Leisure

Taman Gaya Recreational Park in Johor Bahru on a Friday evening provides a delicious insight into one aspect of Malaysian leisure time.

Small groupings of middle aged men of Chinese descent gather beneath the plaster and concrete pagodas, structures painted red and white, but which look as though they should be constructed of natural wood and coloured - if at all - in ochre hues. Several men sit cross-legged on the concrete slabs of the benches laid out in a concentric arrangement beneath the shelter of the roof. They don loose blue, grey, brown or black coloured shorts with collared cotton shirts or vests, sandals removed, as they stroke their legs and massage their feet, meditatively listening to the oratories of their acquaintances. There always appear to be one significant speaker, often in the centre of the group, whose utterances command respect, it seems.  Or perhaps there are one or two who are particularly animated while the rest are content to listen. The scene is reminiscent of gardens and parks in southern China, Hong Kong, and Penang – places frequented long ago.

Young men perch on smooth giant boulders that lay in occasional clusters around the artificial lake, fishing lines between steady hands of one or two of the boys. It is a slightly comical scene as billboards in the vicinity state that Fishing is Prohibited, but nobody seems to mind. Families sit on nearby benches, on the familiar concrete ones like those that the ‘Chinese’ men enjoy in their pagoda. They look out across the lake, people-gazing and chatting. 

A Malay couple sit beside a stationary motorbike beneath the shade of a beautiful, native tree. The girl is covered in the traditional headscarf, the boy in his skin-tight white V neck T shirt looking not unlike any hero from the young cultures of the world. They smile at the scene around them, beaming at each other, an aura of innocent illicitness about them, a juxtaposition of the modesty of the girl and the carefree self-assurance of the boy wooing his lady. Other couples sit lazily on the ground, their hands stroking the mimosa grasses around them, whose leaves coyly mimic the lovers’ hands as they gently brush against them, the foliage in secret collusion, bringing their tiny fronds together reverently as if prostrating before a courtship ceremony.  

A dog is walked by on its lead, with a well-to-do elderly lady holding the line taut. The barking of an untethered dog can be heard in the distance.