Talk twelve.
Kuala Lumpur, 05th December
- I’d fancy some Thai food.
- No wonder. We’ve got no time to get to know anything about Malaysian cuisine, so I’m going to tell you what I know about Thai cooking.
- A chat will not substitute real good food.
- It has to. Stay patient. Blending elements of several Southeast Asian traditions, Thai cooking puts emphasis on lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic components. The spiciness of Thai cuisine is well known. As with other Asian cuisines, balance, detail and variety are of great significance to Thai chefs. Thai food is known for its balance of three to four fundamental taste senses in each dish or the overall meal: sour, sweet, salty, and bitter. Which of the tastes appeals to you most?
- Definitely sweet and sour. But nobody can beat you in eating extremely spicy dishes. Some Thai people may chicken out when it comes to eating fiercely hot meals but not you. For a whitey like you, you must have a distorted system of the taste buds. Maybe you’ve got too many of some of them or too few of the others.
- When I ask for papaya salad, for example, waiters always ask me whether I am sure what I want, and look at me carefully.
- There’s a Thai restaurant in front of our hotel. Shell we go there?
- Seth, too, would like to go there. He’s so proud when we comment on Thailand’s friendliness to tourists in comparison with Malaysia’s. Basically, we are a bit unfair because we only managed to experience Kuala Lumpur.
- Islam is what bothers me the most here.
- You don’t like Islam, do you?
- I don’t like any religion which imposes its rules and any state which allows the church interfere in its matters.
- Everybody here are so serious. I miss the smiles, easiness and kindness to strangers. It all reminds me of Poland…
- You could already feel it at the airport to when we found ourselves among hundreds of tightly veiled women.
- But I like that mixture of races, cultures, and religions.
- Whatever. Islam plays here the most important role here, anyway.
- As you see it shows a bit milder face here. You can have some drinks in a bar, for example.
- They add an extra tax to each drink. It’s called „Allah tax”.
- For some young people in Asia, Malaysia is a paradise of tolerance compared with other Muslim countries.
- You have Kami in mind, whom we met yesterday after you had been chatting with him on PlanetRomeo, don’t you?
- Yes, I do. Kami is a Pers who thanks to his rich family can study in Kuala Lumpur instead of his hometown Teheran.
- He dreams of going to Europe, alike most of educated gay Asians.
- They think it could be easier for them there. They keep forgetting that as foreigners and of a different race, they would be a second class citizens, anyway.
- Don’t you think Seth was in a bad mood last night? He must’ve been a bit jealous, musn’t he?
- A competitor to your feelings has appeared.
- To our feelings!
- Seth is a friend of ours and he doesn’t have to doubt about our being faithful to him or not.
- The evening in Kami’s company was very interesting and it was so nice to look at his attractive face and winning smile.
- Persians belong to the Caucasian race, and as far as a race in concerned, they don’t have anything to do with Arabs.
- Unfortunately, most of them are Muslims.
- Long ago was Persia Islamized but managed not to get Arabicized.
- Anyway, Kami is an atheist. Besisdes, the problem of homosexuality in a serious issue in Iran. It’s a crime punishable by death.
- Hypocrisy of the system makes the offender only the one who is a passive gay man who allegedly tempts unappeased males who can’t experience the pleasure of heterosexual premarital sex.
- Those who pursue such criminals, themselves have a lot “behind the ears”.
- I’d say behind the other parts of their bodies, as well.
- Let’s give the Iranians a break. We might meet Kami somewhere in Europe again, so we’ll drill the subject once more. Did you like the view over Kuala Lumpur from the television tower MENARA?[1]
- Not really. But we had no choice, since the famous twin towers PETRONAS[2] are being renovated.
- I recall that in Göteborg we’d go up some tower too.
- What has come to your head out of a sudden?
- For I want to talk about „your” Swedes.
- How come are you so interested in the Swedes while you’ve got here so many cool guys from all over the world’s races. There was no Swede “of mine”.
- I remember when I went to Sweden for the first time, I saw the people in the streets in Malmö, I got an impression that the majority of guys are gay!
- ???
- All of them so well taken care of, with nice hair-style, colourful and well-dressed would look so unmanly.
- I understand, it must’ve been a shock after all those gray-dun, dull looking Poles at the end of 1900s. The more gray the more masculine – it’s a Polish stereotype, isn’t it?
- For all those years there hadn’t been any attractive Swede who you would become charmed by?
- Neither attractive, nor good-looking, nor intelligent had no chance with me.
- For you used to be so virtuous and faithful?!
- Not that. For I had no opportunity of meeting them in person. At work there would be mainly women or British and American men. I didn’t use to go out to bars alone, which I couldn’t afford anyway. The only entertainment for me was going out to the cinema once a week.
- I have to believe you.
- My relationship with Andrzej, despite the distance, continued, and it was not without significance. Basically, I would travel to Szczecin four time a year for longer stays.
[1] Menara Kuala Lumpur
[2] Petronas Kuala Lumpu
