It feels different, doesn’t it? The air conditioning smells different,
the trolleys move when you hold down the handle instead of
letting go. The taxi driver who gabbles in that foreign tongue
you thought you left forgotten in your AO level certificate.
It works like this – you say “ahhhhh, I want one fillet-o-fish value meal.”
you do not say, “one fillet-o-fish value meal, please”, because
you will sound atas. No, you don’t want that, you don’t want
to be a potato eater. You miss your chicken rice, your laksa, stingray melting
on your tongue. You miss the swearing in that foreign gibberish
at football matches and IPPT.
It stays with you, squats at the back of your mind scratching itself.
Reminds you that they are the red haired ghosts, the foreign devils
(you called them that over there as well). It is classless, indeterminate,
symbiotic.
And you miss it all. You really do.
