Friday, March 04, 2011

Disturbing neighbour(s)


Last week, I stayed for a few days in a rather quaint colonial era hotel on Burma Road in Penang. Next door was this business with the huge sign Pathlab above it. It looked just like a regular shop, so I assumed at first that this was just another charmingly inept piece of Asian business naming - choosing a word at random from an English dictionary to give your grocery or hardware store a little more of that international cachet. But no, it really was your friendly neighbourhood pathology lab. Cutting out the middlemen, those pesky doctors, and pitching their services direct to the man on the street - Do your own biopsy, and bring it to us!

Not really the sort of place you expect to find on a suburban street; not the sort of place you want to be living next-door to.

Even worse, right next to the 'path lab' there was a pet store. Late at night, a plaintive mewling of animals was often heard, and it could be hard to tell from which of the two premises it was emanating...

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