As someone who will be spending the better part of a year here in Malaysia, I’ve decided that it’s best to have my friends help me pick up some Malay while I’m here. Although it doesn’t seem like a language I’ll ever use again once I go back to the US next year, it’s still a show of respect to try to pick some up. But I have to figure out a way to have fun while I’m learning too. So I decided to teach my Malay friend Seelan (pictured at bottom conducting a safety meeting), who speaks both Malay and English as most people I work with do, some English terms from my vocabulary that he doesn’t know; the first term “Laid Back.” Seelan is the safety officer at the site I work at. In America, safety officer is a position that requires an uptight butthole because of the steep consequences of on-site accidents or fines. Unlike the US where there is a very strict safety code (which is expensive if you break rules), the safety standards are much lower here. On our jobsite, you can see workers 20 feet off the ground tight-roping a 2”x4” and hammering nails(pictured below along with other dangerous feats), people riding the crane hooks up to the tops of boring machines, and even men walking around the site wearing bath towels (many of the general workers like in shanty style housing built on site). So the safety officer here has to take a much more ‘laid back’ approach to his job because safety is not a high priority of the management. I see dangerous actions and am immediately concerned, but he knows that he’s at the point where makes the proper recommendations (so that they can’t say he didn’t try) and then the rest is up to management whether he can buy the proper supplies or not. From there, he just has to make sure people are wearing hard hats and boots on site. The next term was “Eye Candy.” We decided to go for some drinks and were trying to figure out the appropriate venue. There were a few determining factors to be considered – prices, food, parking, distance from current location- but the eventual winning factor, Eye Candy. Since being in Malaysia, I’ve yet to really even be in a venue where there is an abundance of nice looking women to look at. Also, the search for nice lower half continues as I can count on one hand the women I’ve seen with any booty or hamstrings since I’ve been here. But it’s always nice to have women walking around to look at as you drink and tell jokes. We ended up at a nice bar in the main ‘action’ strip of a mall called the Curve. It was a good choice from an Eye Candy standpoint; even though the same absence of lower half still persisted. Seelam is starting to look like a good candidate for the road dog role that I’m not sure my British roommate can fill. Although he’s a bit older, he’s got a similar sense of humor to mine and seems like someone I would party if I worked with him back home too. Good person to find at this early stage of the trip. From last night’s trip to the movies (only $3 or so here which is wonderful) to see “The Expendables,” I’ve decided that my British roommate is odd socially. We were two straight guys going to the movies, a fairly normal situation, right? Wrong. He seems to follow me around like a puppy at times. If I walk to the other side of the sidewalk to get a little personal space, I look over and he has wondered over and is 11 inches away from me again. We get up to the ticket counter and there are four cashiers, all of which are open. Why is he right on my shoulder as I’m ordering my ticket? I literally had to tell him “Dude, those counters are open” to get him off my shoulder. Once we enter the cinema, only about 40% full, take a wild guess where he sits? You guessed it, right beside me. No one-seat guy buffer or anything. I think he’s probably be better at scaring fun away than helping to find it. Maybe he’s just out of his element, maybe he’s truly as odd as he currently seems. We will see. I’m glad I met my backup plan. Well, Selamat malam…
No comments:
Post a Comment