Awang Oh Awang. Bukang Angkasawang.

There's no such thing as plain Awang. You gotta be Awang something. Like Awang Chia, the husband of Mek Marang. Of course there's no way of knowing for sure which part of mainland China they came from but they are as Chinese as Chinese could be when they are as silent as a fish but the moment they open their mouth to speak, either to ask you about Aunt or Grandma, or to tell you that the price of sugar has gone up 5 sen to 25 sen a kati, you won't know the difference between Awang Chia or Awang Botok, who is short, dark and not very bright in the head that it got people to psst psst that he is actually a wali in disguise. And Awang Botok can't be anymore Malay than you and me unless you decide to change your name from Tawil to Thompson, or from Melor to Mary, or thereabout. Maybe you've missed my point since I have the tendency to digress from the main topic but at this point in this entry you will have deduced that I've got two things on my mind; that in Trengganu people are fond of calling you Awang. You've gotta go figure what is the second thing on my mind since I am not too bright in the head to figure that out myself. Maybe, just maybe, like Awang Botok, I am a wali in disguise.

There's Awang Teksi. No, he's not a cab driver but he's the only trishaw man in Dungun who goes about his job in a cowboy hat. Well, it's not exactly the real cowboy hat you find in Texas but a good immitation to the real thing to resemble a hat movie cowboys put on when they ride on their horses. He should have been Awang Koboi but somehow it didn't go this way because he had a trishaw first before he finally had enough money to buy him a cowboy hat.

I know don't know Awang Injeng very well because he doesn't talk to children all that much when he's busy working on boat engines. Besides, you don't see him very much. His job takes him deep in the dark, engine compartment of a fishing boat, only to emerge every now and then, his face smeared in oil that he looks like a miner who has spent five years looking for coal in a used mine.

There's Awang Ddecung. I don't know of a standard Malay equivalent for Ddecung but in Trengganuspeak (a word coined by Awang Goneng who has got a book out on Growing Up In Trengganu), Ddecung is usually reserved to describe the sound of a fast-moving object that whizzes you by in a flash. Say for example you are relaxing on a veranda sipping a cup of coffee and then all of a sudden a fighter jet zooms you over that it got you all startled and nearly die of a heart attack. I hope you get what I mean. Awang Ddecung is like that. He walks like a snail but when he's on his motorcycle, he's gotta be the fastest man alive that people say one of these days he's gonna burn himself into a flame riding his bike so fast against the wind.

There's Awang Guling, but his Awangness isn't strong enough to hold down his given name, which is Semail but we call him Johng. So instead of Awang Guling, he is more popular among us as Johng Guling, but among the older generation, I mean those who were young men and women during the Japanese War, he is known fondly as Awang Guling. You see, he survived a motorcycle accident by rolling himself into a ball over the top of a car and onto the road with minor scratches to his elbows and knees.

I once told Johng Guling that he needed a passport to go to Kuantan. He never left Dungun all his life until one day when he had to go to Kuantan to buy a small truck for his business. He went to the immigration office to apply for a passport and the officers there must have laughed so hard that the whole of Dungun trembled as if a giant earthquake had just hit us. He came looking for me and I ran for my life that it's a miracle people don't call me Awang Lipas.