A working weekend, largely. Graduation one day, and a recruitment fair the next.

But the interstices offered room for one of those inadvertently multicultural sequences that it's actually very easy to stumble upon here in Malaysia.

Indonesian movies:

On Saturday evening we went to a double-bill Indonesian film programme at a nice little complex in the Pitching Centre. The first was a doco, Garuda power: the spirit within. A very entertaining, albeit saddening, look at the history of Indonesian action movies.

Much as I enjoyed that, the next one, Siti, was in a league of its own.

It haunts me still, this film. I can't get its black and white shadows out of my head. The "Siti question" encapsulates for me a much bigger reality.

Siti is struggling to look after her paralysed husband, her small son, and her mother-in-law. She also needs to pay off the debt for the boat that the sea has swallowed. She sells peyek on Parangtritis beach by day, and performs at a karaoke bar by night. But she can come by the large sum of debt repayment money only by engaging in a much more ambiguous relationship.

She's not a prostitute, and the young man who helps her genuinely wants to marry her. But the bitterness of her broken relationship with her husband, and the revulsion with which she regards the path she seems to be heading down, together push her, tottering still from too much dodgy alcohol, towards the fierce waters of the sea. We are not told precisely what happens next. But we think we know.

This is Siti's Parangtritis. The Parangtritis of the malevolent sea. The Parangtritis of flimsy houses, fine-line morals, not much food on a plate. The Parangtritis of just scraping by.

And while the movie gives us many examples of mutual help and kindness and compassion and fun, the burden of debt and loss is hard to lift.

Japanese lunch:



We, whose lives are ludicrously privileged, had Sunday lunch at Kita no Zen, which is part of Hokkaido Ichiba at The Gardens.

For me, a big bowl of beef and soba noodles, very delicately flavoured. And an eel set for Nigel, the different containers (including one with that wonderful savoury egg custard called chawanmushi) nicely laid out on a tray.

I sampled a drink made of orange and "umeshu", which is derived from the ume fruit. Nigel plunged into a kyoho soda. Kyoho, it turns out, are giant Japanese mountain grapes...

There's a kind of grating contrast here, right? And let's be clear: there are plenty of people in Indonesia eating at restaurants much flasher than this one. But such is the power of a good movie that I can't help but feel the jolt of the juxtaposition.

Pakistani sculpture:



Amin Gulgee currently has an exhibition entitled Walking on the Moon at the Wei-Ling Contemporary Gallery. The artworks are made of copper, the russet hues of the metal setting off the swirls of the pieces.

My favourites were the various renditions of the humble chapati.

One, called the Cosmic Chapati: Unknown Centre, was done one wire at a time. As the artist puts it: Theres so much chaos, turmoil, war, evil and horror in this world. This is like my meditation... and it is all about seeking control and balance.

This is part of the answer, surely, to my Siti question. But this is the "cool" part of the answer. There has to be a "hot" part too, right? A part that shouts, enraged, against the inequalities of the world.



We got to know about Wei-Ling from a video we saw while having breakfast at Tous les Jours (a "French-inspired Korean bakery") on my way to watch my Malaysian and Chinese students graduate, alongside a host of other nationalities, from my British-Malaysian-Chinese university.

I like it that my life is anything but parochial. I've striven for this. I make no apologies. But what is my duty of care for the Sitis of the world? Those who have involuntarily run aground, and whose high and dry position turns up in my Saturday evening?

In terms of balancing global possibilities and local problems, in terms of juggling the requirements of compassion, celebration, and meditation, I find myself with no better answers than the ones I struggled with at university the first time round.

It's sobering.