I had probably my final char kway teow today – no longer my favourite Malaysian food, but still very delicious. On the way back I went to Pavilion to get groceries as the GF returns from his working week in London today, and first went upstairs to Daiso to look for specialised cleaning supplies that seem to be impossible to find in supermarkets or even hardware stores. As I rode the escalator a tall, rangy young man leapt on it, looking over his shoulder, and ran up with very un-Malaysian haste. Shortly after, as I was going up another escalator, I saw him hurtle out of a a clothes shop as the anti-theft alarms went off. For an instant our eyes met in recognition, but he kept running and I went on my way.
There was something about the thrill, power, youth and desperation in his eyes that even had I been the sort to call out ‘thief!’ I think I wouldn’t have. Would it have been the right thing to do? It seems rather officious, and I was perhaps still influenced by a discussion I read this morning that I agreed with only partially, about white people calling the police unnecessarily on black people in America. (My partial agreement was in that I thought the discussion went in circles, conflating several points specific and non-specific to the US). In any case the shoplifter was (I think) not Malaysian at all, so subject to the hazards that refugees, migrant workers and illegal migrants encounter when they come into contact with the authorities here. And besides, there was something uplifting and joyful about watching him run.