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Soup du jour

I'm currently back home in Sarawak, Malaysia.
The day in punctuated by food, your metronome is meal times.

Breakfast is eaten out, at a coffee shop, the hunt for the best laksa, kolo mee et al, is always on. We talk about where is good, where has had a dip in quality. It is serious talk that we start the day with.

Dad comes back from work for lunch and we all sit down together. If you're not home for lunch - you call. As with dinner. There is always rice, there is always conversation.
Lunch and dinner are home cooked meals.

All meals are relaxed, quick, un-ceremonial. They are points of contact, checking in, keeping pace.
Each with a slightly different rhythm and topic of conversation.

Dinner is reflective of the times, the last week of July 2016 is a precipice. The East looks to the West and waits to see what it will do - fall or fly, there doesn't seem to be any other options.

Dinner follows a pattern, it doesn't change, except who asks the questions. We take turns:
So what you think about Trump? What are the polls saying?
I think he is ahead/Clinton will win by a narrow lead
I can't believe Trump will win
Ah, but I couldn't believe that Brexit would win, and it did.
Yes
*sigh*

My stepmother says does't think she could visit the States again if Trump won.
We all nod.

Last week we unpicked Brexit, will that close the global markets for the UK? Brexit also feels reflective of the conversations happening in Malaysia, were the union of Malaysia and constitution is being discussed - have promises been broken with the growing power of West Malaysia and Putrajaya? But the party in power ins Sarawak are talking so strongly and positively about unity and togetherness, and through union can strength, individuality and independency be achieved. The power of governance, can work with relationships and being part of a bigger picture. They are talking tough about the feeling taken advantage of, by West Malaysia, but there is positivity. David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn could have learn't something.

Home cooked meals. The family table. Beside the kitchen. The heart of the home.
Always fresh food, whatever is available at the markets. Rice, vegetables, meat, soup. This Friday, the soup was prawns with a clear broth.

And politics is always the discourse du jour.

#home

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