KUALA LUMPUR - NOVEMBER 21, 2011 -While most years of my life, Thanksgiving has been celebrated around the dining room table with friends and family, this time last year I found myself in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a country where the holiday doesn’t exist.
Not only does the country not celebrate the holiday, but I’ve discovered that I struggle to remember even how to say the word “thank you” in this exotic country’s native tongue.
As a result giving thanks had become difficult.
Even to say some vaguely familiar version of the expression of gratitude like merci or gracias or even grazie would carry the feeling tone of appreciation. The phrase Terima Kasih, however, gets stuck in the back of my throat when I try to say it.
It is laborious to say and a strain to remember.
As a recall device for the Malaysian version of thank you, I think of the desert tiramisu because of its similar pronunciation. On more than one occasion, I’ve expressed gratitude by naming an Italian desert.
It is not unlike waking into a grocery store to buy some laundry detergent and when the clerk tells you to have a nice day, you respond “Chocolate pie.”
What has happened as a result of my inability to recall such a commonly used phrase is that I only use it when I mean it. When someone commits a small act of kindness, I have to consciously stop and think about how I feel to recall the term to express my appreciation.
Malaysian restaurant
It is a challenge to spend Thanksgiving nearly ten thousand miles from my family. Traveling alone increases the complexity of that challenge. That said, given that the holiday is about taking a moment to appreciate what we have, there is no better exercise.
Along Jonker Street in the city of Melaka, I sit down to my Thanksgiving feast. Two men play cards and smoke tobacco rolled in nipa leaves. A child helps his mother cook in the open-air kitchen.
Today, whether or not they know it, they will be my family.
An egg on top of noodles with a side of roasted chicken and sprouts with a Tiger Beer is hardly substitute for turkey and stuffing with a glass of champagne, but it certainly makes me grateful that such a meal and such a day exist. While there aren’t canned cranberries, the food is otherworldly, in more ways than one.
I finish my meal and relax.
The young boy from the kitchen, approaches me. “Do you want anything else? Perhaps something sweet?” he says.
“Do you have tiramisu?” I ask, joking with myself.
He looks at me strangely. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“It is a desert in Italy,” I begin to explain, but it is clearly lost in translation. My attempt at humor has fallen short. “I’ll just have a cup of tea.”
He returns to the kitchen and whispers the order to his mother. They look my way and chuckle. She gives him a little hug and pours my tea.
He brings it to me. The tea is gentle. I relax, watching the world pass me by. A few minutes later, the boy brings me my bill. I hand him twenty ringgits and tell him to keep the change. He looks at me, surprised, not used to tips.
“Thank you!” he says in his best English.
For a moment, my own words hang in the back of my throat.
Somewhere a bike bell rings. Oil pops in the wok in the kitchen. Someone lights another cigarette. The whole word seems to laugh at my inability to remember a single phrase. An eternity passes, the young boy staring at me and then finally, “Terima Kasih,” I say back. He takes his money and returns to his family in the kitchen as I make my way into the heart of Asia.
I meander back to my hotel, pausing at the shore to take in the moonlight. I look at my watch. In America, it has just turned midnight. Thanksgiving. The day of gratitude and gluttony for my loved ones begins and along the beach of the Straights of Melaka, ten thousand miles away, I’m right there with them, grateful.
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