Cafe 2020

The kindergarteners shared what they knew about Forest City before the pandemic. One said, "If the people didn't come here the buildings would not be sold. Most of the buildings in Forest City are very tall." Another child said, "Forest City buildings are built floor by floor. The earthquake might come. If the foundation in the building is not very strong it's dangerous for the people to live in it." 

In the first year, a crack appeared in the bottom of the pool at the International School and all the water drained out. A crew was brought in to repair the crack, and they filled it up with water again. As the earth continued to settle, a hard rain resulted in a prefabricated cement tunnel sinking an inch deeper into the sand where the cement met the roadway. A crew patched the gap with asphalt so the cars didn't have such a hard bump as they passed through. It was explained to me that the city was built quickly in such a way that it would be as cheap to build as possible, but it would be expensive to maintain. Like counterfeit luxury items made in China and sold in the United States, Forest City looks good on the surface. The reality of the place does not match first impressions.

One kindergartner said, "The building might fall, so if it falls they will rebuild it again. If nobody stays in the building it will become very old and bad people will go into the building." Another child added, “An engineer went into the house and talked to my mother. The engineer told her how to check whether the building will fall. If the building is shaky it means it will fall and become very shabby and abandoned. The engineer is very honest so the building will not fall." There have been other developments like this in Asia that have become shabby and abandoned. The idea was that with such close proximity to Singapore a couple miles away, Forest City would be different. Even with the border closed due to the pandemic, there was still hope this would be a thriving place in the future, that all of those homes with lights on for show would one day be filled with people. 

If the original meaning of utopia was "no place," Forest City might be a good example if it wasn't for the fact that there was a place there before the sparkling tall buildings. Before there was a private island with it's own duty-free zone and customs checkpoint, there was a community of indigenous fishermen who had been there for hundreds of years. Kelp beds with seahorses were there aside the mangrove forest. This dream city was built in a short span of time with great fanfare, winning awards for it's eco-friendly design. Without honesty about what was there before, it is no wonder the foundation is still a bit shaky. Still, every part of the story is only a part of the story. 

In the Summer of 2020, the island was still under construction. The pace was nothing like what I had seen there less than a year before, with thousands of men working around the clock. The outwardly mobile middle class people of China were no longer arriving by the busloads to participate in the My Malaysian Second Home program and tour the Sales Gallery. Workers who had once lived in the camps on the land adjacent to the city had moved into the condominiums, and worked out in the gyms, and made up the majority of the patrons of the Cafe 2020 in the Forest City mall. 

My friend Jassi and I went to Cafe 2020 to celebrate his 30th birthday. Jassi spread good cheer freely to those who crossed his path, singing in Punjabi. In a convenience store, passing by the other guards. Friendly tones making the place feel like a welcome home, so much more than the signs by the roadways of the mostly empty Forest City that read "selamat pulang." My brother. We had both arrived in Forest City at nearly the same time, and ended up leaving at the same time almost to the day. He went back to India and I went back to the United States. 

Jassi was in Forest City to work as a gate guard, and he knew every license plate number of every car in Forest City, along along with the faces of all the people in them. All of the people didn't necessarily know him, but he knew them. One day as I was passing through his gate I stopped to talk a bit and learned that he was the son of a farmer in India who had studied at the University of Chandigarh. We discovered we had a common interest in exercising our bodies, and made plans to be among the first, if not the first people to ever run the circumference of the island on foot. We trained through the fall and ran the whole way around the last time we saw each other on the island. 

If there is anything worth remembering about the foundation years in Forest City millennia from now, it will be the sweet tones of the voices of those who greeted each other with goodwill and song. The year the whole world turned inward and paused for a moment to make real progress in the changed atmosphere. Before the vaccines that made it possible to come and go from the island with relative freedom. Even if the madness of building and commerce and what we call progress continues, we have had time to become aware of the foundations of our being in a place where children were as wise as anyone about what was at stake.

I was fortunate to make a friend in Forest City during a period of transition to a time when coming generations depend on our actions more than ever to build the foundation of a just and healthy future. This is about more than engineering and quick construction. This is about the beating hearts of the children, women, and men who began to see the dream for what it was. This is about the vibrations of our voices echoing across time from what were once hushed corridors between high rise buildings to a time when it will be hard to tell where one echo stops and another one begins there will be so many people. This is about what great fortune it is to have one good friend in a place outside of time, at the beginning of history. No matter how long the buildings stand.