After school dance lessons in central Kuala Lumpur are a bit of a time-consuming hassle at the end of a long day but as well as being good fun for the kids they also provide an opportunity to eat out on local cheap and cheerful delicacies. And tonight's dining was no different. While Rupert and Trixie practised their waltz and cha-cha (they are not really advanced enough for the cha cha cha) Edwin and I strolled down to the China Town Food Court in the home of fakery, Petaling Street. Nestled among the pirated DVDs, tasteful and tasteless t-shirts and Guccis of many colours the Food Court offers pretty much anything to tempt the taste buds. While Edwin tucked in to Chicken Rice I munched my way through Claypot Seafood. These very direct translation titles don't really do the dishes any justice. Edwin's roasted chicken breast, with crispy spiced skin, served with flavoured rice, mixed nuts, coriander, spring onions and brown stuff complimented my pot of soy sauced rice with squid, white fish, prawns and a sprig or two of octopus and both were washed down with iced lemon tea. Marks and Spencer's advertisers would have had a field day. "Not just brown stuff, this is China Town Food Court Brown Stuff."
Preparations for next academic year are in full swing with exam groups all looking forward to their final papers and teachers enjoying those rewarding free lessons. In my non contact time today I finally got round to watching Ibsen's "A Doll's House" on the extremely good www.digitaltheatreplus.com. I was looking at it with a possibility of studying it with next year's A Level group. However I soon got caught up in the extreme naturalism and got very cross with Torvald Helmer. How could he be such an arse? I have always been pleased with the strength that Nora showed in leaving at the end, despite the massive sacrifices she had to make. Memories of visiting Grimstad in 2006, and my earliest brushes with Herr Ibsen's works at Huddersfield came flooding back and I had that pleasant post-quality-theatre-feeling of having had my emotions and brain exercised. I had also noted down a long list of possibly monologues and duologues for my students to tackle too.
In more mundane matters I think that I have discovered KL's most under-used piece of furniture: the shoe rack. Malaysia is no different to most other South East Asian countries in that it is customary to take your shoes off before going into people's houses and sometimes shops and places of work. The sign for whether any given place is a shoes off or on establishment is either a shoe rack, pile of shoes or, more commonly, both. Strategically placed outside the Kuala Lumpur Dance Academy are several metal shoes racks and two signs reading "Strictly Place Shoes on Rack." The only way getting near to the racks and signs is to pick your way carefully over and through all the discarded shoes.