The younger of Tress’ 2 younger brothers has 2 kids. The older one, “M”, was just a few months old when we left. The younger one (“Z”) was born when we were already here in Melbourne. So I didn’t know either of them very well. They certainly didn’t know me at all. “Kor Tiu” is what they call me. Until 2 weeks ago however, I think I am little more than just a name to them, “Kiddo’s dad” at best. In the 2 weeks we were in Klang however, we spent a lot of time with both of them. I played with both of them, especially “M”. When we arrived in Melbourne on Monday night and Tress called her dad in Klang, “M” picked up the phone. Know what happened after Tress and Kiddo spoke to “M”? “M” asked for me. Woo Hoo!!

My younger sister Mei lives in Xuzhou, not far from Shanghai. Her husband works there as a designer of luxury yachts and other recreational vessels. They have a child, “Y”. Just a few days before we left, Mei and Y returned to Klang. They were to spend Chinese New Year there. We saw them the day after they arrived. I asked “Y” if he wanted to go and get a haircut as I was going to get one. I didn’t bribe or coerce him and I was certainly very benign – friendly uncle and all. So it was to my surprise that he agreed.
 
We went to a tiny barber shop near my mum’s house. There were 2 Indian barbers. One of them was free. He looked tentative and moved extremely slowly, demonstrating neither dexterity nor confidence. To my shame, I asked Y to go first. I thought since he was only 8, his social life would be a lot more limited compared to mine and any professional incompetence or negligence on the part of the barber would have limited adverse consequences. I on the other hand am a fully grown man who is starting to lose hair so every strand was precious commodity. I also had a few more social engagements before leaving Malaysia and I didn’t want them to think Melbourne has somehow damaged my hair.
 
So I cowardly observed how this sloth-like barber performed before I submitted myself to his snipping prowess, or lack thereof. To my partial and temporary relief, the other barber who looked like he had comparatively more panache, finished his job and was available to work on me. It was a temporary relief only because when I tried to tell him I only wanted a little bit taken off, I then realised he spoke little or no English. He was equally hopeless in Malay so the obvious thing for me to do (apart from getting up to leave to save my hair) was ask him if he came from India.
 
To coax my barber to communicate more I mentioned Sachin Tendulkar. That worked for Mr Sloth. Suddenly he worked on Y on a more urgent tempo and I think thanks to the little master (Tendulkar, not Sloth) Y’s haircut turned out better than it would otherwise have been. I continued throwing more names of the Indian cricket team, hoping that what worked for Y would also work for me. I mentioned Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Harbhajan Singh and the rest of the team. I knew those hours watching Australia v India would come in handy. I simply said “Ganguly Bengali?” and I would get enthusiastic nods and the snips would go faster and sharper. The next obvious one was “Harbhajan Punjab?” and it worked again. I then stabbed at Tendulkar and said “Tendulkar Bombay?” and both barbers stopped. A 2-minute deliberation between the 2 barbers ensued. I wasn’t given a clear answer as to Sachin’s hometown but I had injected some life into that place. I thought to keep up the tempo I would say something similar like “Laxman Kartaneka?” but decided I wasn’t going to create further deliberations to interrupt my haircut. The job was done – I had created more enthusiasm and they could relate to me so would be less likely to cause serious damage to my hair.
 
At long last, the job was finished. I got up, reached for my wallet and to my utter amazement, the cost of 2 haircuts was a grand total of RM14.00 – less than AUD5! I don’t think our shared enjoyment of cricket brought about any discounts. It was one of the joys of spending our holidays in Malaysia – cheap food and cheap haircuts.