I was born in Kuala Lumpur.

In a way though, "was" seem to indicate I have left this city for a long, long time. Indeed I did leave, but only for 4 years.

4 years wasn't long, but it has been 24 years of unfamiliarity with the city I was born in.

***

KL is a city of lights. The white, blaring lights striking from tall buildings and hawker stalls alike. It is warm, its coolness tamed by the hot, humid weather. The waft of frying oil, the aroma of sweet, sweet tea in the middle of the night sweeps through the alleyways and mamak stalls.

Yet in between them, the streets are dark, save the singular fluorescent bulbs and barely lit street lamps. The long, thin rectangular lights illuminates objects around it, pouring a sheen of moonshine over the vaguely visible lines.

This is not the KL of every hour. No, this is the KL late into the night. It is the KL where the glowing Twin Cobs looms at every corner.

Kuala Lumpur doesn't sleep. But it doesn't sleep not for it being an events-filled city. No, it is its acceptance of a nocturnal lifestyle. The late-night roaming is not an anomaly but a staple, lounging under the large tri-coloured umbrellas, or just the lighted up night sky.

***

Sitting on top of a prominent hotel next to the Twin Towers, sipping cocktails that burn a hole through your pocket, I wonder if this is the KL that is to be. Will it come to the time where street side vendors and umbrella-shading teh tarik sessions fall out of favour? Will it come a time where luxury and class comes from a life filled with Western styled bars and pubs?

It was an alcohol befuddled thought, but it is not far from our imaginations. Must one replace the other?

I doubt it, but I wonder too, what draws us back to the mamak stalls anyway?

Price perhaps. But I believe there is more to it.

But what is it?

I wish to find out. More.

It was a brilliant, blustery day. The honey sandstone walls bathed in its golden sheen and sparkles under the blue.

It was the final day in Oxford. The final day for a long, long time. So why not take a stroll around town? Why not capture, in my parting shots, the essence of Oxford?

But what is the essence of the place I've built my life for the last 4 year?

I strolled past every college. Every door opened or closed. These are the doors that guard the other-worldly world behind. These doors stood to separate the time-capsule within it and the ever changing world out there.

It was quiet. A Saturday where no one was really in the colleges. Perhaps that was the kind of life I led for four years, different from the busyness of a city, the city I lived in for most of my life. The pace is slow. There is nothing much else to do other than the people you see, building and hearing interesting relationships and ideas. There is time to consider what to do. Sure, this sounds like typical student life, but Oxford gave the air of aloofness and perfection. It is a predictability that sounded more optimistic than the roiling mess at home.

I miss such simplicity.

Those doors reflect the character of each college. And these doors will defend those worlds for centuries to come. 

After the annual Jazz festival in Copenhagen (excellent, but a story for another day), one wouldn't expect Stockholm to top that. Not that it lack musicians (think Avicii), but a festival of open air concerts is quite hard to beat.

But perhaps what I didn't anticipate was the mysterious power of nostalgia.

As I roam the city of Stockholm (larger than expected to be honest), tired out by the warm sun, I wandered into a bicycle tunnel beneath a hill in Ostermalm. This is no normal bicycle track of course. Given the predilection for Stockholm adorning its public spaces, this tunnel is equipped with a resonating railing. At a certain pitch the tunnel would sing (or eerily a wail really). For the uninitiated, it'd be a scary experience, as if ghosts are wailing for their release from the walls.

This wail, however, seem to amplify a particular note from a melody played in the tunnel.

The wail was a high pitched one, but the melody came from some stuttering, low pitched strumming, as if the player was learning his notes. Two notes were played and stopped, with one of it hitting the resonating frequency and sending the tunnel into a glow of a wail. He tries again, another wail.

I stared back.

Not out of annoyance, but that the strum was one that I was familiar with.

Yes, the ghost of my past did appear. Not Haunters or Gastly of past, but of a musical instrument that followed me for years. And which a copy of it now permanently stuck onto the back of my phone.

Yes, it did sound like a Liu Qin (柳琴), just at a lower pitch.

I did not linger, but turned back and stared, twice. Melodies of the past now stuck in my head, repeating the oh so familiar songs I've played in the days of yore.

So I returned the next day.

There was that old man who was busking with his mandolin, with a music stand in front of him. Busking is probably an overstatement, its sounded more like an old man trying to learn the mandolin while earning some money from kind strangers. Out of pity, perhaps.

I did the same, but turned back and spoke with him. Even in halting English we were kindred spirits, sharing the same love for a lesser musical instrument family. There was a wonderment as he looked at a picture of the Liu Qin, a surprise that there is another instrument out there that sounds like it. And indeed unexpectedly the rarely used pick I've always held in my wallet finally had its value, an object of discussion.

We parted ways. But perhaps I should have played something, to share bit more of the life that I once had. And stories that he would have.

***

The past. Indeed my past is filled with music. Unintended or not, those days of time consuming practice did not go to waste. It is there, always there. Just like the past. It will never fade. It will always, always be there.

Like the ghosts of the past, it sometimes does glow out of the depths of a resonating tunnel, and the soul.