Not long ago I was living in Malaysia . South East Asians LOVE food. In fact, they have created a distinctive set of flavors, ways of eating, and atmospherics to accompany their most cherished activities, eating. Malaysians happily claim that their favorite pastime is walking around looking for food, “cari cari jalang makan”. Their food is always intensely flavored with extreme notes of spicy, sweet, salty, and sour. This intensity can also be found in the way Malaysians light their restaurants.

 

Restaurants, street hawkers, and cafes announce their presence with brightly colored fluorescent tube lighting. When the humidity is especially high the lights become strange amorphous blurs while at other times they radiate a brilliant fun house feel. These restaurants and their lights always invoked moody dreamscape fantasies in me. They seemed like distant jungle cousins of dusty desert hotels a la David Linch, both beckoning patrons to their lights like misdirected moths.