I am being followed.... I try to run, but there is no escaping them. I try to ignore them, but they won’t stay in the shadows. In the smoky side-streets of KL’s Chinatown, the corridors of overnight trains, on the beaches of picturesque Malaysian tropical islands they wait for me, ready to pounce... “MY FRIEND, MY FRIEND, YOU WANT INDIAN, MALAYSIAN, CHINESE... ONLY 3 RINGGIT!” They are mobile, organised and hungry. I am only the latter. I try to resist them, fighting back by feigning indifference; but they can see it in my eyes, they sense I am weak, they know I will break... Homer Simpson may have put his hotdog vendor’s children through college, but I have singlehandedly propelled the families of numerous Malaysian street hawkers from the clutches of poverty to the relative comfort
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