SITTING WITH ONE leg folded across the other on a small red plastic stool outside his shop, the old man looks up as the shiny blue interstate bus pulls into the Gopeng terminal. He sips his oolong tea and turns his face back to the newspaper, the one he has been reading for the second time this morning. He sighs and folds the black-and-white photograph of a politician waving their finger in the air accompanied by small Chinese text that his eyes strain to see these days. The bus comes to Gopeng twice a day, once on its way to Kuala Lumpur and another on the way to the nearby regional city of Ipoh. There are many more buses of course, but they all run express. Each time the bus stops in Gopeng the sleepy town wakes up for a few minutes. Taxi drivers come out of the woodwork, mainly old Chinese men, but some Indians from the nearby village also show up. Families come to the bus stop to greet their relatives arriving from interstate. 

No one is there to greet me this time.