work for a housing developer . :-)

Previously when 56K dial-up was the only Internet service available, dad didn’t get online very much. But things changed since ADSL became available to the village two months ago. Every weekend when I was home, brother HS would be on his laptop and dad would be on the desktop, the computer addict me couldn’t even get near to the computer until they went to bed. This weekend, Streamyx was down since Saturday morning, HS kept calling the service provider to report the interruptions, dad kept asking him to call too. But, they did get over it and get more social later as everyone was at home this weekend.

At least once a month, all my siblings would be gathering at my parents’ place. Though older brother, his family and I who live half an hour distance away, the regulars would be there almost every weekend. This weekend, Pauline, my ex-roomate and now my sisters’ friend came down to visit us too. We had our favourite Hakka Lei Cha for breakfast. Pauline though is not Hakka had acquired the love for Lei Cha since she came to visit my family for the first time 10 years ago.

In the afternoon, we went downtown with Pauline. Poor Pauline though came to visit us regularly, but we have not brought her to the weekend tourist trap market. As Malaccans we dragged the weekend tourists traffics and the parking woes, we would avoid going downtown if we could. My sister’s friend, LH was so enthusiastic about showing us this coffee place that she found featured coffees from all the Malaysian states. She volunteered to do the driving, so we obliged.:-)

LH is a school teacher, she got a 25% raise during the recent salary adjustment of government servants. She wanted to give us a treat, but we all had lunch at my parents’ place before we went out, so we took rain checks from her. Anyway, we changed our mind about coffee when we were at Jonker Walk, we had Cendol instead and camwhore around a bit. But hor, my two sisters very fierce one, they will kill me if I put their pictures up here, so they warned.

A weekend without internet was not so bad, with friends and family around.:-)