Michelle Yeoh plays several characters in this short film set in Penang.

The codeswitching (language and body language) based on status / environment / character is nuanced and reflects a broad range of the Malaysian Chinese city life experience that I have been a part of.

I also love that most of it is filmed in food places, and now I am terribly homesick.

https://youtu.be/7Lo8WTBuHDg

#MichelleYeoh #Malaysia #TootSea

SANDIWARA: THE FEATURE FILM

YouTube

I think sometimes when I say I’m homesick, it’s partly that I miss family, friends, food, home; even the weather

But it’s also, in watching this short film

I miss being in an environment that I 100% get. All of the characters in the film are composites of people I probably know. I know how all of the food in the background tastes. I know how it sounds.

I don’t think it’s easy to convey how good the food is. And how that’s central to life over there. Think of the best Chinese food you’d ever had and then 10x it. And that’s just every street corner in Penang and Ipoh. And you’re in a community that centers all of this celebration of joy and food and that speaks in multiple languages in the same sentence.

I miss all of it.

If all of my life experiences were on a scale of 100, the person that I am in America, even in a part of it that is very Asian, where I don’t really feel like an outsider at all, feels like just 20.

Living away from *that* environment (Singapore / Malaysia / India, my homes feels like the missing 80.

@skinnylatte Where and when did you live in India? What kind of food did you like?

@amenonsen Bangalore and Mumbai. On and off between 2004 and 2015

Still go regularly

My fave food is Andhra and Konkani food

@skinnylatte We just went on a road trip up the Malabar and south Konkan coast (from Kozhikode to Udupi), and had Marwai sukka (mussels) for the first time at a fancy (i.e., tourist-ified) toddy shop. It was awesome.

@amenonsen yes. My fave!!

I also adore the food from Erode and Coimbatore.

Anything with coconut and curry leaves really. Nice to meet you!

@skinnylatte Coimbatore! Maybe you're familiar with Valarmathi mess, near the race course.

My family is from Kerala, so coconut and curry leaves are the basic building blocks of food. We even managed to grow a little forest of curry leaf trees here in the mountains. Now after years of protecting them from frost etc., they're self-sustaining. No luck with coconuts yet, though. 🙈

Nice to meet you too. :-)