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It’s just past 6pm and my lime-green birk-clad feet are pounding the pavements of Penang.
Sweat trickles down my back between my browning shoulder blades.
The air is thick with cosy warmth. Its hot headiness has gone straight to my mind, making me slightly dizzy, a little dazed, quite like being in love. As evening calls and the sun wanders its way down to the horizon, its lingering glow casts soft yellow light across the buildings.
I have a silly grin on my face and I’m craving beer.
My woozy brain clasps onto the dissolving image of Google Maps I see in my mind and I think yes, that’s it, let’s just head north. Around a street corner, following the sweet sickly waft of incense, I notice a busy storefront. People are wandering in and out, hands embracing cold cans of beer.
A make-shift bar has taken over half of the road, with red plastic stools grouped together. Beer, yes. A mental note was made.
After checking in, I retrace my footsteps until I’m facing an altar of beer. Well, there’s an actual alter at the end of a line of fridges holding beer from China, Japan, a whole fridge dedicated to Tiger.
I pay my ten MR (NZ$3.69) and confidently* walked over to a group of seven people.
*(honestly I felt like 🥴)
I asked to sit and soon learned everyone’s names… And happily listened for the next few hours to their colourful life stories.
Karen from Germany, born in Belgium, a self-professed gypsy had left her home two decades ago and found herself making a living in Indonesia selling homemade aromatherapy products. That was until Covid shut her down and she found herself in Penang. She told me a tale of a train through Thailand. Starting at the border with Malaysia, you take the local train up to Bangkok. Sitting on wooden benches, at each stop, local women in each village come on board to sell homemade sweets and snacks. She reminisced about the “old” way of travelling, the slow way. If she liked a town, she’d just hop off, the lost fare not mattering as it was only a ringgit or two.
Romi and art installation/art curator Dhavin were debating whether to leave their current jobs with a “man child” boss making their life miserable. I shared my empathetic consolations.
Lesley worked in Thai visas and owned a scooter company. But he’d previously worked as a chef. His stories of his special masala chicken that Karen and her friend ate every day, made me wish I could time travel. I implore him to cook his famous dish once again for me, but I settle for a lesson on how to ride a scooter (and not crash). Karen and Lesley bicker over the safety of this.
Lesley calls Grayden his sister. She calls him her brother. They’re from the same village in Penang but met each other outside the makeshift bar. Grayden lived in New Zealand for a year on a working holiday. She once accidentally drove onto the Cook Strait ferry in the truck lane, nearly dying of embarrassment she tells me, for taking that route, instead of heading to the exit. She and local air bnb owner and former chef Ashraf are foodies and tell me about “bloody cockles;” half-cooked cockles on a skewer that you dip into hot water to boil, then cover in hot sauce.
60-year-old Eric is a food delivery driver and rides a motorbike, which Lesley warns me I shouldn’t try riding just yet.
Three beers in and Nigel arrives.
“Sir Nigel.” “Admiral Nigel.” The others call out to him.
He’s from the UK. I ask him how long he’s been here; “I can’t remember,” he chuckles. Dhavin tells me that Nigel owns a boat.
“How big?”
“Depends on how many beers I’ve had!"
Our discussion ranges from topics of Malaysia’s taboo history to the best falafel in town to the old ferry that sunk yesterday and the call for help to salvage it.
Before my departure to Malaysia, I’d been reading about its turbulent past. Four hundred years of colonisation, first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, who traded Malay to the British for Indonesia. Japan occupied Malaysia during World War II, and then back came the British. Independence was achieved in 1957.
Malaysia is a melting pot of different ethnicities; there are Indigenous groups, Malay, Chinese and Indians, expats and tourists. Every city, town or even tiny village in Malaysia has a Chinatown and then around the corner a Little India. It’s almost like living in a giant food court with every different cuisine lined up next to each other. Each cuisine, each culture fighting over your senses. Immigration to New Zealand hit an all-time high last year; with the greatest number of immigrants coming from India, the Philippines and China. I briefly wonder if Malaysia could be a stone's throw away from Aotearoa’s future.
I’d read about a period in time called the Race Riots but was surprised to see no mention of it when I toured the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur. Instead, it was all about “showing the British we could all get along so they’d grant us independence,” a motive portrayed through a cheesy clip of a Grandpa storytelling to his three grandchildren (Malay, Chinese, Indian). I tell my new companions about this and they laugh. “Oh no,” that topic is taboo they tell me, mirroring what a journalist from Nikkei Asia had said to me earlier that day. Dhavin said race tensions simmer underneath it all.
But surrounded by my companions, Malay, Indian, Chinese, British, Belgian-German-Indonesian gypsy, and me adding a Kiwi spice, one only sees the colour human.
The next day I found myself meeting Grayden and Eric for dinner at the spot with bloody cockles (can confirm, my belly survived the night without turbulence). And Saturday evening, Ashraf made his own char koay teow for me to try; one of Penang’s most famous dishes. On Sunday, Eric spent his only day off as a tour guide…He took me to his favourite spots for breakfast (kaya toast with half-boiled egg) and lunch (the Laksa man had been making it for 60 years and it cost only 3 ringgit NZ$1.12). Another Malay joins the spot. He can't speak English but has a memorable mullet. He boldly proclaims to me: "I love Penang!"
Another evening, I met acclaimed artist Hitori-san. He’s from Kanagawa. We yarned about Japan together before he imparted to me some wise words and a new life purpose:
“You must go and break borders,” he said.
“It’s the most important task for you.”
On my last night in Penang, Dhavin said he’d quit his job and he was free to pursue his art career, free of the man-child.
I asked the name of the liquor shop/makeshift bar:
Antarabangsa Enterprise.
It translates to International.
Borders already being broken by beers and banter.
