Of Malaysia Hall's Open Day and The Quest for Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai

Today Malaysia Hall Sydney is holding its inaugural Open Day, and I could not get myself more excited about the prospect of one thing- Malaysian cuisine on the horizon. I went to bed last night thinking of myself luxuriating myself in the incredible taste of Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai, and I still did when I woke up this morning. Laugh at me if you wish to, but come here and try replacing my shoes, I bet you will surely have the same yearning. It is not that I had never found such heavenly luxuries here; in fact only last night my sponsor provided me with Nasi Lemak for dinner. People, it is the strange feeling when you never get satisfied with something and always ask for more. When you are used to having Nasi Lemak for breakfast or a weekly Roti Canai for supper, do you think you ever want to put a full stop to the whole think? Perhaps it is the same feeling when you patiently, staunchly waiting for the next Harry Potter movie to come out when you already watched the previous movies repeatedly, and in fact, you already read the book which means you know the entire story. Well, Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai and Harry Potter. Not a bad combination, huh?

For those of you who are not familiar with Malaysia Hall, it is a social center for Malaysian community in Australia which mostly revolves students, besides serving as a convenient accommodation for them. They hold major Malaysian events and religious festivals to promote good bonds and feel-like-home atmosphere for Malaysian residents here, Sydney in particular.
This Open Day, dubbed as the biggest event ever in their history, was given mediocre publicity, mostly only to Malaysian community. However, considering the somewhat large community circle as well as the kindness of some who invited their counterparts from other countries to join in the event, I was expecting this Open Day to be a real big one. Was I wrong? Well I did not really actually care, Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai were all in my mind.

So now both the Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai converged with the Open Day, the result was you saw me cycling spiritedly through a typical morning to get to Malaysia Hall- a breakfast set of Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai plus the awesome Teh Tarik was all I thought. The night before Buk told me on a phone conversation that the event would start at 9am with breakfast set ready to be served. I chose to give them a chance and decided to come only at 10am, as my Bruneian friends who were also coming wanted to come at that time. And I was there a little before 10 am.

However, as typical as any Malaysian event could be no matter in which part of the world, this particular event did little to escape the pathetic notion of ‘Janji Melayu’ which is recurrently associated to them – the settings of programs were way behind the schedule. I could only get a taste of Nasi Lemak about one and a half hour after I arrived. In fact when I reached there at 10am the booths had not even been set up, and there was this group of ladies who were only starting to prepare the cucumber for Nasi Lemak. And they acted as nothing was actually going wrong, that they never knew how to use their watch. I waited there patiently, until it crossed my mind that I should get myself off this whole mess and treated myself with a slice of pizza at a nearby place instead. I did wait, however, until the smell of Nasi Lemak reached my nostril and raised my appetite. In short, there I was enjoying this not-so-delicious Nasi Lemak after one and a half hour of patient, while waiting for my The Tarik. I was just about to forget the morning’s chaos when suddenly I was notified that The Tarik was not available, and I should get another drink instead. People, I was not really bothered with getting another drink, but what I wish to question is why did you want to put Teh Tarik in the menu in the first place when you could not afford to serve it? On one hand, you were cheating while on the other, you crushed people’s hope. You ruined my hope.

Later on I met a friend who dejectedly told me about the disappearance of his slippers. We both shared the same idea; it is not the price of the slippers we were concerned of, instead it is the bad manner of taking people’s belongings that annoys us. And as what you might also think at the moment, this is another typical dire manner of Malaysians.

As the event went on, there were also all those traditional Malay games as well as other modern games including 3 on 3 basketball made available, but I was simply not interested. There are other things that I wish to complain, such as the use of coupon to buy food. I always hate this idea since the primary school age, because this coupon system apparently forces us to spend. And for a matter of fact, my primary school’s Open Day applies a similar coupon concept. And now you start to think what is the difference between a primary school’s Open Day compared to this biggest-in-the-history one I had just attended? Well, maybe in primary school they do not start late. Maybe. The other thing that annoys me is the unprofessional, second-class use of the PA system. People are listening, so do not act silly in front of the microphone. And it is not that hard to find someone who can do the job properly I guess. By the way, the event's official poster that I posted on your left does not look nice either. The language used is simply not taken care of.

I spent my last coupon on Pulut Kuning, met some other people including Hafiz and Hanaa for a moment before I took off. By the way, did I mention anything about what happened to the Roti Canai? Well, the Roti Canai were there, but they looked weird, and I suddenly lost my lust for it. And two small, weirdly-made Roti Canai for AU$5? It simply did not help.

By the way, that friend of mine who lost his slippers found them back shortly after our conversation. I guess, at least we do not take people’s belongings, we only borrow them for a while. Without telling them.