Post date: Aug 21, 2010 3:2:48 PM
PETALING Jaya is not a favourite place and I am definitely not a PJ person.
In the ongoing tale of two cities, longtime residents of Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, like football supporters, are destined to root for their hometown by accident of birth..
Why does PJ seem to evoke such strong loyalty from its residents? It’s puzzling, especially when KL is so evidently superior. Yes, I declare I am a KL person, who will never cross over – ever.
Admittedly, I did spend a few student years living in PJ, but I’ve never felt at home there. Or even felt enough connection in order to make it a companionable living arrangement. And, once I had moved out of there, I could never return.
To me the city of PJ, accorded its lofty urban status in 2006, will always be a transient space created to capture KL’s overspill and a place that is, sadly, still without soul.
All the world’s greatest cities grow naturally, evolving through the ages, marinating in their past yet striding forth into the future. From settlements that began on banks of river confluences to strategic trading posts, real cities are progressive. People arrive, cultures converge, commerce and community thrive on the influences they attract.
PJ, on the other hand, was created in the 1950s as a satellite township to accommodate the spill-over from KL. The infamous Old Town heralded its beginnings, and the blueprint (row of shophouses, pockets of industrial buildings, bus stations and cinemas) was replicated with eerie precision over a number of anonymous numerical sections.
So much so that, today, more than 50 years later, the MBPJ website lists Taman Tasik Kelana Jaya and Taman Jaya as the city’s only two attractions. The state of the two parks tells another sorry tale.
And PJ’s people are voting with their feet, and moving to places like Kota Kemuning and lake-view developments. So it’s not surprsing to hear that the state government is to invest significantly in a PJ spruce-up. Let’s face it – it needs it.
A few weeks ago, I was driving very slowly along an anonymous, nondescript PJ road looking in vain for an address. Heading towards a row of derelict shop-houses in the depths of dingy Paramount, I “met with an accident’’, as we are so fond of saying.
A Kancil hit my car while I was attempting a quick U-turn, after having realised that I was on the wrong road. Which is no surprise, whenever I follow a road sign in PJ.
The accident, the conversation with the driver, the repairs, all receded from my memory quickly, but I still can’t forget the experience of trundling along the irredeemably ugly streets.
At all times of day, male pensioners in singlets, shorts and flip-flops still stalk these streets. Most people look as if they are dressed after a night’s frenzied shopping in one of the many pasar malam. Drivers continue to weave waywardly in and out of traffic in a vain attempt to ... what? Avoid the hundreds of traffic lights?
Steeped in suburbia, PJ breeds a certain type of people. Long-time residents will militantly defend its wonders (as only they know how). At a dinner recently, my husband was seated opposite one such person who was extolling the virtues of living in this pseudo-city.
My husband, himself an ardent KL-ite, was given the impression that SS2 was the centre of the universe, and tops for durians. When he owned up to not knowing this, he was told that he’d been “driving blind” in PJ for years. My husband resisted the temptation to retort that one has to be blind to live in PJ.
To be fair, recently there have been attempts to “trendify’’ parts of the city. Snazzy tall buildings, all glass and metal, have sprouted. Yet even with the ubiquitous Starbucks installed, these new office and shopping complexes are hardly a byword for trendiness. And only in PJ will business parks be named after numbers. One, thirty three – there’s soul for you and a whole lot of imagination!
Sure, I am biased, but that’s my prerogative as a resident of a real city, a capital city at that. I invite debate on the relative merits of KL and PJ – just don’t invite me to PJ.
People, places and perceptions inspire writer Jacqueline Pereira. In this column, she rummages through cultural differences and revels in discovering similarities.