SURUT PULUT MANGGIS
By:  Iris P. Concepcion

My title is a Bahasan Malaysian food stall that I found myself writing in my piece of paper merely because it sounds exotic.

I found myself being gifted with an insignia bearing this statement: "Limkokwing Academy of Creativity and Innovation Kelantan" with an arrow pointing above that could hit directly on the person who is wearing it.  Here is how the directive symbol went:

Traces of my footsteps, imprinted on streets with drainage areas as big as living rooms.  I am, again, transfixed in Kota Bharu, a place of pleasures that often render unique sound technology through your earlobes. The city is celebrating "Youth Power: Catalyst Creative Industry" with the Bahasan Malaysian "Kuasa Anak Muda, Pemangkin Industri Kreatif". 

The area reeks of Middle Eastern hazy fragrance with people claiming to have come from moon eating broiled chicken legs by hand, chomping the meat like astrodome warrior, eating noisily while commenting on the dish as fried.  Being the feisty corrector that I am, I politely told him that it is broiled, not fried.  The warrior looks like Danny de Vito with a pair of seablue eyes.  He is bald as a scorching dessert.  He offered me half of his chicken but I hastily declined, preferring the fried variety at that time of the day, with flipping double burgers blinding my vision with lettuce and cheese and twister fries.  I tasted it, in a pinch, and found it delectable.

The gladiator explains the importance of fresh meat: cleanliness in food, according to him, is a holy ritual.  This reminded me of one of my favorite immigration officers at the Malaysian border named Afifi, an Ali Baba and His Magic Carpet character who readily offered the thesaurus meaning of his given name.  It means clean.  I told him I am an Eye.  He spoke a little Spanish at the end of his Malaysian sentence and I had replied in English, just like that.

Kelantan, at this particular day, is brimming with good, old-fashioned marketing styles.  I have seen the incubation process of the food product twister fries.  I suggested to the stall owner that he could fold a paper like a cone and place the french fries inside.  He sells it for 2 ringgit; a bystander with a mathematical entrepreneurship skill had obliged with : "No. 2.50 ringgit."

I said it is acceptable, considering the cost of its packaging.  I tossed away the styrofoam as an alternative container, explaining that it denudes the environment.

I had talked to a lot of Muslim people in the area with their ripe tomatoes still adorned with fresh leaves on their trunks.  I find it very easy to talk to these diners, explaining the importance of haggling for prices.  The city's stadium is holding a singing contest by this time, before the stomachs had grumbled for lunch.  It is an extremely humid day, with the rock tunes falling off key as the vendors at A & W burger stall are laughing at the spooky caricatures of singers doing damage to pop tunes.  I visited the food stalls and had seen the plentiful faces of shrimps cooked in 101 ways, with Tom Yang as its main spice.  I, an ignorant connoisseur of food, told the cook to use the coconut milk instead.  I told them that a shrimp could be simply fried and tossed to a mayonnaise dip, or could be used as an ingredient to a salad.  I have seen bread buttered with fish paste beside green mangoes.  I merely demonstarted that the green mangoes go well with the fish paste instead of bread.  The bun could be best eaten with a fruit jam, I suggested. 

Funnily, there is an iimmediate translator who explains my gourmet skittishness to the bystanders as they all agree and took note of my verbal notes.  I am likewise greeted by a huge "kawa", a cooking gadget of my youth where my favorite kakanin, kalamay hati, is cooked.  A Muslim man with an imam cap was mixing various ingredients with raisins and rice.  I immediately loved this gastronomical sight as it reminded me of paella and arroz valenciana, the legacy of Spain to the Philippines, which are likewise my mother's favorite cooking dish during important occasions.  This man, I had concluded, is well way ahead of his cooking potentials.  I had wanted to tell him the necessity of putting a food coloring to the dish but had surmised, he does not need further instruction.  He had removed the burnt rice on the side of the kawa which is likewise the proper thing to do since it could deflect the original taste of the dish.

I have seen various snack food in their different offerings of prawn variations.  I found them too spicy and too sweet for my tastebud.  I befriended the guy selling his food ware and offered my cent's worth of advice:  "Add a little bit of salt or barbecue powder."  I had commented that perhaps, he could eat Pringles or Lays instead. His reply was a courageous: "No, can't do."  He explained that the taste is the preferred choice of people in the whole of Asia to which I retorted: "Really, now." 

Another guy pointed me to a soft ice-cream stall with a twist shape. Sundaes had arrived in Kota Bharu and children are licking the delicacy like melted candies.

Roti here is sold hardened, with an egg that is huge like a bullhorn.  I have tasted this is Yala.  It is served with milk and butter, a building ready to be devoured.  Another bunch of food techies, I had readily deduced,as I continued with my survey of food peddled under the perfectly built white tents. They are with sturdy, steel railings.

This is where I had heard a trio of men singing in four voices in rhumba style. Unlike the previous performers experimenting with  their pop tunes, they are dressed up impeccably, singing traditional Malaysian music fused with Iranian beats.  I had never heard a sound enginnering as good as this one since childhood. The quality is solid witout the irksome scratches.  An amplifier-sounding emcee was competing with the vocalists nearby but they were drowned by the technology of the serenading trio. 

A soloist likewise sang with an exceptional accompaniment. His voice tried to match the superiority of the sound masters. Eventually, he was accorded help by pipes springing out from nowhere: in second, third, fourth voices, he had sounded then like his attire. Powerful and stirring.

There was an exhibition of designs by the young ones and I was quick to point out to the gathering students the ways to spot good materials.  I had observed that most of the displays were mediocre compared with the obvious things I had found: slippers on a white-shirted guy who just passed by (impeccably designed), wood pillow that I had seen my roomamte used in Satun. It  looks like a bookshelf and I had a difficult time explaining to my young students that it is, indeed, a pillow. This bunch is niftily attired with shiny shoes.  One knows how to tap dance. I told him to join the talent show at the stadium since he could provoke a cultural revival there. He looks like the actor in the film, The Piano. He speaks Tagalog, likes bangus and I showed him how fishes in fish ponds must be lensed.  He had asked me then where I came to know a lot of fish history.  I mentioned the island of Visayas, and Aklan particularly, as a breeding ground for the best, quality sea food in the country. He could be stomped by my knowledge of sea creatures.

His companions showed me some of the wares designed by the youth power group. A luminous key chain that could wilt when placed beside a motorcycle with tiger-printed seat and pink wheels parked outside the exhibitor area.  I had seen tin smiths designing robots too.

And the books, the books. Like the atlases of my childhood, they are huge and massive and I had commended the young man manning it for the creativity infused inside the pages. The quality of paper is priceless, with painting canvasses as borders. I could not touch the books since "You are not a Muslim."  I had already browsed though; the words coming out alive with letters dancing and prancing, moppets sneakily surprising in page 88, similar to standing fans, blurting, "WHAT A BOOK!" after a douse of paragraphs swirling with magic and mystery. I need live commentators inside my book like I would envision my films to be.

Other notable designs: stitches on pants and shirts, leather bags, improved uniform for professionals, buildings and trees lit up by lights from down under, lighted like prima donnas on a stage.

Now, there's my ultimate performer: Massive Tree That Looks Like My Father's Own Pine Tree.

I bought brochures of Kelantan back to Yala and found their covers apt. It is holding a Kite Festival soon, inside its beautifully designed soccer field, with children playing and coached by able-minded men.