The evening I decided to stop my acupuncture treatment, we took the Monorail to my old neighborhood in Kuala Lumpur (KL). That’s where I lived until I was four; before my mother, sisters and I moved to Ipoh. I had never been back to this area even during the few years I studied in KL. Specifically, that neighborhood is known as the Tiong Nam District, but generally, it’s called Chow Kit. Some guidebooks would describe Chow Kit as having a red light district and a commercial market area.

Where second-hand clothes go to die

Not too far from the LRT station is the big market with dry and wet sections. Slightly further away are racks and racks of second-, third-, or even eighth-hand clothes. This is where unsold clothes from places like Salvation Army and Goodwill in the first world come to live out their golden years before dying in a less-developed country. I don’t think we were ever in the red light district, but Kenric was solicited twice; once practically across the street from a police station.

My Old Tiong Nam Neighborhood Feels Familiar

Each Room Is For An Entire Household

The room we rented is on the third (top) floor. Each room is for an entire household; in our case, six people. The bed took up most of the space. My three sisters and I slept on the floor under the bed. It was a bitch every time someone needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Not to mention the bathroom is all the way down the hallway. During the day, people from most of the rooms would fight over who’s been using the common tap, bathroom and/or kitchen for too long. Nothing good happened to me there except for the early warnings to never be addicted to gambling or alcohol. My then-teenage sisters got along well with the children around the same age from another family. I amazed my sister by remembering so much from when I was only four. I amazed myself too.

We got to explore the adjacent hallway

The open-air hallway in front of our room is now enclosed and locked, and renovated into a common living area. All the rooms have padlocks on them. The opposite hallway was not locked so I quietly walked through. A teenage boy was sweeping the floor in the first room, exactly what his parents who just left told him to do. There was no mattress in the room; clothes and a school uniform on hangers lined all sides of the wall. Most people were not home yet. In the last room, two young men were on the floor using their smartphones; they looked up for a split second.

Locked In or Locked Out

The gate to the rooftop was broken but still it was locked. I could see the Petronas Twins Towers. That view flooded me with a lot of emotions. Even though the Petronas Towers were completed only in 1996, seeing the icon of KL through a gate brought back a very cruel and tricky feeling; a feeling where I sometimes felt locked in, and sometimes locked out. Later that night, at a bar with Kenric, with utmost humility and gratitude, I raised my glass to “Getting Out of There”.

Map of Places Visited