Friday, April 21, 2006
The Police Chief and the Birdman
Oh so much has happened since yesterday afternoon. Kota Bharu was definitely a good choice of stops.
First order of business yesterday evening was to find some dinner. I felt like Thai food, and being near the border I figured it would be easy. Well, I wandered around town for a bit but wasn't really finding anything. Then I wandered past some sort of shop where there were about 12 employees standing around the entrance who said hello to me. I stopped and asked them "Restoran Thai di mana?" (di mana = where). There was much consultation and an English-speaker who I took to be the manager came out and gave me some directions to a rather out of the way spot that was supposed to be good. Famous, she said. Well, I went there (in the rain), but didn't find much. So I decided to just wander back up in the direction of the hostel and find something on my own. I ended up choosing a small Malaysian place where I ordered some Tom Yam soup. At the table next to me, a friend of the owner's started talking to me in English. Turns out he is the police chief. We had a nice conversation, in which he gave me several basic security tips and regularly told me he was a police officer despite that at that time he was wearing a sarong and not a uniform. He said he would be glad to show me around except that today (my only day in town), he is part of a motorcade to escort the Sultan to a city in the neighbouring state. He ended up paying for my dinner and we exchanged addresses so I will send him a postcard when I get home.
This morning at the open area near Zeck's Ttravellers Inn, where I am staying, was the weekly bird-singing competition. While I was wandering around trying to sort out exactly what was going on with all these identical birds in their ornate little cages, I was introduced to Mr. Khor, who is the official interpreter and visitor's guide for the competition. He explained that the birds were red-whiskered bulbuls, a native bird to Malaysia, and they were soon to be judged on four criteria. The first was showmanship - how well the bird held its posture and presented itself. The second was "diligence" - that is, how dutifully it sang, rather than preening its feathers or hopping around the cage. The minimum requirement was that it sang 5 times in the 2-minute judging period. The third criterium was melody - the beauty of the song. And the fourth was "resonance", which I found rather difficult to listen for, but described a fullness to the final note in the short song. (These bird guys were really into it). Prizes ranged from ghetto blasters to rice cookers to blankets, but those whose homes were overflowing with such prizes (like Mr. Khor), could instead choose to sell the prize back to the club organizing the event for cash. At the competition this morning, there were just over 200 birds entered, which is apparently fairly standard for the weekly event. The big competitions held on 3 particular dates each year could draw at least twice that many entries.
While this was somewhat interesting, the main thing I got out of it was meeting Mr. Khor, who was very kind and generous and an excellent tour guide. After the competition was over (one of his 6 birds entered today won a consolation prize), he took me and 3 other foreign tourists for a little tour. We inspected some of the many 'bird houses' in Kota Bharu, which are buildings that have been converted from regular homes and offices into dwellings for "swiftlets" - swalllow-like birds who are welcomed because of the nests they build using their own saliva. These nests, like so many other animal products, are prized by the Chinese as being nutritional and an aphrodisiac. Bird's nest soup is a dish that was once only available to emperors in China. Converting buildings to bird houses is profitable since 1kg of nests can fetch 5000 Malaysian Ringgits when exported to China. The nests are harvested once when first built then again after the bird rebuilds and rears a batch of young. The young birds will return to the same place to build their nest when they grow older, and so the returns continue to grow. Once you know about these houses, you start to look around and see the telltale filled in doors and windows with small ventilation holes, the barbed wire on the roof, and the strong padlocks on steel doors which are put in place to deter nest thievery - these houses are everywhere! At least the practice is relatively sustainable and presumably does not cause too great an inconvenience for the birds.
After the bird houses, we visited Mr. Khor's house where we saw more of his vast bird and trophy collection and also sampled mangoes fresh from his large mango tree. We then went to visit a wat with a very large reclining Buddha statue. Mr. Khor, being a Buddhist, was able to explain the significance of many of the items there and also described his one-day experience as a monk. Apparently all Buddhists at some time must be a monk, be it only an hour, a day, a week, or months. Oh and somewhere in there we stopped for a lunch of Wanton Mee (wanton soup and fried noodles with meat on the side). All in all, a fantastic day!
Tomorrow bright and early I am off on the jungle train, which will wind its way south and eventually deposit me at the gateway to peninsular malaysia's largest park, Taman Negara.
Katieo
First order of business yesterday evening was to find some dinner. I felt like Thai food, and being near the border I figured it would be easy. Well, I wandered around town for a bit but wasn't really finding anything. Then I wandered past some sort of shop where there were about 12 employees standing around the entrance who said hello to me. I stopped and asked them "Restoran Thai di mana?" (di mana = where). There was much consultation and an English-speaker who I took to be the manager came out and gave me some directions to a rather out of the way spot that was supposed to be good. Famous, she said. Well, I went there (in the rain), but didn't find much. So I decided to just wander back up in the direction of the hostel and find something on my own. I ended up choosing a small Malaysian place where I ordered some Tom Yam soup. At the table next to me, a friend of the owner's started talking to me in English. Turns out he is the police chief. We had a nice conversation, in which he gave me several basic security tips and regularly told me he was a police officer despite that at that time he was wearing a sarong and not a uniform. He said he would be glad to show me around except that today (my only day in town), he is part of a motorcade to escort the Sultan to a city in the neighbouring state. He ended up paying for my dinner and we exchanged addresses so I will send him a postcard when I get home.
This morning at the open area near Zeck's Ttravellers Inn, where I am staying, was the weekly bird-singing competition. While I was wandering around trying to sort out exactly what was going on with all these identical birds in their ornate little cages, I was introduced to Mr. Khor, who is the official interpreter and visitor's guide for the competition. He explained that the birds were red-whiskered bulbuls, a native bird to Malaysia, and they were soon to be judged on four criteria. The first was showmanship - how well the bird held its posture and presented itself. The second was "diligence" - that is, how dutifully it sang, rather than preening its feathers or hopping around the cage. The minimum requirement was that it sang 5 times in the 2-minute judging period. The third criterium was melody - the beauty of the song. And the fourth was "resonance", which I found rather difficult to listen for, but described a fullness to the final note in the short song. (These bird guys were really into it). Prizes ranged from ghetto blasters to rice cookers to blankets, but those whose homes were overflowing with such prizes (like Mr. Khor), could instead choose to sell the prize back to the club organizing the event for cash. At the competition this morning, there were just over 200 birds entered, which is apparently fairly standard for the weekly event. The big competitions held on 3 particular dates each year could draw at least twice that many entries.
While this was somewhat interesting, the main thing I got out of it was meeting Mr. Khor, who was very kind and generous and an excellent tour guide. After the competition was over (one of his 6 birds entered today won a consolation prize), he took me and 3 other foreign tourists for a little tour. We inspected some of the many 'bird houses' in Kota Bharu, which are buildings that have been converted from regular homes and offices into dwellings for "swiftlets" - swalllow-like birds who are welcomed because of the nests they build using their own saliva. These nests, like so many other animal products, are prized by the Chinese as being nutritional and an aphrodisiac. Bird's nest soup is a dish that was once only available to emperors in China. Converting buildings to bird houses is profitable since 1kg of nests can fetch 5000 Malaysian Ringgits when exported to China. The nests are harvested once when first built then again after the bird rebuilds and rears a batch of young. The young birds will return to the same place to build their nest when they grow older, and so the returns continue to grow. Once you know about these houses, you start to look around and see the telltale filled in doors and windows with small ventilation holes, the barbed wire on the roof, and the strong padlocks on steel doors which are put in place to deter nest thievery - these houses are everywhere! At least the practice is relatively sustainable and presumably does not cause too great an inconvenience for the birds.
After the bird houses, we visited Mr. Khor's house where we saw more of his vast bird and trophy collection and also sampled mangoes fresh from his large mango tree. We then went to visit a wat with a very large reclining Buddha statue. Mr. Khor, being a Buddhist, was able to explain the significance of many of the items there and also described his one-day experience as a monk. Apparently all Buddhists at some time must be a monk, be it only an hour, a day, a week, or months. Oh and somewhere in there we stopped for a lunch of Wanton Mee (wanton soup and fried noodles with meat on the side). All in all, a fantastic day!
Tomorrow bright and early I am off on the jungle train, which will wind its way south and eventually deposit me at the gateway to peninsular malaysia's largest park, Taman Negara.
Katieo
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