dusun fourteen
DESCRIPTION
Dusun is an Asian Arts and Culture e-magazine bringing only the very best imagery, literature and poetry to the worldTRANSCRIPT
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August/September 2013
low khay hooileang seckon
karim fakhoury richard noyce
nicolas c grey and james farleywaswo x. waswo and rajesh soni
e-journal of Asian Arts and Culturedusun
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we are
dusun fourteen cover by karim fakhoury editor martin a bradley email [email protected] Dusun TM published by EverDay Art Studio and Educare August 2013
dusun remains an entirely free and non-associated publication concerned with bringing asian arts and culture to eveyone
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dusunemagazinefourteen
dusun fourteen cover by karim fakhoury editor martin a bradley email [email protected] Dusun TM published by EverDay Art Studio and Educare August 2013
dusun remains an entirely free and non-associated publication concerned with bringing asian arts and culture to eveyone
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inside....
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malaya in posters 11
21 shan hai jing (the chinese classic of the mountains and seas) by low khay hooi
solace and refreshment - in words and pictures by martin bradley 32
47 cambodian artist - leang seckon
colors of cambodia - cambodian diary 60
88 this dog barking by nicolas c grey and james farley
karim fakhoury’s digital wonders 96
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August/September 2013
104 poetry by richard noyce
tinted by tradition - hand coloured photographs from india 111
117 langmusi’s red monks - images from china by pei yeou bradley
sweet, white, perky by martin bradley 126
dusun
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Dear Reader
Dusun returns at the height of Summer with a cornucopia of fruits overflowing for your delight and delectation.
From Cambodian artists to unique photographs of China, this issue of Dusun has it all, plus a new section to wet your appetite - gastrognome, seeking delightful delicacies across Asia and daintily displaying them just for you, our honoured guest.
There is poetry from Wales, concerning things Asian, and wondrous images from a Canadian Asian artist. We have mysterious books from ancient China and hand tinted photographs from India, via Singapore. Yes, it’s all here, in this issue and a graphic novel on display in Cambodia too.
Sit back and enjoy the wonders we are growing this issue of Dusun.....
Dusun is always on the look out for fresh material, new Artists/poets/writers etc to grace its pages. If you wish to submit, please do send your work to [email protected].
editorial
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Editor - Martin Bradley was born in London, 1951. He is a writer/poet/designer and a graduate in Art History, Exhibition Making, Graphic Design, Philosophy and Social Work. He has travelled most of the known world and lived in Britain, India and Malaysia. Martin was Guest Writer at India’s Commonwealth Writers Festival in New Delhi (2010) and Guest Writer at Singapore’s Lit Up literature festival (2010); he has read in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2009, 2011), in Cambodia (2012, 2013) and The Philippines (2013). Martin writes articles on Art & Culture for magazines and newspapers and designs digital images. He has been the editor of Dusun – a Malaysian Arts and Culture e-magazine and founder/host of Northern Writers – a venue for ‘readings’ in Ipoh, Malaysia. Martin has had three books published during 2012 - Remembering Whiteness - a collection of poetry, Buffalo & Breadfruit - autobiography, and A Story of Colors of Cambodia, which he also designed.
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dusun art talks asia 2013
cambodiathe philippinesmalaysia
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cambodiathe philippinesmalaysia
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Malaysia...
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in posters
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detail from original shan hai jing text
shan hai jing
The Classic of the Mountains and Seas (Shan hai Jing) is an ancient and unique record of a range of beliefs held by ancient Chinese about their world, dating from C. 4th–C. 1st century. B.C.E., and has been repeatedly hand-copied, reprinted, and reedited through the centuries. The earliest surviving set of woodblock illustrations is from a rare edition dated 1597, during the late Ming dynasty. Low Khay Hooi has re-imagined the Shang Hai Jing for Malaysia.
Shan Hai Jing, literally translated to means the look of the Mountains and the Seas is an postcard exchange exhibition by artist, Low Khay Hooi, developed over a period of 7 years.
Low takes the topographical maps of Malaysia as his starting point. He extracts shapes from these maps as found in school textbooks and develops them into imaginary hybrid monsters that affect the weather, bring disease, protect or threaten the population of the area.
In this exhibition, Low presents his artworks like pages from an imaginary anthropologist logbook, with each artwork introducing one of his monsters associated with a town or region in Malaysia. Accompanying the im-ages, is Chinese text explaining the mythical significance of these fantasy creatures to their environment. The format loosely refers to that of Chinese almanacs and early anthropological texts.
For Low, these artworks are a fun and enjoyable strategy for him to develop a body of imagery that will form the visual vocabulary for his future work. For the viewer, they recall a school child wild with imagination, at work doing doodles during the long hours of boredom in the classroom.
Low Khay Hooi holds an advanced diploma in print-making from the Central Academy of Art, and has been running an art studio in Cheras, called Art Generation Studio, together with his wife since 1999. In addition to practicing his craft, he also teaches Chinese calligraphy and art to children in his studio. Low Khay Hooi is also committed to the conservation of heritage and to the environment. This is reflected in his art and the books he has illustrated.
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shan hai jinglow khay hooi
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zhu
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six legged fish
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pedan
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si
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xuan mang
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george
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lenggang
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jiao long
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masirat
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in need of solace and refreshment I ambled homeward....32
photography and text martin bradley
daughter’s story
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in need of solace and refreshment I ambled homeward....33
daughter’s story
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back to home and hearthand the sweetmeats of my youth
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finding succourand comfort in delicious memories
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beliefs haunted meI prayed they might cease
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into the
deepening nightI prayed
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drawn to recordevery detail
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of my love foryou
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Cambodia
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leang seckon
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next life let me not be a woman
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rama rescues victims
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Every so often a book appears that reveals and illuminates a project that might otherwise remain largely unknown by the outside world: ‘Colors of Cambodia’ is such a book. This is a highly personal and passionate account written by Martin Bradley and illustrated by Pei Yeou Bradley of her encounter with a remarkable art-based project in and around Siem Reap in Cambodia, and how she was drawn into practical involvement with the children for whom the project exists. Richard Noyce, Artist, Wales 2012
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[email protected] h t t p s : / / w w w . f a c e b o o k . c o m /groups/138402846288849/http://colorsofcambodia.org/
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apey mutrak
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apey mutrak
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covering skirt
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my feeling from the buddha
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female body
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the eyeballs have all fallen out
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nurture yourself with
dusunasian arts and culture emagazine
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remembering whiteness & other poems
by martin bradley
downloadable as a free pdffrom
http://correspondences-martin.blogspot.com/2012/04/open-publication-free-publishing-more.html
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Talks, sharing, painting and poetryat the Colors of Cambodia charity gallery in Siem
Reap
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a new look for the Colors of Cambodia charity gallery
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Four Poems for
Cambodiaby
Martin Bradley
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clouds in ten layers brought me inquisitively
back to Siem ReapLanguidly writing beside drying
watersStrolling in heat drenched
streets.I became kissed by brief rains
Stroked by sunAnd finally deferredTo salad jazz cafes
Where Americans and Australians gather
Watching motorcycle taxis.Charity hands give thumbs up
Blind musician toots fluteAnonymous cars pass
In dust sprinkled streetsBeneath Buddha smiles
And sudden sun.We wrangle the difference
Between Art and artCiting men who paint ants
And men who don'tMen who splash abrupt
rainbowsAnd men concerned with
mimesis.Eventually the debate seems
limpLike so many watches
When listening to Edith PiafSparrow of Paris
And seeing the birdless streetOutside Srey Cafe.
Cambodia you would haunt meEven without Colors
AngkorFrench Cirque
Children slipperless and smiling.It would have something to do
with the painThe stoic resigned pain
That you swallow like so many cold foreign beers.
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A fat man walkedSearing heat
SweatingAlong Khmer riverDrawn by gamelan
Icarus likeMoth like
Singeing wings in fires of ethnicity.
The large manSandal cladBehatted
Besotted with differencePlodded weighty foot
After weighty footPast sellers of bottled petrolMotorcycle pig passengers
Pavement games of chalk and tile.
Fishers but not of menCast thin lines into brown
waters in expectation.Motorcycle taxis tootedCyclists whispered by
Tourists lugged Zoom lens
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Weighty straps cutting into Sun reddened fair shouldersDollars pulling pockets
Guilt pulling heartsOffset by tokens of
perfunctory generousness.The heavy manponderous man
Dragged his weightAlong dust sprinkled roadsthinking of Woody Guthrie
Allen GinsbergJack Kerouac
And every kind ofDharma Bum
Past and present.The silence of the kingdomBrought thoughts of kamma
and mettaSaffron robes
Hands waving incenseRoasted insects
French baguettesAnd delectable markets
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Cambodian sun kisses glistening pate
drinks in hairy armed waytalks of Kerouac
Cambodia beer sinks below unusually white frothpenultimate day
absorbs Black Magic Woman (instrumental)
rub shoulders with Jayavarman’s AngkorOrange robed monks flood from temple
ease into brick built huts.
Frangipani perfumes airwater tank dank
lone sketcher brushes paper with pen
Walls reflect enlightenment sangampink bag carrying students nestle
temple garden tree gives shade.
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Rest in Buddha gardenDrink deep of scentsWatch children play
red balloonsStatues smileTrees listen
five pmTemple bells ringballoon bursts
guy in a white crimson t-shirtPasses
It's Siem Reap
I sit peacefully.
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much hard work by students and teachers has paid off
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the gallery has been re-painted and re-hung to great effect
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everybody chipped in
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art talk by Martin Bradley
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artworks by teacher Honey Khor (aka Pei Yeou Bradley)
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artworks by teacher Honey Khor (aka Pei Yeou Bradley)
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artwork by Ratana
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artwork by teacher Kiri
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artwork by Ponleu
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artwork by teacher Narong
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artwork by teacher Seney
artwork by Sophea
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artwork by teacher Seney
artwork by Bundeth
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poetry and song by writer Paul Gnanaselvan
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art discussions by top Cambodian artists
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A Cambodian Affair
byPaul GnanaSelvam
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Love implanted,a seed of hope, a seed of kindling, froma forgotten mirage,reincarnate,of a twenty-three man years, rejuvenating, living, vivid, byan old clandestine affair, built of none but dreams- translucent, luscious, enigmatic, fuelled, the night skies illuminated, dancingto the cosmic rhythms of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, elusively, stalkingthe foot-prints of Chola, Sailendra and Jayavarma.
The moon stood to witness, ofsudden dreams, fromunbecoming,murkier and foreboding, perturbedat times, old and wavering, disturbedof unruly noises that stirred the forests,by marauding wars, shrillpiercing and deafening, and hence,evaporating, dreams halting, andnightmares began.
Drifting, floating, resting,the walls of Angkor, opened thefortress of living sandstones,brightened a cloudy night, welcoming,soft as the crickets songs of night, bequeathing, seditious apsaras at playteasing the court musicians,quenching a thirst unknown, dreams rallied, tenderly,charmed, comforted and chiming,chim-ching, chim-ching, chim-chingalongancient anklets and arm bracelets.
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Tickled and eluded,the garuda eyes, revealed sharplynot of the prized jewel, but landsplotted and stretched,squared and parched, browning paddy fields, winding dusty roads, lonely,empty, desolate, barren.
Your children- grieve,those that loosened your earth, ploughed your fields and worked your oxen- for,peace, nourishment and comfort,there was none any.
You gave me breath, awakening,the dream within dreams, immersed in the warmth of your breasts, suckled the tits of your sweetness, the amritha,the elixir the gods had laboured to churn,and lifted my spirits, formy eyes did not fail,to see and behold, happiness, content and faith,free and abundant.. Everywhere,intriguing smiles- hands raised, palms clasped,reverently-benignly acknowledge the Brahman, sayI am no different- I am human- part of you-part of this cakerawala.
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Do not despair, do not lose heart. For now, I hear the heavens open, ready to unleash the soft petals of hope, and bring forth the rains of change.
Then, look up to the north, your children will play again in the thickets of the forest- memories of pain and suffering gone foreverfor they will stay,never sold or bought.Then,look to the west, kernels of rice will bow Look to the south,Tender sea breeze will soothe your weary soul.
And, at first sunlight, when the morning mist lifts,infused with the blooming champaii, look to the east, for I will come, and dwell with you, within the walls of Angkor- once again.
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Colors of Cambodia Gallery
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by the book, the calendars or artworks and support this vital charity in Siem Reap, Cambodia
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“This Dog Barking – The Strange Story of UG Krishnamurti chronicles the bizarre history of The Cosmic Naxalite; from his troubled childhood with the Theosophists and subsequent disillusion with many of the leading spiritual teachers of the twentieth century, to his catastrophic personal life and years of homelessness and destitution in London and Paris.
Nicolas C Grey’s haunting and beautifully detailed drawings capture both the personalities and atmosphere of UG’s life and times, and vividly bring to life his uncompromising, contrary and unbalancing conversational style.
Discomforting, irreverent, intimate and nihilistic, UG’s freewheeling and radical non-teaching undermines the very foundations of human thought, freeing the hearer from illusory goals and ‘the tyranny of knowledge, beauty, goodness, truth and God’.” The publication of the graphic novel is due to be released in 2014 (date TBA). Updates and details can be found at the website: http://thisdogbarking.com/
James FarleyJames was born in the UK, studied English Literature at the University of Oxford and has been a children’s social worker for the past 22 years.
As an unsuccessful writer, his previous works include the never-performed stage adaptation of “The Radiance of the King” by Camara Laye, “Those Crazy Gurus” (unpublished) and “The Sand Pit”- a novel about a drug-smuggling air hostess in a Saudi Arabian prison (unfinished).
James began working on the text for “This Dog Barking” in 2004, and lives with his wife and son in Cambodia.
Nicolas C GreyNicolas was born in London, but grew up in Brighton on the south coast of England, and, having left both school and home at 16 is a self-taught artist.
Working under the name Dead Nic in the 1990s he was involved in the underground comix scene, producing, together with Benjamin Heath, the now legendary Watermelon comic. Nic also produced stand-alone pieces
this dog barkingduring this time which were shown in the UK with the Britart agency.
He works in a range of media, including collage, photography, comic art and mixed media wall sculpture. But, his signature style remains pen and ink drawings - the intricacy and psychedelic density of which never fail to fascinate audiences.
Nic lives and works in Cambodia and is represented by Dana Langlois of JavaArts Phnom Penh. He has been working full time on drawing “This Dog Barking” since 2009.
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JavaArts is a cultural enterprise that was launched in partnership with Java Café & Gallery in the year 2000 in Phnom Penh, where it oper-ates a gallery and arts lab. Supported by the café and gallery activities, JavaArts is a platform for the development of contemporary visual arts in Cambodia. It works to sustain arts practice for artists, researchers, curators and other creative practitioners and has provided a launch-ing pad to many emerging artists who have since gone on to become prominent figures in the contemporary art world.
In response to the changing artistic climate in Cambodia, JavaArts launched the Arts Lab and Residency program in 2012 to formalize and expand the support for art production, providing grants, work-space and logistical support to Cambodian artists. Initially, the space was created to showcase emerging artists, but it became clear that it served the community best in a generative role. The space evolved to be a modular arts lab that functions as an office, a studio, a gallery and an incubator for contemporary concepts and ideas.
The JavaArts Lab extends its support to other arts practitioners to further the knowledge, documentation and critical discourse on con-temporary Cambodian art both in the country and in the wider global context. It continues to experiment with this new platform working with artists, researchers and curators.
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guest
Karim Fakhoury is a 20 years old freelance graphic designer from Montreal, Canada. Since his young age, Karim has been passionate about visual arts and informatics, and here he is today, combining both.
He is best known for his ability to convey a poetic and sentimental visual through the characters he creates, often in surreal, fantastic or magical land-scapes that surrounds them.
Karim's eye for detail, composition and overall quality has gotten him where he is today. Karim is currently available for hire.
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departed soul
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the island
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guest
Richard Noyce
Richard Noyce has been interested in and involved with the visual arts and with writing for most of his life, and the two have come together to become a central part of what he does. He has been fortunate in being able to travel widely to explore the world of the visual arts, particularly printmaking, and equally fortunate in being able to share the results of those explorations in his books, lectures and magazine articles.
Richard is also an accomplished poet, with links back to the 1960s and The Liverpool Poets.
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1 BEN NEVIS
Han Shan walks along a small roadThat leads to the top of a mountainWhere most men see nothing but stonesBut the rare eye sees patterns in the rock.
Han Shan pauses at the top And continuesKnowing the impossibilityOf falling off a mountain.
Besides there are lakes to be passedRoads to consider on the way to the sea.
2 ABHAINN CUAG A GHLINN
The sun slides behind a sharp ridge.Han Shan sleeps among the drying reedsWhere dreams and rivers coincideAnd there is sleep enough.
The darkness in this placeCovers rocks and footmarks with equalityAnd as the day and journey slip awayNo other night awaits the coming dawn.
The dream is of a clear and shallow river.
Han
Sha
n in
the H
ighlan
ds
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3 CORRIESHALLOCH GORGE
There is in one place a deep cleftDarkened in the sunlit afternoonWhere trees rise from the bare rockBeyond which a hard stream of narrow waterCuts into the rockDeepening the cleftForever.
Han Shan observes a single birdGliding beneath a swaying bridge.
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Behind a bare-coned mountainThe red sun flashes.Light slips into a dark skyDarkening the fast riverThat flows through an empty landWhere the previous dayWill be the following dayAnd all days change the same.
Han
Sha
n in
the H
ighlan
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The dry staccato clicking of the com-puterDisturbsIn some further placeThe dust that has settledOn the rim of a Chinese vase.
To combine and separateDisparate images such as theseIs an act of mercyIn a world grown unkind.
To cast sunlight into shadowsFrom a mirror on a stringIs in its brief finalityAn act of creation.
Spac
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The sky is hung with painted characters;Stern lines of face and mountainMelt into smiles and clouds.
In the water-garden petals fall;The koto calls the hoursIn the hands of the blind maiden.
Distant percussion disturbs the sparrows;The sun between the jasmine treesIs mirrored in the echoing gong.
The bamboo flute sings of loneliness;In the evening and in autumnMy feet turn towards the mountain.
Verse
s of J
apan
ese M
usic
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I sing softly in the mountains
The lake that mirrors mountainsHolds the sky that changes always
I walk softly in the forests
Smoke rises from the islandSeen through mist that tangles trees
I dream softly in the valleys
Blue flowers beside a rocky pathEcho autumn’s stillness in a time of changes
I sing softly in the mountains
Lake
Lan
d Sk
y So
ng
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Singapore
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gallery
TINTED BY TRADITIONwaswo x. waswo
created in collaboration with third generation rajasthani hand-colourist
rajesh soni
first incarnation the first
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first incarnation the second
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radashyam dancing
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A traveller and photographer of American origin, Waswo is a distinguished artist renowned for his Indian miniature painting and vintage photography. Tinted by Tradition features a selection of photographs that subvert ethnographic clichés, and play with calendar art and popular iconography.
Waswo uses backdrops painted especially for his studio by local craftsmen, which were done by copying Waswo’s previous photographs, or painting forest scenes from imagination. Props (cycle-carts, clay pots, antique armchairs, Indian musical instruments, etc) culled from streets, farms and local shops in Udaipur, and sometimes live animals are also used in his staged photographs.
Central to the theatricality of his photographs are his models, whom he employs – often acting as themselves – to become participants in a mutually constructed enactment of life and fantasy. Photographing exclusively in natural light, Waswo creates images that hover subtly between the real and the imaginary. Rajesh Soni's gentle hand-colouring of Waswo’s black and white images adds the finishing touch to works that blur the line between traditional and contemporary.
Waswo X. Waswo was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the U.S.A. He studied at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, The Milwaukee Center for Photography, and Studio Marangoni, The Centre for Contemporary Photography in Florence, Italy. His books, India Poems: The Photographs, published by Gallerie Publishers in 2006, and Men of Rajasthan, published by Serindia Contemporary in 2011, are available worldwide. The artist has lived and travelled in India for over ten years and has lived in Udaipur, Rajasthan, for the past seven. There he collaborates with a variety of local artists including the photo hand-colourist Rajesh Soni. He has also produced a series of autobiographical miniature paintings in collaboration with artist R. Vijay. Waswo is represented in India by Gallerie Espace, New Delhi and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; in Thailand by Serindia Gallery, Bangkok; and in Switzerland by JanKossen Contemporary, Basel.
Waswo’s works have recently been acquired by numerous public and private museums, including White Rabbit Gallery, Australia. He is cur-rently exhibiting in a group show alongside leading international artists including Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin at the Mori Art Museum in Japan to mark its tenth anniversary this year.
Rajesh Soni was born on the 6th of August, 1981. He is an artist living in Udaipur, Rajasthan, who has become known primarily for his abili-ties to hand paint digital photographs. He is the son of artist Lalit Soni, and the grandson of Prabhu Lal Soni (Verma), who was once court photographer to the Maharana Bhopal Singh of Mewar. Prabhu Lal was not only a court photographer, but also a hand-colourist who painted the black and white photographs that he produced. His skills of hand-colouring photographs were passed down to Rajesh through his father Lalit.
Indigo Blue Art, 33 N
eil Road, Singapore 088820
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ganpat as a village man
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China
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langmusi’s red monksphotography Pei Yeou BradleyText Martin Bradley
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Langmusi lays at the border of China and Tibet and mixes Han Chinese, Hui and Amdo Tibetans in that small town. It has become famed as a stopping off place for Western travellers heading into Tibet. Langmusi is also known for its collection of Buddhist monasteries and the monks’ red clothing. The distinctive red dye worn by the monks comes from boiling sappan wood with metal, like rusty nails, to produce a deep red dye, without the nails sappan dye is pink. If left for some time the sappan red dye turns purple.
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The area is also known for still practicing ‘sky burials’, or jhator - a Tibetan style of ‘burial’, giving alms to the birds (vultures). The body of the deceased is flayed, and taken apart to facilitate faster and more thorough consumption by the vultures in the spirit of inter connectedness of all beings and the environment. Buddhists believe that the deceased’s body is nothing but an empty shell, and that the spirit has moved on, towards a new incarnation - a re-birth.
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The vulture is a sacred creature in Tibet, and is known as a "holy eagle" or a dakini (feminine sky spirit). It is thought that disposing of the deceased via a ‘sky burial’ , may have originated due to the lack of soil and the paucity of wood in the Tibetan area, mixed with a reverence for vultures.
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gastrognome
Sultry songstress Sarah Vaughn had Black Coffee. Cliff Richard preferred Expresso Bongo, and Robert Plant had One More Cup of Coffee, but in Ipoh (Malaysia) the coffee is white, sweet and has more than a hint of mischief about it.
Over the last few years in Malaysia, the sleepy town of Ipoh has become synonymous with White Coffee – a light roasted coffee bean. To attain this, coffee beans are roasted on a large metal platter, along with margarine to caramelise them, giving that unique Asian taste to silky coffee. The other form of Malaysian coffee – used for the ubiquitous ‘kopi-o’, is a darker roast including locally derived sugar in the roasting process.
It is conjectured that coffee arrived in Malaysia either from Arab traders or, more likely, from Indonesians fleeing their home country. The Dutch originally planted coffee beans in Java and later Sumatra
Sweet, White, Perky.By Martin Bradley
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siew pau (pork buns)
chinese muffins
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(Indonesia) in the later half of the 17th century. It is rumoured that Ipoh coffee drinking followed migrating Chinese tin-miners, making their fortunes in the silvery tin fields of Perak, and in particular - Ipoh. From those migrant workers grew the coffee market stalls and, eventually, the coffee culture and the kopi tiam (literally coffee shops). Those cafes have proliferated from the 1950s onwards. Today, the coffee drinking culture is as ingrained into the Malaysian way of life as eating noodles or rice.
It was a customarily languid day as I stepped out of my friend’s car, in old town, Ipoh. An equatorially hot sun warmed my back as we sauntered past the aged buildings which, in their antiquity, lent a unique character to that area. It was a different world from the rest of Ipoh. Those gnarled antique buildings, resplendent in their history but faded with the passage of time, surrounded us, as did the last few mountains off the Titiwangsa Range. Aged, flaking, wooden blinds were half-drawn to protect people, and produce, from the bright, glaring, sun. Brilliant red paper lanterns, emblazoned with gold, bounced in a slight breeze. It was getting close to Chinese New Year, red was appearing everywhere.I had, literally, been steered towards a coffee shop called Sin Yoon Loong Kedai Kopi – at least that is what it said on the business card. My friend, a veteran of Ipoh and drinker of only the best Ipoh White Coffee, guided me to the unassuming shop mentioned on the card. Sin Yoon Loong, the shop next door and the one opposite also claim to
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be specialists in the Malaysian traditional coffee house experience. That particular experience comes replete with tantalising food dishes and good, silkily sweet, Malaysian style coffee.
The coffee shop was full of ambience and people. We stood waiting for a few moments, ready for a table to clear. I was longing to dive into the kopitiam* experience, taste for myself the toast with coconut jam (kaya), and steamed bread accompanying lightly cooked eggs. I wasn’t disappointed. Sin Yoon Loong was all I wanted it to be. Many Malaysian people eat noodles for breakfast – pawn noodle soup, fried flat rice-noodles etc, yet despite my years in Malaysia it is not a habit I have taken up. Sin Yoon Loong is as an authentic Malaysian coffee shop with all kinds of delicious food. It has the best luxuriantly smooth coffee, and the sort of friendly ambience you might come to expect after several decades of serving discerning customers. While other shops in the locality might proclaim that they serve the eponymous Ipoh White Coffee and have branded that fact, Sin Yoon Loong serves it with humility and without drawing undue attention to the fact. The coffee itself is filtered the traditional Malaysian way – through a cotton sock, held at the top by a thick metal wire. Ground coffee is placed into the ‘sock’ and hot water poured. Malaysians like their coffee sweet, so condensed milk is added to the mix. The brew is served in what appears to be an antique Portuguese cup - which had become synonymous with coffee drinking in Malaysia. The cup and saucer have an off-white colour, with a green floral design.
Unlike Middle Eastern coffee shops, Malaysian kopitiams are not an all male preserve. And, unlike certain American branded coffee chain stores, kopitiams are not expensive. The coffee does not come in a paper, or plastic bucket tarted up with cinnamon, but straight, humble, honest, and cheap. The choice of food shames any Western attempts, and varies from the already mentioned noodles to freshly baked cakes, Portuguese egg tarts, steamed breads and wondrous concoctions such as my breakfast of kaya on toast and boiled egg. The kopitiam, and Sin Yoon Loong - in Ipoh, especially, are experiences not to be missed by any traveller to Malaysia.
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