Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 15 August 2016 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or has everybody turned into zombies? Everywhere I look, people are staring at their phones catching Pokémons. What is going on?
Not amused

My favourite meme is a photograph of a dog driving a car and the caption, “I have no idea what I’m doing”. And that is precisely how I felt when I started playing Pokémon Go the other day. I was challenged to join the global phenomenon that is Pokémon Go by a young person who dared me to prove that I am not afraid of the 21st century. So I downloaded the app and immediately, a Pokémon appeared next to my balcony. The cute creature hovered on my smartphone screen and I managed to work out how to catch it. I was tempted to eat it with ginger but I wasn’t sure if it was halal. I thought I would be bored to death by Pokémon Go, but I have been pleasantly surprised. I thought it would be a mindless exercise in futility, but it has turned out to be an utterly captivating exercise in futility.

After my first successful enslavement of a Pokémon (after beating it into submission, it is now cleaning my apartment), I happened to find myself driving through the Pudu area of Kuala Lumpur. So I thought I would get out of my car and see if Pokémons had invaded this neglected part of my city. Bearing in mind that I had no idea what I was doing, I opened my phone and found that there were things right next to me called “Poké Stops”. I was in a rundown part of town where there were several ladies of a certain age walking around wearing very short skirts and I suspected that around here, it was quite common for men to visit looking for a quick Poké stop, but not the kind I was interested in.

I followed the map on my screen and was guided towards a roadside Chinese shrine, the kind that was once so common all over KL but which are now quite hard to find, except in Pudu. I pointed my phone at the shrine and was able to gather several virtual things (balls, I think). Inside the actual shrine were the usual assemblage of joss sticks and offerings that I don’t understand, but among them was the uniquely Malaysian figure of a Datuk Kong, who wears a songkok and carries a kris. I have walked around Shanghai and I didn’t see a single shrine, but here, it is still possible to find shrines with a figure that has been shaped by this land’s specific landscape and culture.

Along with the shrine, I was also sent to a nearby “abandoned playground”. Children have long since stopped playing on the slide and climbing frame, but the amount of rubbish lying around showed that somebody still liked to sit there. There was one more location offering virtual goodies but somebody who I think might have been a drug dealer was sitting in front of it and it would have been difficult to explain to him or a passing policeman that I was looking for Pokémons.

I rarely visit Pudu, and I’m very glad I don’t live there, but it was very enjoyable to have been given an excuse to get out of my car and walk around this fascinating part of town that can still give a hint of what early KL might have been like.

After a successful trip to Pudu, I decided to hunt for Pokémons in another place I rarely visit: Kuala Ampang. Now barely 10 minutes away from the Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Ampang is (or was) a “new village” with a history and community quite different from the distinctly urban setting of Pudu. As you know, rural Chinese were swept up in the Briggs Plan of the 1950s and relocated in new villages in an ultimately successful attempt to defeat the communists.

Kuala Ampang must be the nearest new village to downtown KL that has managed to keep its character and a distinct style of architecture that I’ve always found hard to describe but which, I feel, speaks of people who finally had the chance to build their own homes. Cement buildings with flat roofs and wide balconies are interspersed with some wooden houses. They all look very hot to live in, but I must be wrong.

My app led me to a big and well-used playground where I managed to catch my first Pokémon in the wild. I still had no idea what I was doing and there were some children nearby who were obviously catching Pokémons. I really wanted to ask them for some lessons but I thought that it would look very strange if a 50-year-old man was seen talking to some schoolkids.

So I went back home to continue my quest. I walked around my neighbourhood, which is something I never do. I never walk anywhere and definitely not around my neighbourhood, which I realised I do not know. I was sent to a community centre that I didn’t know existed and on a quiet street of houses and standing next to a lazy, disinterested and beautiful calico cat, I caught another Pokémon. I walked around my quiet neighbourhood that was jungle or a plantation just a few decades ago, so very different from Pudu and Kuala Ampang, but it was slim pickings for Pokémons.

My neighbourhood is a bit of a Pokémon desert, so I went to KLCC, where I was suddenly overwhelmed by the superabundance of opportunities. Seemingly everywhere, people were staring at their phones capturing Pokémons. If I hadn’t been doing the same myself, I might have been tempted to sneer at them but I was catching a strange fish-like thing in front of the lift so, instead, I felt a slightly embarrassed sense of community.

Finally that night, I had dinner in Kampung Baru, partly to treat a visiting friend to some delicious Kelantanese food but also to look for Pokémons. There was nothing in Kampung Baru, but the food was fantastic.

I don’t think I will delve much deeper into the realm of Pokémon Go because it’s far too complicated and I really don’t know what I’m doing, but I enjoyed my day. I really appreciated the fact that it tempted me to go to places I wouldn’t normally choose to visit, and it made me walk. I really enjoyed the idea of a parallel universe inhabited by benign creatures that I must catch if I can find them. But mostly I enjoyed the excuse to revisit the parallel universe of the past and possible futures of my city. And it turns out that I am not afraid of the 21st century.

Reprinted with the kind permission of