Shah Alam is one of many little-townships in the somewhat sprawling area known as the Klang Valley. Most Klang Valley dwellers, particularly those born and raised in old Petaling Jaya, the tripartite of Bangsar/Damansara/Hartamas and the inner suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, are as familiar with Shah Alam as they are with Atlantis and other such mythical places. Yes, you’ve heard several hypotheses on where these places are supposed to be located. In the case of Atlantis, scientists have placed it all over the globe – from northern Europe to the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean – either way; you get an idea that it’s likely somewhere very watery. In the case of Shah Alam, some may place it somewhere beyond the toll plaza on the Federal Highway; the one that marks the end of Subang Jaya, and the beginning of a black hole that leads to an even bigger black hole known as Klang. Other guide books will tell you that Shah Alam is only about 20 - 30 kilometres away from the heart of Kuala Lumpur. That puts Shah Alam somewhere near the asshole region, or about 30 minutes drive from KL – traffic jam caused by USJ fuckers notwithstanding. Spiritually however, scientists will tell you that Shah Alam seems to not only operate in a different time zone; it might as well be on a separate planet, where the lack of gravity slows everyone’s movement down to a spacey Buzz Aldrin moonwalk. Either way, you get the idea that it’s probably not worth visiting.
And you would be right, under most circumstances. But many long-time Shah Alam residents will insist that Shah Alam actually has many things to offer, especially if you want to get the hell out of Pangkal “Pelle”, Kelantan to a place that sort of reminds you of Kelantan, if Kelantan didn’t insist on keeping PAS in power for the last 20 years. Sure, in the recent elections, Shah Alam, with its abundance of cow-head waving, beer-sale protesting residents, had inevitably fallen under the hold of “Islamic” party PAS but at least they were smart enough to wait until they had good roads in place before voting for the opposition. Shah Alam seems to be one of the last Klang Valley bastions of the conservative right, where Perodua Kelisa cars and Toyota Avanza minivans drive round-and-round the city’s many round-a-bouts with bumper stickers proclaiming “UiTM Hak Melayu”, (err...if you’re going to take that line of thought, what about other Bumiputeras?). Funny, I thought that the whole point of a university education is to “broaden your horizons” and open your mind up to new and different perspectives – but when everyone around you is from more or less the same ethnic background, I would imagine that this would limit things, just that little bit more. You know, I almost ended up at UiTM Shah Alam after my SPM but I suppose Fate was gracious enough to delay my suffering for just that little bit longer. As a Melayu person, I actually did, a long time ago, receive an offer to study Seni Persembahan at the UiTM Shah Alam campus but then, it occurred to me what the fuck would I do with a Performing Arts diploma in Malaysia? God knows I already have a hard time doing anything with a Media and Communications degree (should’ve been a lawyer, they told me. Fuck that, I told myself). Anyway, if I was going to study the Arts, it sure as hell wouldn’t be in Shah Alam. That would be like studying Marine Biology in Bhutan. Good luck finding an ocean! (at this point, I would like to apologise to all UiTM Shah Alam Seni Persembahan graduates. I’m sure many of you are fabulous nonetheless, unless your name is Farid Kamil)
Did you know that there are no cinemas in Shah Alam? Not that one can learn much in terms of arts education through Hollywood blockbuster movies like Transformers 2 (Megan Fox’s cup size, perhaps?). But I’m just saying, THERE ARE NO CINEMAS in Shah Alam, or any other type of “entertainment” outlets (you can forget about bars and clubs). It was decreed by the old Sultan of Selangor that Shah Alam, as the site of many universities and colleges and therefore, many impressionable youths, shall be a city free of morally corruptive influences. The current Sultan of Selangor has decided to go on with this, because he’s never in Shah Alam anyway and is free and rich enough to get his jollies anywhere around the world. Yeah, thanks a lot, man, thanks a lot. So you will find that the youths here have turned to other “healthier” forms of entertainment; the most popular one being “staring at people for no good reason.” If Staring was an Olympic sport, Malaysia can count on Shah Alamites to sweep the gold, silver and bronze medals. If you feel like no one ever pays you any attention, I suggest you take a stroll around Dataran Shah Alam on a Friday night – you’ll have many eyes on you, even if you’re usually, not worth looking at. You will find many boys and girls gathered there to watch each other, watch each other, eyes boring deep into each other’s souls and coming up with a handful of sand. And this is why a large number of Shah Alam youths are very fond of smoking weed; this way, a whole lot of Nothing suddenly becomes Something very interesting. Healthy.
Other folks in Shah Alam might choose to enjoy Shah Alam’s many little parks in their spare time. And for this, I must give kudos to the Shah Alam Municipal Council’s (MBSA) parks & recreation department, whom I’ve had the opportunity to work with through one of my company’s CSR programmes, and who does a significantly better job than their whackjob peers at MBPJ. You would think though, that a city with so many parks and jogging tracks would at least, boast plenty of scenery-enhancing fit bodies. Au contraire, my friend. From my general observation, the Shah Alam population are generally fatter, or more accepting of fatness than the rest of the Klang Valley, and is therefore a good place to heal if you’ve had your self-esteem damaged by not being able to fit into a size 2 at Topshop. Half of Shah Alam’s park visitors forego physical activity in favour of sitting and wolfing down an entire picnic basket, while staring at the still waters of Tasik Shah Alam.
Since we’re on the topic of food, I should probably take this opportunity to talk about the dining-out options in Shah Alam and they are: Kelantanese food, Kelantanese food and other food cooked by Kelantanese people that end up tasting like Kelantanese food. Think that radioactive blue rice dish known as Nasi Kerabu. While I do enjoy stuffing my face with Solok Lada and lacing my rice with a generous helping of Budu, I don’t enjoy diabetes. You see, Kelantanese people are awfully fond of sugar. They love their sugar so much; they put sugar in their milk, sugar in their curry, heck, they put sugar in their sugar. Have you ever tried Spaghetti Bolognaise prepared by a Kelantanese chef? Don’t worry – just drown your spaghetti in maple syrup with royal icing on top and the effect should be more or less the same. Just another thing to note: it is impossible to find well prepared pasta in Shah Alam. And fast food doesn’t exist either. Don’t get me wrong – we do have KFC, McDonalds, Burger King and the likes over here but there is nothing fast about the food service. (Also, Shah Alam boasts the SLOWEST Starbucks in the word. I kid you not.) If you’re starving and looking for a quick meal, you would be better off waiting for the eggs in your fridge to hatch into a fully grown chicken. It ain’t going to happen just like that Happy Meal isn’t, my friend. If it’s Sunday morning however, you can pay a visit to the Pasar Tani (Farmer’s Market?) at Shah Alam Stadium where you can feast on something called Gearbox Soup (pronounced Kelantan-style as Sop Gear-bok) with the snap of your fingers. It might sound like boiled motor oil with old car engine parts but really, it’s tasty animal fat floating in water with 11 herbs and spices. You can add some flat rice noodles for an extra carbohydrate boost if you like.
Now, back to the topic of exercise and recreation in Shah Alam - there are no decently over-priced gyms in Shah Alam, blasting shitty dance music. Those who do exercise can take it outside for free, around the many parks, and they usually do so in a sartorially spectacular manner - in puffy, nylon-polyester track pants that makes your butt look inflatable and render you very flammable. Perhaps, if you were pushed or end up “accidentally” falling off the top of a tall building, say, Plaza Masalam in Section 9 Shah Alam, where the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission is located, these pants may act as a parachute and save your life. Well, it has been known to happen. Anyway, back to our Shah Alam Jogger - these track pants are often tucked into white sports socks for reasons that I haven’t been able to ascertain, but my, don’t you look zexxy....... Oh, how can anyone resist you now? On the topic of style, remember that when it comes to dressing up in Shah Alam; you don’t. Just forget about it. Call it a day. Use those pages from Vogue to wrap your Nasi Lemak. Unless it’s Hari Raya. Then Shah Alam offers a great and wide selection of beautiful traditional festive attire, sure to make even the most non-ayu, Grinch-iest among us glitter and sparkle like Siti Nurhaliza on the cover of Nona.
Since my love for Shah Alam is as evident as white mice in a field of snow, you may wonder, why I haven’t made a real effort to get the hell out of the place and return to the dimension from which I came? There are many answers to this question; the simplest one being free and abundant parking space. Seriously, do not underestimate the power of parking space in the Klang Valley. Have you ever tried looking for a parking spot in One Utama on a Saturday? Have you found one yet? How long has it been? 3 years? You’re better off parking your car in Shah Alam and walking the whole 30km to Bandar Utama – you’ll save time that way. My friends who work in KL – either in the Petronas Twin Towers or anywhere around Bukit Bintang spend RM 250 a month on parking alone (and that doesn’t include the toll charges for using the Smart Tunnel and whatnots so they’ll actually get to work in less than 7 hours). I spend about RM50 a year, and that’s only for the occasional parking fines I get for leaving my car in the middle of the bloody road because I suddenly got tired of living my life in an orderly fashion. Not for any lack of parking spots. Of course, the abundance of parking in Shah Alam is probably a sound acknowledgment of the fact that public transport to and around the area is shit, with everything but the armpit-scented KTM Komuter train stopping short at Subang. Even then, the KTM Komuter only passes through the industrial areas of Shah Alam – so unless you live in a tractor graveyard, good luck trying to get home. And you should know that the taxis here refuse to use their meter, charging you an arbitrarily and extravagantly chosen fee of RM20 just to drive a little further away than where you can spit. You end up asking the Taxi driver if he is employed by Satan and he ends up going all Pacino on your ass.
I’m pretty convinced now that the lack of public transport in and out of the area is not due to bad town planning but a devious and diabolical conspiracy, between the Powers That Be to keep Shah Alam people in Shah Alam and the rest of Klang Valley out. They’re trying to isolate us. Maybe Shah Alam was established for the purpose of a wacky, secret social experiment – like the island on Lost. Or maybe they’ve decided to put us under quarantine for general public health and safety – like lepers and tuberculosis patients in the old days, H1N1 sufferers, Zombies!!!!!! You see folks, at the end of the day, Shah Alam is not just a physical and geographical location; like New York, it’s also a state of mind. Well, it’s a state of mind that is a symptom of some kind of infectious disease. Just like people infected by the Zombie virus can’t help but think that they would like to eat your intestines. I’ve been in Shah Alam for 2 years now. It’s too late for me. I feel it, I feel the Shah Alam taking over. I’m staring at you, aren’t I? Save yourself! I don’t want you to see me like this. Leave me to my puffy polyester track pants, my blue rice, my parking spots, my slow-ass movements. Leave and don’t look back. The only thing I ask of you is that you remember me as I was, remember me before this dastardly disease took hold! Remember me as I was, and remember me fondly.
This is not a guide.
This is goodbye.
1 comment:
I luvs u.
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