With many imbalances at home, a bloated stomach, indigestion, and backpain, I woke up just as ali texted our ERTI group, “chi too passed away,” before ryan, before others knew. rebecca and paul rushed to text me a few minutes after.

I hadn’t slept well the night before. Two of my friends had nightmares. The other worldly realm calling to us, to confront reality with brain-shit held in our bodies. I kind of knew something tragic was happening.

It was January 25 when we last met. I didn’t know you well, but you recognised me. nona drove me over and set up a dinner cooked by yourself. cigarettes, rollies, js, drifted through the room as your spotify playlist of jazz drifted in the monsoon air. Your reputation precedes you, anyone associated with Ilham, five arts, jfkl, krishen jit had an aura that glowed. On five arts instagram, they wrote “in 2012, chi too was one of the 5 recipients of the Krishen Jit Fund. For this, he conducted research in Kampung Mangkok, Terengganu, learning to make & fly kites from local master craftsman Zaki Bual. The research was called ‘FTW! (FOR THE WIND!).”

I live in Hong Kong. Typhoons batter our city every year. Instead of playing, dancing, traipsing in the wind and embracing monsoon season in East Coast, we put up concrete walls to force the wind around our cityscape. Grounded in rock-hard granite our city is constructed atop, jagged slopes, wind cuts like a sharp knife in our drainage water infrastructure and nullahs. Bamboo scaffolding holds on tight, dearly, for their life when a Typhoon 10 lands on our coastline. Geographically, we share the same South China Sea carries to the very same wind south towards Kuala Terengganu. But we fear the angin.

The monsoon winds drags through Terengganu so differently. Everyday is an eternal wind-tunnel, swirling around you. “You’d be blown off if you don’t eat more!” a chicken-rice stall auntie exclaimed to me.The wind held chi toos home in a constant state of flux. Cross ventilation from the front to the back of the upper storey shoplot. His cat grazes my leg.

I looked back at my notes, and I wrote six pages of his commentary on the art world of Kuala Lumpur, and what healing properties Terengganu gave him. Which was simple: to rest.

It was a place for reeling from the monsoon. chi too described how he hosted artists from Japan, for the JFKL residency, and they had ten days of rest by the sea. That this monsoon season, was more sunny than rainy. Four months of grey, 2-3 months of sun - this isn’t what it was before.

From weather, to the materiality of Kuala Terengganu, “design is everywhere, and they make it work” chi too says. That the everyday materials of timber and vernacular construction just simply makes its way into the cafe culture of KT.

He talked about starting a bed and breakfast house in KT, maybe in Penarik, he thinks. He wants to invite designers from KL, to build a space for KLites to pay good money to stay in.

The economy of Terengganu is fascinating, people are entrepreneurial, and have absolutely no reason to participate in the art scene. For many, cultural practices of the hobbies, beit motorcycles, coffee, surfing, beach volleyball, staring aimlessly at the ocean. Kuala Terengganu has space for this. “everything has a level of aesthetics, they care about things, in a way that KL doesn’t”

All visual art in Malaysia comes from five lineages. All relying on some level of grant making. “but I believe artist should get a job, so you know what you are really talking about.” If not they end up in one of the five lineages. chi too’s practice circumvents by resting, tickling with the stuff of everyday life. His life in Kuala Terengganu, I only had a small snapshot of it, was first led by a cat, ceiling fans, pancakes and rumah kayu boys.