A MAN IN A WHITE COAT

In another several weeks I shall see my doctor for a regularly scheduled appointment. And I am well-prepared for that. I plan to derail the conversation as soon as he brings up smoking, which as a medical man and himself a former smoker, he naturally hates. It's a subject that must always crop up. As a medicated man and a smoker, this does not quite satisfy me.

But I'm an expert at changing the subject. Plus I'm armed. In a manner of speaking.
I know his cultural and ethnic derivation, and where he's from.
And we have languages in common.

And food. Soto, Teng Teng, Bika Ambon, Lap Tsai (腊菜). A savoury mixed meat stew with a potato croquette served with rice, a candy brittle made with nuts, a dense pandan-flavoured tapioca sponge cake, and the local version of lotek, with fried prawns and tofu added.
Plus deliciously greasy Minangkabau and Karo sepcialties.
And, naturally, peanut sauce.
Plus sambal.

There was a Japanese POW camp there, in the harbour. Civilians and military (Dutch, British, Australian) were separated by a barbed wire fence. They were tasked with loading munitions and matériel, later many were forced to work on the railway line through the jungle that was never completed. In 1944 British forces torpedoed ships carrying prisoners, sinking them.
In 1945, the Japanese executed most of the remaining Dutch officers.


Both my doctor and I are far too young to have experienced any of that. He's considerably younger than I am (at least I think so; his skin will not age quite the way mine will), and his parents or grandparents probably did not speak much about those years.

We shall not discuss those things. Or the struggle for independence afterwards.
These are sensitive subjects, quite unlike medicine.
But food, on the other hand ...



There is some lovely roast duck (燒鴨 'siu ngaap') within a block of the hospital, great with rice, cooked yauchoi, and just buckets of sambal. I'm sure he'll understand.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================