Jus Gelas Besar

The Chinese Malaysian girls are great; the ones from Kuala Lumpur made me immune to the charm of exposed female legs. Many of them wear ridiculously short shorts or mini skirts. Being born and brought up in the country of sari clad ladies, the exposed legs were a novelty to me. Having seen so many legs throughout the day, I became immune by sunset.

But on a serious note, they are really great. The first two Malaysians I met were U-Jean Ch'ng and Adeline Lee, both Chinese Malaysians. U-Jean taught me some words from Bahasa Malayu. Adeline donated 1.00RM in my quest to Malaysia after I had got the visa. She also helped me out by providing directions to several places around KL over phone or text. Grateful to these ladies, "Terima Kasih".

On my fist day in KL, the first sign that I managed to read and interpret all by myself said "Jus Gelas Besar 2.00RM". Means "Big Glass of Juice for 2.00RM". Just a few weeks back in Dhaka while walking across a slum with U-jean, she had said "Besar is big, kecil is small". I passed this knowledge to Euzawa. Whether he has passed this to someone else remains unknown.

I went to that place later to check how besar was their gelas. It was quite besar!

Euzawa

Verbal language is just one channel of communication, humans have several others. Therefore, overcoming the language barrier is easier than it seems.

Euzawa was my room-mate in the hostel at KL for two days. He spoke little English and I knew only a few Japanese words. Somehow we still managed to communicate and have a good time hanging around in KL. We both learned things from each other. I shared my little vocabulary of Bahasa Malayu with him, he taught me some Japanese. At Jalan Petaing (China Town) he showed me how to use chopsticks.

Arigato gozaimas Euzawa!

Bangla signs in KL

After spending the night at LCCT, I took the first bus to KL. From KL Central took a subway train to Jalan Petaling a.k.a China Town. The guidebook said I could find cheap hotel/hostels in that area. I walked out of the subway station looking for a sign that says "Hotel", "Hostel" or "Guest house".

I found something better. I found a sign written in my language saying "Bangla market". As I neared it, I saw a big flag of my country on another sign, bigger than most of the ones we see back home. I walked towards the flag and found myself standing on a street full of shops with Bangla signs on them. I had found the Bangla Street in China Town of the Kuala Lumpur city.

I walked to the first shop in front of me. Asked the man working there to show me a hotel. The hotel he suggested had two more of my countrymen working in it. Soon I met some more. Before it was 24 hours in KL, I had started to feel at home. Thanks to all the immigrant Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia. Salute to all these hard working people; the remittance* from them keeps our feeble economy alive and the support from them makes newcomers feel at home in KL.

*Bangladesh received $11.7 billion as remittance in 2010