This Country Is Going to Pot
I've been coming to Malaysia since 2003. It's been about six trips, total time spent here is approaching two years. I can say now, without a doubt, Malaysia is getting worse.National Treasure (Lost)
A small but telling example of this declination is Teh Tarik: Malaysia's national drink. It's a simple tea, usually Lipton Yellow Label black tea, or instant powdered tea. It's mixed with sugary condensed milk. It's as sweet as it is omnipresent.The preparation of Teh Tarik used to be a visual and auditory ritual from the heart of KL to the most rural kampung. In theory, the tea is brewed, mixed with the condensed milk, and then poured from one pitcher to another in a tall, bartenderesque performance. That's where the name Teh Tarik (pulled tea) comes from. It was like the tea was pulled from the sky.
The bold gestures and splashing, slurping sound used to highlight a visit to a restaurant.
Then, somewhere along the way between worlds, people stopped pulling the tea.
Now, it's just Teh. No Tarik. They still call it that, you still order that, but nobody tariks the teh anymore.
You can tell right away, because it's hot. Teh tarik should be lukewarm. The pulling of the tea used to cool it. It also used to be frothy, bubbly, the head of the tea a testament to the love poured into the drink from the person who made it. And it used to be mixed.
Now, when you get it, there is no head, it's hot, and it's often unmixed, with a telltale layer of condensed milk on the bottom.
Rose and I got two cups the other day at a new hawker centre, and it was real teh tarik. Old fashioned, frothy, delicious teh tarik. It shocked me into melancholic stroll down Jalan Memorie. A cup of times since passed, moments of my young adulthood that I can never recapture.
