My godsis, Carol and I had a deal about me crashing at her place for a couple of week – I would COOK for the both of us. Two weeks ago, her parents flew in from Penang for a visit and brought with them all sorts Malaysian ingredient – curry paste, kapitan chicken paste, ready-to-cook laksa/curry mee/hokkien mee paste produced by my cousins, curry powder, bak kut teh packets, herbs, etc etc. So, I’ve been kept busy the past week trying to whip up as many Malaysian food as possible.

Last week, we headed to the wet market to buy ingredients for making green curry. We walked into the poultry section and surveyed the stalls. The hawkers rear their chickens right there in the market and would slaughter them every morning. We wanted to buy 2 huge chicken drumsticks, so we checked out those that were already cut. But, they were not drumsticks. The chickens are very small in size, so half a chicken is equivalent to a huge drumstick! We stood there to discuss in English+Hokkien on whether to buy a whole chicken. The hawker started speaking to us in English.

“Chicken? Chicken? Fresh! Very good!”

And, Carol decided to reply in English too. I looked at her, “Why are you speaking English!” I stood at the side watching the whole scenario and started laughing.

“Cook soup?”

“Curry.”

“Ok ok.”

“Chop chop.”

“XX dollars.” (Uh… I forgot the amount)

Carol pays.

“Thank you! Bye bye!”

After that, we went to the vegetable and fruit stalls and spoke English too! I found it kinda hilarious because I do speak Cantonese… and why the hell are we conversing in English in a wet market in Macau?! (Actually, the hawkers speak English because there are a lot of domestic helpers from the Philippines who work here.)

Yes, I still find it funny.

So far, I’ve made Penang Hokkien Mee, green curry chicken, herbal chicken rice and lots of kopi-o kau. I’ve yet to make Penang asam laksa and curry mee. Maybe next week.