Janet Tay's debut novel, this was published in January this year. And I found it in Douglas Library just a few weeks later...

What follows is a spoiler-free discussion, and it makes two points:

1. It's a good story, and you should read it;

2. I picked absolutely the wrong time to read it...

Before we start, though, let me say that I find the title a little bland... Yes, I completely understand that early mornings at traditional eateries have a very special feel to them. But even so... Maybe I'll suggest some alternatives as I go along...


I love the cover... Not just for the evocation of the bowl of laksa (that archetypal Sarawak breakfast), but for the focused, engaged faces of the uncle and auntie stallholders

GOOD STORY

The year is 1994. And we're in Kuching, Sarawak. Mostly the Carpenter Street area.

Lim Ah Hock, a "famous laksa master", runs his kopitiam with an iron hand. He's a purist, and is brusque with tourists who ask for non-classical types of noodles in their laksa, or want -- horrors! -- to do take-away. He's proud of his product, and doesn't want it messed with. He is particularly protective of the ancestral broth, which -- according to family legend -- his chef father, Teck Boon, carried from China when he fled to Borneo with little Ah Hock in 1938. The broth must be cherished and constantly nourished, and it MUST be passed on down the generations to avert a family calamity.

Which is tricky, because for the last eight years, Ah Hock's only son, Wei Ming, has been in Hong Kong. It's true that he has been working in the restaurant trade, most recently as a sushi chef, but the many skills he has learnt from his kind-hearted Sensei have fuelled his ambition. He doesn't want to limit himself to serving laksa in a kopitiam in Kuching. Still, he's getting himself into all kinds of bother in Hong Kong, and is starting to make the place too hot to hold him... Maybe it IS time to return... But a couple of recent set-backs mean it is even harder to contemplate going home. As countless migrants have found, it hurts to be going back "unknown, broke and broken". Plus, there's Dad -- and well, Dad can be very frustrating.

When the mix of push-pull factors comes to a head, though, Wei Ming decides to return to Kuching for his father's 60th birthday. His plans are fluid after that. Will the relationship turn to custard again, or will these two finally learn to understand each other?

Caught in the middle is poor Kim Choo, a very likeable and enterprising character, who is understandably distressed to find her husband and her son constantly at loggerheads.


I think the attention to detail is wonderful here. This is the traditional kopitiam to a tee

The conclusion -- involving an existential laksa competition, a fire, a last-minute rescue, and a heart attack -- is perhaps a little melodramatic. (Then again, maybe not... It's very possible that there's more going on in the kopitiams of Kuching than I realize...)

But Tay doesn't over-sugar the ending, or fudge the dilemmas that the book deals with. So don't be misled by the straightforwardness and accessibility of the story-telling. Tay's narrative unsparingly spotlights some very real and painful conundrums:

-- Most obviously, she dissects the problems of father-son relationships. Sons can be irritating. But Dads can also be dismissive and undermining... When Wei Ming returns from Hong Kong, Ah Hock literally doesn't see him at first because he's so fixated on the dish he's making. When he does spot him, his first words are: "Why are you back? Lost your job?" Seriously, Ah Hock... He has always made his son feel unworthy and inadequate, just -- and this is the kicker -- as his own father did with him. Fathers, muses Kim Choo at one point, are so afraid of spoiling their sons that they forget how to show they love them. [Title suggestion: Fathers and Sons. No, wait a minute, someone's done that already...]

-- Another dichotomy the novel highlights is the way we are tugged between old and new, and constantly have to react to change. Ah Hock is on the "old" side. He makes excellent laksa. Full stop. Towkay Lau, a rich businessman who turns out to have an agenda of his own, is always trying to persuade Ah Hock to do things differently: Franchise his well-known "brand"; modernize; loosen up a bit... To try to jumpstart that process, he sets up a rival laksa joint right next door to Ah Hock's traditional kopitiam. Fancy toppings; laminate counters; aircon -- but mediocre laksa... Does that matter? Do the majority of punters really appreciate Ah Hock's hair-splitting attention to detail? Or do most people -- young people in particular -- "just want a nice place to have laksa and not get shouted at by grumpy old uncles!" Interesting question (although I don't think you'd get too far with poor quality in foody Kuching). [Title suggestion: No Cafe for Old Men...]



-- Tay also invites us to look at the tension between leaving and staying. Wei Ming left. He has learnt a lot, definitely, but he has also floundered in that alien environment. Dennis, his friend, stayed in Kuching, and is ready to take over his ailing father's kolo mee stall, while also doing some culinary branching out on his own account. In many ways, Dennis seems more mature than Wei Ming, and calls him back to his senses on several occasions. But we also have to ask WHY we're staying... Dennis stayed, Wei Ming muses -- but then, he had "never yearned to be elsewhere like I had". Being rooted by genuine love is one thing; obedience to what might turn out to be an artificially created sense of duty is perhaps another... [Title suggestion: The Son Also Rises...]

-- Relatedly, Tay asks us to interrogate the contradiction that lauds tradition on the one hand, but forgets about the sacrifices involved on the other. She notes in her postscript that the novel was inspired by the closure of her family's favourite laksa stall on Carpenter Street, and it is true that it's genuinely tragic when a bit of our culinary heritage just disappears. But, suggests Tay, we can't fetter people to tradition if their passion is elsewhere... After he has been back for a short time, Wei Ming realizes he is enjoying helping his father in the kopitiam. But he's still not sure about staying: "What if I couldn't afford to leave?... The feeling I'd had growing up in Kuching, like I was trapped and could only resign myself to living out the rest of my life here, was coming back to me now." If you're dreaming of running a top-notch restaurant, and have the talent to make that dream come true, should you be expected to buckle down, and run your Dad's laksa stall -- however delicious and historic that laksa is? We -- the public, the consumers -- always want to preserve the elements of the past that we enjoy. But can we demand that people sacrifice their hopes and dreams to keep our favourite bit of tradition alive? As Wei Ming says of his father: "I can't do what he wants just so he can have a legacy." Again, no spoilers, but we do always have to be open to compromises... [Title suggestion: Greater Expectations...]



She gives us serious problems to ponder, but Tay also offers us lots to rejoice in. Family, with all its difficulties, remains a precious cornerstone of our lives. Tradition likewise.

And the love of FOOD shines out of this book like a big, bright sun. Ah Hock sees food as happiness and beauty; cooking is his religion, eating his meditation... He wouldn't be alone there in Kuching, I don't think...

Dishes are lovingly described; ingredients painstakingly listed. I defy you not to get hungry reading this book. [Title suggestion: The Old Man and the Laksa...]

***

WRONG TIME

At the end of January, after seven years' residence in Kuching, Nigel and I moved our base to the Isle of Man. It was an upheaval, but the strange thing was that I really didn't feel as though I was leaving... We have so many heart-ties in Kuching that we knew we'd be back. It was a given. And August was the projected date of our first return.

Well, now the US has launched this unutterably ill-advised war of choice in the Gulf. The result has been disruption in spades.

And that has REALLY thrown me. I didn't grieve for Kuching when I left, because it felt as though there was nothing to grieve for. I'd be back, wouldn't I? Quite soon. No problem.

But now? Well, we're still crossing our fingers for August, but no-one is laying any bets at this point. Even when the immediate idiocy is behind us, we just don't know what kind of environment we're going to emerge into afterwards.

I know, I know... It's callous to be worrying about travel plans, when people's lives and livelihoods and homes and environments are being blown to oblivion in this senseless and pointless aggression.

Mine are first-world problems. I know.

But to read Tay's incredibly vibrant evocation of Kuching just at the time when our connecting lifeline was in danger of being severed was really painful. The depth of my second-home-sickness last week totally took me by surprise.



All the familiar names are there in the book. It's not just laksa, and the whole glorious tradition of the kopitiam. It's Main Bazaar; Pending; Third Mile; ice cream from Sunny Hill; dabai; kuay chap; ayam pansoh; belian; Pandan Beach; the Rajang River; opera performances; the "hospital waiting rooms that feel like freezers"...

And, of course, the Carpenter Street area. Lau Ya Keng (the foodcourt opposite the Teochew temple); the tinsmiths; the haberdashery...

"I loved early morning walks on Carpenter Street," says Wei Ming, "before the clamour of vehicles and people." Yes... Me too...

But humans can only ever be in one place at a time.

Wei Ming's Sensei, who visits for the 60th birthday party, has something interesting to say about Kuching: "Something pulls me to this place. Something ancient, many voices speak to me here. I cannot explain it."

I was very struck by those words because that's EXACTLY what I feel about the Isle of Man... So, it's not that I'm regretting our decision, or I don't like it here. I'm not, and I do. Nor have I forgotten about the things that frustrated me in Kuching. But I really hate feeling cut off like this. It's like I suddenly have a lung missing.

Again, I'm aware of how much worse this is for millions and millions of others. And I hope -- for everyone's sake -- that things come right in the Gulf in the space of weeks, rather than months or years.

In the interim, Early Mornings at the Laksa Cafe has been a bitter-sweet reading experience.

But kudos to any author who can evoke such sentiments. To have such an effect, this must be a book that comes right from the heart.