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Meeting a Head Hunter at the Kuching Hilton and Missing Mars Bars on My Vacation
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright June 2022
An old friend John English, an American journalist and a Visiting Professor of Journalism who spent years in Malaysia, once brought his girlfriend for a visit to Kuala Lumpur.
Against his advice, she insisted on bringing a bagful of Mars Bars all the way from their home in Athens, Georgia. She was obviously addicted to the snack and would be lost without her daily dosage of the chocolate bar.
When we met them for lunch John suggested we visit Bangsar Shopping Centre (BSC). As soon as we arrived he led us up an escalator with his girlfriend ahead of everyone.
Upon reaching the top of the first floor, she almost fainted when she saw a huge pile of Mars Bars neatly stacked in the shape of a pyramid, outside the Guardian Pharmacy.
She was shocked while John merely laughed. In between his laughter, he said, “A Third World country wouldn’t have Mar Bars!”
That was in the 1990s when BSC was half of what it is now. The other wing was just an outdoor parking space.
Fast forward to 2022, Tiffany Werner, another American visitor (@tiffanywernertraveling) to Malaysia posted a TikTok video where she praised Malaysia for being nothing like most Americans perceived it to be. It attracted 204,000 viewers worldwide!
This traveller who called herself a ‘travelling mama,’ posed a question to her US fans in a video she posted recently: “For all of our people in America who think I am in a third world country… does this look Third World to you?”
The video clip showed a view of the KL Pavillion Mall in its glory with fabulous decorations that fascinated thousands who thronged the shopping centre daily.
“We have nothing like this where we’re from!,” Tiffany told her US followers!
The comments that she received confirmed that most Americans are actually ignorant about other countries.
In fact, some statistics say most Americans do not bother about anything that happens beyond their shores and a large percentage, do not even have passports and had never travelled overseas.
Almost 60 years earlier (in 1968) while Malaysia was hardly 5 years old, a lady from a high social circle and a member of the Women’s Institute asked me whether “Malaysians lived on trees”.
Another participant who was at the same meeting and anxious about her son going off to join the Peace Corps in Sarawak asked me about the head hunters there.
“Can you advise me how best Bob (her son) may avoid running into these head hunters in Kuching?”
On a brief vacation in Kuching recently, I could not help thinking about the head hunters. I was sitting at a cafe overlooking the Sarawak River thinking about my next career move when one did show up, “Hello, I am a Head Hunter…”.
God, that brought back memories of the American mother in New York who was anxious about Bob, her son, meeting a head hunter and there I was face to face with one in a business suit.
Neither did he come down from a home on a tree top, instead he took an elevator from a suite on the Penthouse floor of the Kuching Hilton.
Yes, they have a Hilton in Kuching and from the Penthouse you’ll be able to get a magnificent view of the Sarawak River and the Astana. The Head Hunter told me beaming with pride!
He just couldn’t stop talking about the river and the Astana that was built in 1870 by the second White Rajah, Charles Brooke, as a wedding gift to his wife, Margaret Alice Lili de Windt.
“A bit like the story of Taj Mahal, don’t you think?” He asked me. But Taj Mahal was a tomb I told him. Astana, on the other hand, was a wedding gift!
By the way, I too missed my Mars Bar and went looking at stores near Kuching Hilton. Most did stock plenty of Mars Bars, in case you forgot to bring them with you.
I know John English, my old buddy, would love writing home (about Mar Bars and head hunters in Kuching) to his family in Athens, Georgia the boondocks of North America where there’s not a single Hilton in sight but plenty of Mars Bars at every corner.
Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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