Now, where were we? Yes, I was going to play with some Malaysian household shop names, ones you’ve known for years only by their conventional labels. Let’s shake and stir the veil of spoonerisms and take a further look. You remember how Sunway Lagoon became Gunway Saloon just like that, quick as the fastest gun in town? All it takes is to swap the initial letters and a whole new idea is loaded and spooned into being.
If Harvey Norman is Nervy Hormones, then Isetan is where you might go to get tanned without any difficulties, a bit like an Air Asia or EasyJet flight is supposed to be. No spoon intended on that one.
Cold Storage spoons to Stolid Courage, and Marks & Spencer goes over to something for electricians and geniuses, namely Sparks & Mensa. The electrical circuit links back to Parkson again, as Parkson is where you get your spark on. That’s technically known as in Inspoon.
For cafes and eateries, Burger King spoons to This Ice for Mandarin speakers, or Zhe Ge Bing. Are you ready for a three-way spoon? See if you can spot which letters are swapped here: Coffee Bean & Tealeaf is Toffee Queen & Belief, or possibly Bayleaf. Old Town White Coffee is Old Crown White Toffee or, with a little licence, Cold Waffle, Tight Yawn. Which do you prefer? How do you cake your toffee?
While cake and sandwich café Tedboy rocks Bed Toy all night long, Family Mart is Mammally Fart; those two are obvious, right? With a lot of spooneristic licence and car-crash humour, Secret Recipe becomes Recreate Cesspit. These brands are going to love me; they should milk the notoriety. Perhaps I should try selling my foodie book, Malaysia on Yer Plate in their outlets.
Instead of each place reusing the same names, might it not be much more interesting and fun to use some spoons and puns? Having different spellings will make places easier some more to find on Go Ogle maps and navigation apps.
For massage chain Ayu Borneo, I heard “Are you born here?” in my mind’s ear – no, I wasn’t born here, I’m a Kwailo. I wasn’t born in the USJ and nor was Bruce Springsteen. Do you know any musicians who were born in the area? If they like doing cover versions it could go viral.
When I saw Soon Thye Hang I thought it sounded like a predictor of leg health.
Getting briefly into some products, Dutch Lady is Louche Daddy, and as Maggi will tell you, pot noodles are not poodles. UK versions are known as pot snacks, which spoons into snot packs — eek!
Finally there are Kwailo Lumpur creations such as the punk food outlet, probably a truck: Nasi Amok. Nasi Alamak as well. OK, if it’s going to be a truck then it probably has to be Nasi Le Truck.
There’s a traditional food outlet somewhere, surely, called Curry Mee Home. A Malaysian butter brand could do worse than to call itself Mary Lee: Even after saying her name four times, life is butter dream. A restaurant called Bite or Quit would no doubt give you quite a bit to chew on, and even if not in KL there just has to be a restaurant somewhere in the world called Good Stuff.
Moving away from food I assume there’s a local women’s sports team called Alam Belles, who set their alarm (Setia; keep up) early for weekend training.
Just think, all these spoons were camouflaged among you here for generations, lifetimes in some cases. Their secret selves were whispering, waiting for a white ghost, a Spoonmeisterly poet, to come along and lighten your day with them in an instant!
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