Things I May Never Hear or See Again Outside of Malaysia

· The glorious pilgrimage to Batu Caves for the Hindus to celebrate the Deepavali holiday; it's quite a site to see so many people walking to their holy place

Every Malay man in the country wearing their traditional garb (black hat, single color silk-ish long sleeve shirt-pants set, and sarong skirt) heading to their local mosque every Friday to pry from lunch time until about 3 pm. This takes precedent over work or other responsibilities.

One quarter mile strip of road featuring a mosque, a Buddhist temple, a Kongsi temple (Chinese who pray to their ancestors), a church, and a cathedral; each was between 100 and 220 years old. Very old Hindu temple was not far away either.

A very diverse population (three different ethnicities each forming at least 20-25% of the population) that does not mix virtually at all. I have personally met only one person who was mixed between two of the races the entire time I've been here.

The Soft Contact Lens Question

o Person 1: “I didn’t know you wore glasses”

o Me: “Well that’s because most of the time I just wear my contacts”

o Person 1: “Contacts? You mean the soft kind?”

§ I’ve been asked this question at least 5 times in Malaysia, are people still rocking the hard kind somewhere in 2011? I have no idea, but it doesn’t stop people from asking.

· The ‘Where Are You Really From’ Question

o Person 1: “Where are you from?”

o Me: “America”

o Person 1: “Where? South Africa?”

o Me: “No, America. The USA”

o Person 1: “No, can’t be. I meant where are you really from? Like your family?”

o Me: **shakes head**

· Parallel parking into an illegal double (or even triple parked spot). I was borderline astounded the first time I witnessed this in person.

· A car making a right hand U-turn from the left lane around my car which was in the right hand lane. It’s ridiculous any way you slice it.

A wedding reception full of people in full formal wear eating curry-covered rice and meat with their bare hands; much different ideas of what is proper/formal for such an occasion I’d say. I give them credit though, it takes skill to execute without getting your clothes dirty, I feel I would make a mess.

· Official work documents - authored by people seen as authorities of their profession – written in terribly broken and grammatically incorrect English. I know, I’m a native English speaker. Also, I know I’m American and this is a British colony but “I no satisfy with current working” is not a proper sentence. One person went to far as to try to get me to change my wording in our progress report to more Malaysia friendly slightly broken English. SMH

· Fast food restaurants covered in trays. Is it that hard to throw your food away; it’s already on a tray and the trash can (with swinging door designed for quick tray disposal) is located right beside the exit?

Also, fast food (McDonald's, KFC, etc) treated as a delicacy. When a McDonald's combo costs almost 3 times as much as the local food from Malay restaurants, why are Malays excited to go to McDonald's? It defeats the point.

· A toddler standing up in the car with her head out the sunroof as the car drives down the street. What if there’s a sudden stop? She could be beheaded; after all, Malaysians drive crazy. Although I’ve only seen the sunroof incident once, children standing up in cars in general are very prevalent here. Standing up to eat too.

· Corn and beans commonly used in dessert dishes. Why is the ice cream or cake dish covered in syrup, jello, red beans and corn kernels? Just doesn’t yell “Eat your heart out” to me.

· Half-boiled eggs (just cooked enough to not be different from raw eggs, just uncooked enough to still be disgusting) dowsed in soy sauce. It turned my stomach everytime I saw someone eating that foolishness.

· The insignificant “Lah” at the end of every sentence. It is used just as “Yo” might be used in slang for emphasis at the end of a sentence in parts of the US.

· Women in head scarves, meant to conceal the hair which would attract extra male attention, wearing skin-tight jeans on leggings. It’s more important to cover that hair that the lady curves?? Seems to defeat the point to me. LOL

A man walking with this two wives, both approximately the same height and weight, who are both in the full burqka (covering everything except the eyes). How do you tell them apart?

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Substituting Thanksgiving Dinner

For the second consecutive year, I have been in Malaysia for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately this means no traditional Thanksgiving dinner and no family present to celebrate with. Last year, it was just a normal workday followed by a normal Chinese buffet dinner eaten by myself. This year, a few factors enabled the possibility of things being a bit different. Now, I have an American roommate Ryan (Japanese-American from the San Francisco Area), now I drive, and now I know what to expect. So in an effort to replace the family time, football, and traditional Thanksgiving food, we set out to a nearby mall with several Western restaurants. Surprisingly enough, I've found that several 5-star hotels in town offered Thanksgiving dinner meals, however they were entirely too expensive. So the Western selection of Bubba Gump Shrimp, Kenny Rogers' Roasters, TGIFridays, Popeyes', Manhattan Fish Market, A&W, etc was about the best I could do. Much to my surprise, turkey is not halal (like the Muslim version of kosher, meaning certain foods and drinks can not be consumed, and food must be killed and prepared in certain ways), so finding turkey was going to be next to impossible. So me and Ryan discussed sides we enjoyed the most on Thanksgiving. He had mashed potatoes on his mind. My favorite Thanksgiving side? Macaroni & cheese. So, TGI Fridays ultimately won out. It's nowhere near a complete Thanksgiving meal or environment, but it's better than nothing. Also, better than last year, when absolutely nothing even remotely Thanksgiving-lesque took place at all. It was disappointing and it started the only period of homesickness I've really dealt with. Although this year's holiday was still unfulfilling, it was better. It will still be wonderful next month when the family aspect of the holiday season is returned. I can't wait...

Lack of Education and Lack of Ambition

I’ve been here in Sandakan (East Malaysia on the island of Borneo) for a few days now and I haven’t seen a whole lot yet. But one of the things I have observed makes me sad: there is no priority put on education for small children. I work on a construction site, where the general workers live on-site in tenements that they built out of the project materials and whatever else they could gather. It’s bad enough that grown men have to live this way but that’s just how it goes in Malaysia. But here I’ve seen so many 10-14 year olds working at my site, at restaurants, and everywhere. All I can keep thinking is: what kind of life are they setting themselves up for? Not only do they have no idea what they’re missing or what is going on in the world, they may not know about anything going on outside of this construction site. If this is the case, there is no ambition in them, no drive, no expectation of a better life at all. All they know is that tomorrow, the sun will come up and they will come out and continue to server as helpers for lightweight construction work such as grouting and finish work until the day ends and they walk back to their tenements and start the process over tomorrow. Once this project is over, they will likely find another project nearby and start the same lifestyle over again. I was once told by a Malay co-worker of mine that locals – even the educated ones – are essentially programmed to be robots in this country. Whether you go to school and college or not, once the work world comes at you, the expectation is to settle into some convenient lifestyle close to home. Get married, get some job (often with no upward mobility), work hard enough not to lose this job in the next 40 years, start a family and never think about anything outside of that. I talk to locals about my travels and they’re amazed, even though they’ve spent their lives in this part of the world. You’re from Kuala Lumpur and you’ve never been to East Malaysia? If you plan ahead, you can fly there for next to nothing. You’re from Kuala Lumpur and you’ve never been to Singapore? It’s a 4 hour bus ride for something like $10 US. I dare not even ask about China, Australia, Thailand, or somewhere else slightly further away. So what are they waiting for? The truth is they’ve never even thought about going somewhere else. That’s why my presence and situation shocks so many people. I’m not saying every American thinks globally because most don’t. But even Americans I know who have never left the US have travelled a bit within their region of the US; they have wanted to see SOMETHING other than what they see in their hometown every day. Well, over here, travelling that region of the US is like going from country to country, and the locals have not done it. You ask them why and they stumble. They say they don’t want to miss work like they don’t have leave like me. They may say money, like it’s not dirt cheap if you plan ahead. At the end of the day, it’s a mindset. To me, they’re existing and not truly living. Forget travelling, but most locals (even many educated ones) don’t even have any idea what is going on outside of their country. How is it you have cable television and the internet but you have no concept of current events whatsoever? I could see if you had hobbies or enthusiasms which were taking up your time, but no that’s not the case either. I’d guess that if you charted out their days it would go: Wake up, work, back home, eat, watch tv, talk about something other than current events or hobbies with your family, go to sleep, start over. To me, you only get one life and that is no way to spend it. I know my two cents doesn’t mean much to them and wont change their culture, but I can’t surround myself with people like that. Knowing how sensitive Malays are, this is one of the things I’ve been trying to spare feelings about when people here ask me “Nigel, you’re not going to stay here in Malaysia forever?” Don't mean to sound like a bigot, but I can't be content in a situation where ignorance is acceptable. This is where stuff like the Nazi shirt debacle start. SMH

Bliss, South Korean Style

I’ll admit it, I underestimated South Korea. Not to say that I had low expectations by any means, but it blew me away. The reason I went there was to witness the IAAF Track and Field World Championships live, a possibly once in a lifetime experience. I figured that Daegu, South Korea is a lot closer to Malaysia than the US, so why not make the most of it while I’m in Southeast Asia? So along with my friend Dakari Watson, who I used to jump against in college, we planned it out and made it happen. He works in Terengganu, a small province on the East Coast of Malaysia. I already had a friend from college living right outside of Seoul working as a teacher. I had spoken to her about staying there a few days while I was there to site see Seoul as well as attending the events in Daegu. I decided to go online and seek out some more contacts in the area too via Facebook and Couch Surfer; this ended up being one of my best moves. Unexpectedly, right before I was due to head there, my contact there disappeared mysteriously. No responses, not even any traffic on Facebook. So I had to be concerned about her, but more pertinently, I no longer had anywhere to stay in the Seoul area. Therefore, after a stroll around Seoul seeing historical sites, I was hecticly trying to formulate a plan whenever I gcould sneak some wifi in. However, the hospitality of my contacts (mostly Americans teaching English in Korea) and the overall generosity of the Korean people in general helped me to solve this and many other problems. A friend of a friend of a friend extended his hospitality for the night, shout out to Pernell for that. On the way there – and many other places – I had to ask the help of locals on the street. Their eagerness to help foreigners was amazing; it was above and beyond the Southern hospitality I’ve grown accustomed to. There were occasions were you would ask a Korean which direction something was and instead of simply telling you they would walk you there, handle the cab for you, or even give you a ride there themselves. We met ladies at one point who took us out to eat at a pretty good restaurant.

After a night in Cheongju, I made it to Daegu and got settled in time to meet more teachers and be in the stadium for the premier event of the world’s track attention- the 100 final. Although I was disappointed that I never didn’t get to see the 3 fastest men in the world compete in the final the way I wanted; each for different circumstances (Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell got injured the last month or so before the Championships, and Usain Bolt false started in the final resulting in disqualification). Nonetheless, being in the stadium to see the best in the world compete at all the different events was magical. To make it even more special, I know or have met some of the athletes and get to see them do what they do best at the highest level of competition. After the first two nights in Daegu, we had a few days before we had tickets to attend the meet again. The original plan was to spend these days in Seoul and came back once we had tickets again; however, as mentioned, I no longer had accommodations, so I needed a plan. One of my contacts through Facebook was hospitable enough to offer me her living room for this time; shout out to Jessica “JWo” Womack.

Other than the overall lack of food in the fridge (she did have pancakes however), she was the best host imaginable. We met at the train station trying to head to the town where she lived, Gimcheon, about a 45 minute train ride from Daegu. Well, we just barely missed the 12:42am train, the next train wasn’t until 4:05am. Consequently, I got another one-of-a-kind Korea experience instead, the jim jil bang. Basically if you need a place to crash for a night, or even a few hours, you pay about $7-8 US which gets you a towel, a night outfit, a hard pillow, a blanket, and a mat. You enter the facility and it has a common area with couches and TVs, showers, lockers, and sleeping areas where you can put your mat on the floor and go to sleep for however long you desire. It would have been cool if not for all the male nudity, Koreans are comfortable enough that in such a place they usually spend the whole time there naked rather than just before and after showering like I would be used to. Call me homophobic, but I’m just not comfortable with someone coming and sitting beside me on a small couch trying to hold a conversation if he has no clothes on. Therefore, I’m not in a rush to have the experience again. Well, we finally made it to Gimcheon, where I would be spending the next few days until my reservations at the hotel start back. So in the meantime, I would be travelling back and forth to Daegu if I needed to go back. It’s very easy to get anywhere in the city and even from town to town with their transportation system. I went back for a day of competition, to meet with a very pleasant contact named Anika that I spent some time with, and even ended up on a double date one night; apparently double dating is big in South Korea. One night, Anika and I went to a traditional Korean steakhouse, which was amazing. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. She also helped familiarize me with downtown Daegu. However, one night I got back to Gimcheon very late and found out the hard way that JWo is quite a heavy sleeper. LOL.

I was returning from a late night out in downtown Daegu and luckily I had written her address (in Korean) down because I definitely had trouble finding it in the darkness of night. After getting help locating the exact building, I realized the entrance code for the building door was more than meets the eye. I had also written down the 4-digit code, but found that you had to press a button before and a button after; I wasn’t savvy to which buttons in which order. The same gentlemen that helped me locate the building showed me that it went *key button,* then the code, then *doorbell button.* So I make it to the door and knock, I receive no answer. At this point, it’s past 5am and my friend will be leaving her apartment around 7am. I’ve conceded that if I don’t get an answer I will dose off on the steps beside her door in a seated position and she will see me and let me in when she comes out. However, to my surprise, the same gentleman who helped me before reappears to see if I’m still in the hall. I have her phone number, but my Malaysian cell phone doesn’t work in South Korea, so he lets me use his. After 3 attempts, no answer; like I said, she sleeps hard. The man disappears again and once again I prepare to dose off on the stairs. But then the man reappears with a security guard. Now all of a sudden, I’m on the brink of getting thrown out of the building if I can’t wake her up and get inside. So she finally answers the phone and lets me in. Fun times. Lol.

As the rest of the heavy hitting part of the Championships approached, I got back in track mode. One day I was lucky enough to get a friend of mine who was competing to help sneak me into the Athlete’s Village; it was mind blowing. The facilities were brand new and they had their own dining halls, practice tracks, shops, even live tradition Korean performing arts pretty much all day long. The people I knew there said it was even nicer than the Athlete’s Village from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I got to spend time with plenty of people I knew there: my college track coach Nat Page, Nigerian hurdler AJ Adamosu, and Jamaican hurdlers Richard Phillips and Vonette Dixon. I also saw many of the faces from TV whom I had previously never seen in person. I snuck a free meal there and had a comedy session over popsicles with my old coach and other practice mates; I had them every day at practice in college, but I sorely miss them in Malaysia.

Once we made it back to the track, the excitement kept on rolling. I saw a world record in person, even though it was disappointing to see the USA runner front flip out of the race in that same event. I saw Usain Bolt run the 3^rd fastest time in 200 meter history. I got to see two Atlanta natives and track legends that I know personally – Angelo Taylor and Dwight Phillips – win gold medals. I saw a 21-year old Atlanta native, Christian Taylor, that we used to compete against in college become the 5^th longest triple jumper in track and field history and take the World Championship over incumbent champion eccentric Briton Phillips Idowu. To make matters more impressive, his 20 year old college teammate Will Claye, won the bronze medal in the same event beating some really stiff competition from places such as Cuba, the Bahamas, Portugal, and Sweden. That was an amazing event as a whole. An American hurdler, Jason Richardson – who was close to quitting track recently – competed against the three fastest men ever in his event and left with a gold medal. In the women’s hurdles, the most sweet and innocent looking woman in the race, Aussie Sally Pearson, went wild and blew away the competition for one of the fastest times ever. There were stories of redemption for athletes coming back from suspensions (Justin Gatlin and Lashwan Merrit) and celebration for athletes making it over the hump for their first gold medals (Carmelita jeter and Lashinda Demus). There were several more events I’m not usually that into that captivate your attention when you are there in person seeing the best in the world perform; there were several Championship and National Records broken too. We found some other Americans to bask in the glory with as other nations (especially Jamaica) were visibly displeased anytime America won a gold medal. It was a magical event and I hope I can get back to one again one day.

After the bulk of the athletes were finished competing, it was party time for them. A friend of mine Angelo Taylor, gold medallist who went to Tech before I arrived there, hooked me up at a club in downtown Daegu where most of the track people were having a good time. It was also fairly relieving to see these World Class athletes who had been so focused and stressed the past 2 weeks get to relax and have fun. Some of them are pretty wild too. After the very last night of competition, we had to hop on a bus back to Incheon Airport to fly back to Malaysia. By that time both me and Dakari didn’t want to go back. The trip has shown us how much of polar opposites two countries in the same region of the world can be. Between the pleasantness of the people (both Korean and foreigners there), the food, the convenience of transportation, the propensity to enjoying having fun, or the culture, Korea was amazing. No offense to Malaysia, but it doesn’t even compare quite frankly. So then we had to take the flight back to reality. Hopefully I will see you again South Korea. My friend is already making plans to teach there when he’s done in Malaysia; it helps that on top of the aforementioned benefits, it pays a lot more too. See pictures below:

Is That A Swasika?

At times, things make me want to weep upon first site. Well, I recently had the same urge when I saw Malays walking around in a shirt with a Nazi swastika on it. I know what you’re thinking; it was an Asian religious symbol for luck and prosperity first. And I know that, I've seen it on temples in Thailand, Singapore and other places. But no, this was the tilted swastika in the circle and the red background just like the one on Hitler’s arm (and it wasn't crossing it out like the one I inserted); Skin head, Neo-Nazi swastika. I had heard about this foolishness before. Apparently, they try to defend it saying that “Well, I’m Muslim. I don’t like Jews. Neither did they, so we’re on the same team.” Ridiculous, right? The lack of education (blog coming next) shows through immensely with such simplistic and misguided logic. Had we been in an English speaking country, I think I'd have had the right to try to educate the man that Hitler would have also despised you (a Malay), me (a Black man), or anyone who wasn’t prototypically Arian (tall, blond haired and blue eyed), 2) assume that he knows more about Hitler which would entitle me to lay hands on him if he's a Neo-Nazi. But here, because of the language barrier, I can’t even communicate with him to rid him of this deeply misguided mindset towards Nazis. All of this is processing in my mind as he walks by and I catch a glimpse of the back of his shirt………………it’s made by Levi's. OOOO MMYYY GOODNESS, Are you serious? Levi’s, which I’ve since been told is actually like a Hebrew name, is taking advantage of these uneducated people and using them as the marketing base to sell this filth? The anger inside which was brewing deep within but being held at bay by my rationale about the unknowing foreigner all of a sudden rose very quickly. I can’t think of a more disgusting example of selling your soul for the profits. Even in the immoral world of business, some lines should not be crossed; this is one of them. You know what, it’s time for me to go. The level of uneducated individuals is starting to annoy me. You think there are some ignorant people in America, you can’t imagine some of this foolishness. I'm so disappointed...

A Weekend in Bangkok

I've been doing a lot of traveling in the past few weeks and it's kept me from keeping my blog up. But all stories will be told, one by one. So we'll start with this, the story of a weekend in Bangkok:

In Asia, a lot of companies circumvent a lot of visa renewal paperwork by having employees leave the country for at least one night so the social pass can start while the professional visa is processing. As my initial work visa expired on August 19^th, I had to leave the country that day. The easy option was to take a cheap bus ride to Singapore; however, I’ve been there before. Therefore, I wanted to see something different, hence a trip to Thailand. So once we convinced the big boss man to pay for part of the plane ticket, we decided to take a weekend trip to Bangkok. We arrive and head to a known ‘back packer’ area called Khaosan Road. I like such areas because there is good but cheap accommodations, locals anxious to present local food to foreigners (such as pad thai and cow pai), and street vendors selling various kinds of hand made goods. There are street vendors everywhere, but they displayed a new product that I’ve never seen hustled on the street before – tailor made suits. Instead of displaying all products on their cart, they were trying to usher you into their shop full of fabrics so they could start taking your measurements. It’s a unique experience, much different from the fake clothes and illegal DVDs you can get anywhere.

The tuk tuk – a motorized cart named for the sound the older engines used to make when it ran - is a unique trait of Bangkok. You can name several different locations you would like to see and it will provide you transportation for the entire period to all the locations you outlined. Pricing depends on whether you’ve gotten intel from locals about what is reasonable and what is not. We quickly found that Bangkok is full of con men and they will take you for as much money as you agree to pay them. Also, some of them are working for suit makers or jewellery stores and plot all along to take you there and convince you to spend money there. Most likely, the stores are paying them some kind of commission. It’s so elaborate in some places that locals in public places are participating to send people to these stores. We ended up in a suit shop this way, but we didn’t buy anything. Despite that, I saw several Buddhist temples, and landmarks this way. After coming out of one temple, the tuk tuk had ditched us, probably for the prospect of a higher pay day. But he had not received any money yet, so it was not such a big deal. The next day, using cabs instead, I saw more monuments to Kings and Generals, a precious art exhibit, the National Elephant Museum (Thailand markets itself as the Kingdom of Elephants), a historically significant mansion and more.

As for nightlife, it was a very refreshing weekend of interesting experiences. We met Americans and Germans there who convinced me to try locusts while out on the town; actually tastes like popcorn really. We experienced the Thai live cover band experience also. Even further, I met up with a friend from middle school who I hadn’t seen in about 10 years for drinks. Random sidenote: It’s magical that through the gift of Facebook, people whose paths have gone so different places can reconnect seamlessly. I won’t go into detail, but after catching up, we experienced some of the legendary Bangkok night entertainment. Although it was entertaining, it was disappointing in some ways. It’s still an experience I’d recommend though. I’d like to go again at some point when I have more time. The only downside was, due to being congested when I got on the plane, the pressure as the elevation changes in the plane caused the phloem to clog up my ear. I mean, my ears always pop on a plane but usually chewing gum or swallowing hard would relieve the pressure; this time was different for some reason, the ears were agonizingly painful. The ears were blocked like this much of the time there and started up again during the trip back unfortunately. But I got it largely taken care of before my next trip. See various pictures below:

Ramadan and its Quirks/Perks

It's once again Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. It's last one month based on the Islalamic lunar calendar, meaning the exact dates and lengths vary from year to year. I arrived in Malaysia on the second day of it last year and had no idea what to expect. This year i know what to expect and can appreciate it more. The concept is that the fasting displays the devotion to ignore the demands of the body and pray to come close to Allah. Fasting persons usually wake up and gorge themselves as much as they can before 5am (or whenever the exact start time is for the fast) and then are not allowed to eat or drink anything until "berbuka puasa" (meaning the break of fast) which is usually around 7:30pm. Working on an outdoor construction site in a country with year long summer isn't the easiest situation to fast for my coworkers. I adamantly try not to eat or drink in front of anyone I know that is fasting. A former coworker used to jokingly become angry every time someone had the audacity to consume something in front of him. I've come to find out that my Bangladeshi workers (about half, along with Indonesians) are not fasting. I've routinely caught them eating or drinking on-site during the fasting hours. Although I can't blame them due to the physical demands of the job, I do wonder just how other Muslims feel about it when they see it. I remember last year my boss told me that the police can arrest you if you're Malay and get caught eating at a restaurant during fasting hours. Our workers have set up three concession stand-like shops on our site so they don't have to risk being caught and detained by the police but its still slightly risky business. Especially as much as the local authority institution DBKL (I jokingly say it stands for 'Douche Bags of Kuala Lumpur') likes to pop up and attempt to procure bribes on site. The dinners they have at 'buka puasa' are simply amazing. I've already been to one, I was disappointed I couldn't fully take advantage of the buffet because I had such a big lunch that day. But one good thing about being widely liked is that I will have more opportunities. LOL.