Potato Land

     Where do I come from?  Have you ever heard of a place called Malaysia? Yes, I assume you never heard about it.  Yes it's not some famous country like China or Russia or something.  I guess you would know over neighbor? Singapore? I hail from the country above North of Singapore.  If you could turn your mini globe on your desk to China and follow down south, you will find that it ends with a small potato like tail. Our country is sometimes known to be Potato Land due to its shape on the world atlas.  Malaysia, a country free from natural disaster, a place outside of the pacific volcano region, a place where generations of immigrants came to be to form this country of multiracial people.  One thing special about Malaysia is the culture,  through years and years of assimilation, the culture of each race soon got jumbled up and formed the fusion of all the different cultures that we have in Malaysia.  Even though we are of different heritage, we Malaysians share the one true Malaysian Culture.  What do Malaysians like to do?  Well there many things actually, but one thing's for sure is that Malaysians do know to enjoy the different varieties of food here.  

     Here's my very own story, every weekend on Sundays my family would all go out to have breakfast at our local favorite Indian hawker stall.  One of the most famous breakfast delicacies in Malaysia is of course non other than the Roti Canai, the Roti Canai is a piece of plain flour grilled on a pan with some palm oil, that's it.  Well, many foreigners are skeptic about the taste of the Roti Canai,  most of them could not comprehend how a dish it all its simplicity could turn out to be such a famous and delicacy in a country.  Truth is, its not that simple and the story does not end here.  What I haven't told you all is that the this so called "bread" is to be dipped with either a choice of curry or dalca which is a kind a vegetable and nuts stew.  The hot and mouth watering scent and taste of the curry is what make this dish complete, Tearing the bread into smaller pieces with your bare hands and dipping it in the all so wonderful curry and eat the whole thing of your fingers just like that, yes that's how we Malaysians roll and it has not change much since decades.  

     Somehow, this dish reminds me of who we are, who am I today.  If you ask me, I must say that the somehow the food in Malaysia unites the people here more than any politician's campaign is capable of.  In the hawker stall, where friends and family gather in the morning weekend, exchanging the latest football updates, complaining about the government together and gossiping about people around them.  Yes, I simply cannot deny that the people in the community are united by Roti Canai in Malaysia.  The Roti Canai also reminds me of keeping a humble attitude and to know where is my roots and my origins, I am just simply proud to be a Malaysian first