On a hot hot night, I had a jalan-jalan cari makan adventure with my housemate, Aye. We stopped by a Thai restaurant near the Danau Kota Uptown, Setapak. It was nearly midnight, so I wanted to order something light. There was a thing that caught my eyes.

Yee Mee Hot Pot.

That is really tempting, I thought. Well, I am not really a Hot Pot person, but what the heck, why shouldn’t I just allow myself to taste something else besides nasi lemak or nasi kerabu or nasi dagang and all that? Sure this hot pot wouldn’t harm me, would it? So, I ordered one Yee Mee Hot Pot. While waiting for the pot, I recalled one of my reading classes where I informed my students about the history of hot pot, where it evolved in the early 20th century among coolies whose back-breaking labor involved tugging riverboats upstream against the strong current of the Yangtze River. Underpaid and overworked, these coolies could afford little for meals and often gathered around a fire and a common pot, into which they dipped any food they could get their hands on. This was how hot pot started. For me, this sounded like how Muslims’ Asyura began during the times of critical hunger and emergency when these poor muslims gathered all sort of foods and lumped them together into a big pot and produce a culinary masterpiece called Asyura. Hmm.

Back to hot pot business, I couldn’t help smiling when I remembered my students’ daunting expressions when I told them about the bizarre choice of edibles at any traditional hot pot which include calf’s liver, pig’s brain and cow’s throat. It is delicious, I said jokingly, and they would moan and groan, erk, uwek, yuck, disgusting. I went on telling them about one extraordinary fact of China – the hotter the weather is, the more people here like to eat the hottest food imaginable, and they believe that if they want to stay cool, they have to get hot!

What an eccentric principle of living.

Oh, my Yee Mee Hot Pot was now ready in front of me. It looked so yummy, and I couldn’t wait to have it, but after few minutes of deliberate attempts, I couldn’t stand the heat – it was too darn hot! So I gave up and asked Aye to finish it. Take it, it is too hot, I don’t need this kind of hotness on a hot night, so you can enjoy this hot pot because I think you are very hot, I said to Aye. He ate it religiously until I realised that he had in his mouth all the things that I wanted – prawns, meets, fish balls, chicken, and all the edibles that I longed to have, and I couldn’t see them before because they were hidden right under the hot Yee Mee! If only I had been a little more patient and stronger, I could have savoured all those things. I felt like telling Aye, Stop it! Stop it! Goddammit. Give it back to me! It is my damn hot pot. I paid for it. But of course I didn’t say these because everything had just gone, glowing right into the famous hallway of my housemate’s stomach.

After some time, I smiled at myself because this Yee Mee Hot Pot experience taught me a very important lesson - it was not about the hot pot, it was more than that. I have always known the fact that hot pot is definitely hot and potentially detrimental, so I have to expect this tricky fact beforehand and be ready for all the possible consequences, and if I am tough and resilient enough to bear with all these pressures and challenges, I will be surprisingly rewarded with unexpected things towards the end of the trials and tribulations, because no matter how hot the hot pot is, it is worthwhile.

So is life.

We all walk through life differently

Some walk quickly
Through a dangerous Chow Kit Road
Afraid of the pickpockets
“Get lost, fuck you!!”

Some walk slowly
Through a high-class Bangsar Village
Admiring the latest brand of perfumes
“Ooo..waaa….credit card?”

Some might get very lucky
Finding some posh means to move faster
Riding a Mercedes on a tolled PLUS highway
Or flying high above the sky
On a cheap-but-worth-it Air Asia
Reaching the destination elegantly
Gratefully finishing the end line
“I did it! Thanks to my life insurance policy.”

But not everyone walks so leisurely
Along that glittering Bintang Walk
Watching the fancy coffee houses
Or on that long red carpet
Receiving Anugerah Industri Muzik award
“Hey! Look at me!”

Because many have gotten lost
Wandering miserably
Struggling their ways
Sometimes crawling
Sometimes stumbling
On a stony path

Those who endure
Will find courage to go on
Not letting the snatch thieves
Steal their hope and faith
Snatch their way
Make them fall again
Leap into that dark hole again

While we walk
Many are still looking back
Regretting their dark history
Lamenting on what they have left behind
Not ready to let go of the past
“Why must my girlfriend cheat on me?”

Many others are lured with the present
Absorbing every detail of self-indulgence
Enjoying the discotheque of life
Forgetting what lies ahead
“Will Dafi champion the Akademi Fantasia?”

Many are advancing too much forward
Taking for granted what surrounds them
Trying to erase their past
Living for the uncertain future
“I want to change the world!”

But they say
We all should live with the present
Learn from the past
Get ready for the future
And walk through life more elegantly

But Cekmi says
No matter what happens
We all should keep walking
Because along the way
We will find what values for us
The friends we meet
The children we breed
The generation we keep

But don’t walk too fast
Too eager to finish the line
Because we might be sorry
For what we have abandoned
The chances we forget to grab

But don’t walk too slowly
For we might miss the flight of life
Since the schedule is always on time
There might be no money-back guarantee
Only the fittest will survive

So walk through life more smartly
Because life might reward you with a Nobel Prize
While it pains you with a government tax
Because life is one big lottery
For you to win or lose

P.S. Once again, happy birthday walkthrulife!
May we all walk through life with more pride and joy.

I am always a late blossomer. With regards to movie-going activities, I am always left behind.

I know this movie is not an ‘in’ thing to comment, knowing that people are now so much into King Kong, or Memoirs of Geisha, or Brokeback Mountain (Jimi, I am trying to review a movie here okay, so please!) But, allow me to say a few words about this not-so-Oscaric movie - 13 Going on 30.