its 10pm and u're hungry and there's no food at home. whats the 1st place that comes to mind? 10 bucks says that u'd be off to the nearest mamak with ur mate (this of course applies only to malaysians living in malaysia).

anyway, mamaks are a phenomenon that came about only at the most 10 years back - well, or at least 24 hr ones are anyway. know this for a fact cos back then when we used to sneak out for a drink in the wees hours in the morning, there wasn't exactly much of a choice when it came to places to hang out at that time. it was either seroja (which by the way is already non-existent) or seroja (haha, i meant another branch further down the road in port klang). i believe its more or less the same elsewhere too although its alil better in subang since there are many lifeless outstationers there, but as far as i remember there's only that 'starhill' place (which incidently is also non-existent now).

basically the whole point of this post is that mamaks are a product of our generation. i believe that many of our parents just dont get wats such a big deal about mamaks - although i have noticed that there are some who hv embraced it, although not at a scale that we youngsters hv - hanging out all night there, that is. so if mamaks came about when our generation, where did our parents' generation hang out to get their supper fixes?

well, i remember when i was much much younger (think circa 1990s) whenever my parents felt like supper, we'd go out to this place in port klang - it'd be a marketplace in the day, and a hawker centre at nights (dat was no typo dawg, i'd be trying my hand out at 'street-talking'.. hmm, watever =P). anyway, that place although dark, gloomy and dirty was like super happening - it was as if there whole damned klang was having their supper there every single night. everyone'd be eating fried noodles (hokkien mee), loh mee, fried kuay tiao - basically stuff that u can get fm ur average tai chau (ermm.. big fried? hehe). now fast forward to present day and that place is now quarter full (or empty, up 2 u) - perhaps there might be a crowd during dinner time, but after that its pretty quiet. my point here is that basically its not as happening as it was 10 years ago.

so where did all the customers go? 2 possibilities:

1. his cust consisted of the older generation & they all kyiok liao, ermm i mean health-conscious
2. all of them went to mamaks cos its more happening there

come to think of it, how many happening tai chaus do u see operating in the wee hours of the night these days. i dont mean those that hv a stall in those 24 hour foodcourt cum hawker centre places. i mean those traditional one store-one anchor tai chau types. i'm not saying that they've disappeared, but how many of them are still happening? or perhaps i should rephrase my question to when was the last time u had tai chau in the wee hours of the morning? my answer to that would be about 7 years ago. i'm not even sure if that place is still open today.

hmmm.. what have we, the younger generation done? are we killing (or hv already killed off) the supper tai chau industry?