On Saturday we decided to take my Aunty Sui Laun up on her offer to take us around, and requested a visit to Batu Caves. These limestone caves are at the top of a 300 stair-climb, and are set behind a 43 meter high golden statue of a Hindu deity.
In the caves at the top are a number of Indian statues and altars. At the very back there is a giant wall of rocks and vegetation where wild monkeys swing and play. When I came in 2001, the monkeys were mostly found on this wall. Now, they were everywhere.
They stalked the grounds like hungry rodents, armed with opposable thumbs. They begged from the visitors, their palms up, reaching for their bags. The bolder ones grabbed them from unsuspecting tourists, who were busily taking photographs. This was the opposite of the snake temple, whose snakes, once free to slither here and there on the ground and roof, were now only in safely guarded trees and stands.
My aunt grabbed my arm, warning, “Be careful. They attack people.”
It was another reminder that I’m not in America anymore, land of lawsuits. Though I must say there is something I respect about a country where you’re responsible for yourself and your own idiotic decisions. Such was the choice of one man, who crawled down, eye-level with the hungry, wild animals he had just sugared up with convenience store treats, and barely kept both eyes after it swiped at his face.
Keeping my distance, of course, I did enjoy watching the monkeys. They had been brought many small bananas and coconuts by wiser tourists or locals who frequent the temples. I could spend hours watching them peel and crack the fruits with the pristine fine motor skills unavailable to most wildlife.
After Batu Caves we went to the National Art Gallery. It is a small and free art gallery, one of the only in Malaysia, and it holds mainly contemporary art. I enjoyed watching my Aunt and Uncle, who admittedly could not recall ever being in an art gallery before, holding hands as they walked through the rooms, pausing here and there and whispering to each other.
My aunt came to me, pointing at Kelly and asking, “She studied this?”
“Yes, she has a B.F.A. in Painting. Now she’s the art teacher at my school.”
“Oh, so she does painting with them?”
“Yes, painting, drawing, sculpting, all kids of art for grades 1-5.”
“Oh, that’s why she’s looking around.
I can’t understand all this.”
I laughed, but it’s not so secret that I know virtually nothing about art myself. I remember one of the first times I met Kelly and Kit and some other artistic friends at the Whitney and realized, with slight horror, that I had absolutely nothing to say. That aside, I love being in art galleries, looking and thinking.
But how exactly are my Uncle and Aunt supposed to make sense of a giant quilt-like painting with golden wine glasses in one corner and bejeweled jug-like semicircles protruding seemingly randomly throughout the left side?
My aunt proclaimed again, “I don’t understand this” while looking at a porcelain unicorn with what appeared to be giant Tonka-wheels. It was no surprise when they got to the second floor, found a bench, and waited for us to finish.
They have a very agreeable disposition, however, even insisting when we said we were ready to go, “Are you sure?? No second round?”
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