THOU SHALT NOT LIE

Walking along Petaling Street in the good old KL, you can see lots of shops selling the latest bags from LV, Coach, branded perfumes, shoes from Nike that have yet to be launched, DVDs of all kinds, branded shirts, copy watch, sir? We got all the best brands, Tag, Rolex, etc…….……… you get the drift……….

All these are in fact, and some of them, very good copies of the originals, sometimes even a keen eye is not enough to tell them apart from the originals…….. Unless you take the ‘Rolex’ watches apart and find the movements are from a Japanese brand………. The wallets, some say, even comes with the ‘warranty’ cards………… The qualities of the DVDs are not too bad, too. You seldom get. Copies recorded from your local cinemas, now they tell you these are ‘master copies’………. Whatever fakes / copies that you want, you might just find it here…….

Further up in the peninsular, north of the border, the copies are more rampant. ‘what grade do you want?’ from a obviously fake adidas t-shirt ‘ sir, this one not released to public yet, will be coming out in this year’s spring collection’ to a extremely well copied Prada handbag ‘ sir, this one got warranty card’, damm, even some of the girls here are fake…….’sir, want good time? I give you good time…….’ And when you go for the ‘good time’, you ask yourself ‘damm! That down there looks something like mine!’

Even further up north, there are a species called the ‘fake virgins’. Don’t know how the plastic surgeons do it, but the hymens that are thorn the first time magically re-appears after some fine craftsmanship………. Even virginity is not safe from fakes anymore……

Now, coming back home, there are fakes that can cost you your life. Fake ‘gentleman’s help’ medicine has been going around, causing many an old man, or in some cases young men, to literally ‘die cock stand’. These fakes, like fake brake pads, engine oil, auto trans fluid, spark plugs, are not good for your, or your car’s health. Some fakes, in the case of the spark plugs and atf, are so good that sometimes you ask yourself if it’s the original that you’re getting. In doubt, consult your friendly mechanic of go to the authorised service centre and prepare to pay a bomb.

Now, there are some fakes that although not as good as the original, are also not hazardous to your health, only to be taken when in times of desperation, or, like me, too lazy to drive 300+km to have the real thing. I’m talking about the Singapore Styled Fried Hokkien Mee at the food court in a mall along Jalan Bukit Bintang. Man! You really got to miss home to eat something like that there! Then, there are the Chinese. Petaling Street, also known as Chinatown in KL, used to be run by the Chinese, manning their ‘copy watch’ shops and such, until they got rich and now, Chinatown should be called ‘Banglatown’ as the Bangladeshis are running the shops for the Chinese bosses.

The Indians, now, have gotten into the act too. I had the pleasure of having an Indian vegetarian dinner with a good friend of mine, Vijay, and his family. We went to this Indian vegetarian restaurant called Gopala Vegetarian Restaurant, ran by this chap that goes by the name, you guessed it, Gopala. All the usual suspects from any Indian vegetarian restaurant were represented in their menu, such as the chapatti, tosai, roti chanai (no telur or /and bawang here, after all, it is an Indian vegetarian restaurant) look further down the menu and what do I see? Fish curry? Satay? Chicken rice? Yong tau foo? Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or have I been working out too hard at the gym? These, found in an Indian vegetarian restaurant that specialised in ‘pure vegetarian foods’ and ‘no garlic or onions’?

Well, in the old days, fire crackers are lit by the Chinese during the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. Now, the Indians, I guess (don’t quote me on this), after seeing the Chinese doing such with a big Merc in their driveway and thinking….hmmmmmm must do this so that I can get a big Merc in MY driveway, start lighting long lines of fire crackers during their Deepavali celebrations too…….. the only ones that really get something out of this will be the man in blue saying ‘tuan, ini………’

Well, back to the point. The Chinese has been having fake meat for some time now, fake chicken, fish, duck mutton, pork, etc. Gopala used these fake meats, mostly of soya origins, combined with his spices, to make a fish curry that rivals the one along the roadside in Bangsar. A blind man could’nt tell the difference, until he took a bite on a piece of ‘fish’…….. other than the fake fish, the dish really tasted like a really good fish curry, complete with the fishy taste. The curry went extremely well with the roti chanai. The satay, too, was quite good, chicken satay, I presume, as the skewered ‘meat’ tasted like chicken and the ‘peanut’ gravy tasted like the real thing. There was the usual tosai and roti chanai, not too bad…….. actually, quite good……. A mamak fried bee hoon, szechuan fried noodles (I don’t think you can get this in the szechuan province in china) and the masala tea (tasted really good, the spice infused tea with milk) all in all, a very good and satisfying dinner. This shop is located along Jalan Thambipillai, near the YMCA and opposite the tamil Methodist church……..must go back there again, especially for the satay…….Vijay, when will you be back in KL again?