The rain is loud on the tin roofs. The floor of the balcony of the Baba Guesthouse is painted a deep, glossy burgundy. Faded blue roll-up blinds lined with fraying, floral silk scarves keep out the gusts of wind, but not the sound of the rain or the roar of the surf across the narrow street. The brown plastic stacking chairs around the laminated plywood table have their legs sheathed in segments of black bicycle inner tubes meant to muffle the sound of scraping on the floor during late night card games. The bead board inner walls are painted a cool aqua, the color one imagines the sea should be but seldom is.
The cement courtyard of the house next door - Shalina's Guesthouse, "A Home Like Home" -looks like every Malaysian courtyard: the ubiquitous rubber hoses, plastic buckets and tubs - some hanging from nails, others sitting about upright or upside down. Wire coathangers dangle from the chain link fence next to gray, cotton mopheads and twining vines. Besides the ever- present laundry hung hopefully out to dry, the space contains a stack of pock-marked styrofoam coolers and some rusty corrugated metal panels and pipes leaning up against the side of the concrete house.
Between the two guesthouses winds a tiny lane, filled with several inches of water despite the metal roof which shields it from the rain. The roof is red with rust. Everything in sight except for this cheerful balcony, is rusted, dented, faded or torn.
Despite the rain, people constantly pass in and out of the narrow lane - a man on an ancient bike holding a woman's blue geometric print umbrella in one hand weaves unsteadily along the alleyway. A darkskinned, Ghandi-like man with skinny, bow legs and a green plaid traditional skirt and mud-colored polo shirt picks his way carefully across the wet, pitted pavement in black rubber slippers, taking his time under a red and white striped, feminine umbrella. A thin, dusky man in flip-flops, his blue workpants rolled halfway up his calves, passes slowly on the road, clutching a black garbage bag closely under his chin, wearing it like a cape over his shoulders and back.
On the other side of the crowded, one- lane road, across from the ancient metal sign, Baba Guesthouse, Nice, Clean, Simple - See to Believe, scrubby grass lines the beach. The ocean, the same muddy gray color as the sky, though a slightly darker hue, heaves and rolls with swells that start far out and break in opaque, tan foam high on the deserted beach. All the beachfront cafes have pulled down their metal doors against the steady rain, the tables on the cement courtyards and on the sand under the huge, dense foliage of ancient trees are empty. Their wooden chairs with peeling paint or mildew-stained plastic seats look dreary and cheap in the dull afternoon light. Lat night they were charming under the strings of lights and neon signs, but their enchantment has dissolved in the rain.
On the balcony we read, doze or play games idly, waiting out the rain. It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon on vacation, and rain in Malaysia seldom lasts more than a few hours. The cool wetness of the air is a pleasant reprieve from the usual steamy atmosphere. We're in no hurry. We can wait.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
You know you've been in Malaysia too long when . . .
Several months ago my son joined a group on Facebook called, You know you've been in Malaysia too long when. . . . . At the time he was hating Malaysia, and it was a good way to vent his feelings! Misery loves company and all that. He has come to terms with his new home, and has even told me the first thing he wants to do when we land in Boston is visit a Malysian restaurant he's heard of. Sounds to me like he's been here too long.
A few days ago as I was navigating the narrow corridor that passes for a street in our neighborhood of shops I realized that I, too, may have been in Malaysia too long. I still find driving here frustrating, but no longer surprising. I never remind any of my children not to splash water on the bathroom floors, in fact, I encourage it. I can't remember what fresh milk tastes like, and I don't like ice in my drinking water anymore.
It seems that so much of adjusting to a new culture involves adjusting one's expectations. When people or places or events are far from what we expect, we easily become disillusioned, discouraged, offended or even hostile. Somedays it feels like nothing is right - and that's a pretty fair assessment if we are using the wrong yardstick. Once we know what to expect, life becomes easier, but that does take time. You have to encounter a situation or an attitude or a food enough times to know what it is, and to avoid being disappointed because it is not what you expected it to be.
During this time of adjusting our expectations, we have been reading a lot of Bill Bryson's essays. We have found him to be the perfect companion, since so much of his writing involves his impressions of cultures foreign to him - a mixture of appreciation and mockery into which we find ouselves often slipping. Plus, he hails from Hanover, NH, just down the road a piece from our home town. When he mentions the Four Aces Diner, we know just what he talking about. One of my favorite observations of his is that every culture has things they do very well, perhaps better than anyone else, and then things they just don't get, and probably never will. Just accepting that simple truth goes a long way toward making peace with a foreign culture.
A few days ago as I was navigating the narrow corridor that passes for a street in our neighborhood of shops I realized that I, too, may have been in Malaysia too long. I still find driving here frustrating, but no longer surprising. I never remind any of my children not to splash water on the bathroom floors, in fact, I encourage it. I can't remember what fresh milk tastes like, and I don't like ice in my drinking water anymore.
It seems that so much of adjusting to a new culture involves adjusting one's expectations. When people or places or events are far from what we expect, we easily become disillusioned, discouraged, offended or even hostile. Somedays it feels like nothing is right - and that's a pretty fair assessment if we are using the wrong yardstick. Once we know what to expect, life becomes easier, but that does take time. You have to encounter a situation or an attitude or a food enough times to know what it is, and to avoid being disappointed because it is not what you expected it to be.
During this time of adjusting our expectations, we have been reading a lot of Bill Bryson's essays. We have found him to be the perfect companion, since so much of his writing involves his impressions of cultures foreign to him - a mixture of appreciation and mockery into which we find ouselves often slipping. Plus, he hails from Hanover, NH, just down the road a piece from our home town. When he mentions the Four Aces Diner, we know just what he talking about. One of my favorite observations of his is that every culture has things they do very well, perhaps better than anyone else, and then things they just don't get, and probably never will. Just accepting that simple truth goes a long way toward making peace with a foreign culture.
With that in mind, I've compiled my own list of indicators that You may have been in Malaysia too long. . .
- you no longer expect drivers to stop at the stop sign
- you can remember which side of the road you belong on even when there are cars coming toward you in both lanes
- you know that one way streets don't really mean one way, and you drive in whatever direction you need to
- you think of smog as a viable alternative to sunscreen
- you know there are two ways to write the date, but you can't remember which way is used in the US and which in Malaysia
- you are not shocked to look down at your food and see it looking back at you
- you refer to ringitt as dollars
- you can navigate a squatty potty with impunity
- you can't imagine how people drive when the steering wheel is on the left
- you remember to pick up the toilet paper before you enter the stall
- you can't figure out why Americans think all Chinese look alike
- you don't necessarily expect a shower stall - a shower head sticking out of the wall somewhere between the sink and toilet works just fine
- you are tempted to say "la" at the end of certain words
- mamak (local Malay/Indian fusion cuisine) food feels like comfort food
- 100 Plus is your soft drink of choice
- you can't remember why pirated movies are bad because they are obviously so good
- you actually consider double-parking when you have a short errand to run
- you not only understand the signs that ask you not to stand on the toilet seats, you appreciate them and hope people heed them
Monday, June 04, 2007
where morning dawns and evening fades
I am sitting on a beach in Malaysia looking out over the ocean. I am not facing the open sea, but the Straits of Malacca. Between me and "home" are Sumatra, the Indian Ocean, the Indian subcontinent, more Indian Ocean, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. If I were on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia I could imagine North America far off beyond the horizon, but I am on the west Coast, looking in the wrong direction.
Behind me huge trees with broad, low-hanging branches make deep pockets of shade along the beach. From them, and from the dense, tangled foliage of a steep hillside comes the high-pitched, irregular static of insects, sometimes vibrating in a hum, sometimes escalating into a screech. Low thunder rumbles behind me, interrupting the steady sound of the washing of small waves on the sand.
On my left a thickly forested point juts out, a deserted crescent beach in its center. To the right is the skyline of the city of Port Dickson, littered with tall vacation apartment buildings and communication towers. All along the beach old concrete and stone stairways curve down to the sand, some ending in stone walls, some in crumbling concrete platforms. Their origins are uncertain, overgrown as they are with vines and creeping plants. It would be easy to imagine a castle at the top, though there is more likely an aging bungalow or camp.
There is no familiar ocean smell here. The crisp, pungent, marshy flavor I am so used to on the North Atlantic coast is replaced by the tang of damp foliage and the fragrance of flowers, heavy and cloying. The water is warm, not refreshing, but still somehow soothing. It feels thick with salt.
The straits are a pale, murky green instead of the bright blue of the open sea. I can count at least sixteen ships on the horizon, trading places with each other as they move up and down the busiest shipping corridor in the world. Freighters with cranes and smoke stacks pass enormous barges looking like huge bricks. Some, obviously empty, ride high in the water.
The shallow waters near the shore are filled with bathers - Muslim girls in long sleeved shirts and track pants, their colorful head scarves bobbing about in the water, children in shorts and t-shirts or white underpants, men and boys in anything from long pants to speedos. There is not a woman in a bathing suit on the beach. Everyone is swimming in street clothes.
Between the bathers and the cargo ships speedboats weave, pulling "banana boats" - long, orange torpedo shaped inflatables, with yellow and blue striped pontoons on either side. One is ridden by seven Muslim girls in orange life jackets, straddling the torpedo and hanging onto the pommel-like handles provided. The climax of the ride is always when the driver slows the boat suddenly and flips the banana, toppling all the riders into the water. They scream appreciatively at the proper moment.
The roar of the speedboats and the laughter and cries of the bathers are broken occasionally by the bicycle bell of the Good Humor man who rides up and down the beach on his motorbike equipped with a small freezer cube on the back. He carries sleeves of ice cream cones behind him. Like all proper Malaysian bikers he wears a helmet in the scorching sun, even on the trafficless beach. He does not appear to have much business, though he is just now stopped by two girls in long sleeved shirts and track pants, one with a head scarf and one bareheaded, who choose ice cream bars out of his freezer, pay him 2 ringitt each from a small zippered purse, and retire to the shade under the trees.
The sky is hazy at the horizon, becoming brighter blue as it stretches farther from the ocean. A single, three-dimensional bank of cumulus clouds rises like a genie from the sea, surrounded by wispy, smoky cirrus clouds. The sky looks hot. I feel anonymous and very far from home.
I think of the verses from the Psalms I read this morning, "You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. . . Those living far away fear your wonders, where morning dawns and evening fades, you call forth songs of joy." I don't feel exactly joyful, but I am content to be here for now, sitting on the edge of the farthest seas.
Behind me huge trees with broad, low-hanging branches make deep pockets of shade along the beach. From them, and from the dense, tangled foliage of a steep hillside comes the high-pitched, irregular static of insects, sometimes vibrating in a hum, sometimes escalating into a screech. Low thunder rumbles behind me, interrupting the steady sound of the washing of small waves on the sand.
On my left a thickly forested point juts out, a deserted crescent beach in its center. To the right is the skyline of the city of Port Dickson, littered with tall vacation apartment buildings and communication towers. All along the beach old concrete and stone stairways curve down to the sand, some ending in stone walls, some in crumbling concrete platforms. Their origins are uncertain, overgrown as they are with vines and creeping plants. It would be easy to imagine a castle at the top, though there is more likely an aging bungalow or camp.
There is no familiar ocean smell here. The crisp, pungent, marshy flavor I am so used to on the North Atlantic coast is replaced by the tang of damp foliage and the fragrance of flowers, heavy and cloying. The water is warm, not refreshing, but still somehow soothing. It feels thick with salt.
The straits are a pale, murky green instead of the bright blue of the open sea. I can count at least sixteen ships on the horizon, trading places with each other as they move up and down the busiest shipping corridor in the world. Freighters with cranes and smoke stacks pass enormous barges looking like huge bricks. Some, obviously empty, ride high in the water.
The shallow waters near the shore are filled with bathers - Muslim girls in long sleeved shirts and track pants, their colorful head scarves bobbing about in the water, children in shorts and t-shirts or white underpants, men and boys in anything from long pants to speedos. There is not a woman in a bathing suit on the beach. Everyone is swimming in street clothes.
Between the bathers and the cargo ships speedboats weave, pulling "banana boats" - long, orange torpedo shaped inflatables, with yellow and blue striped pontoons on either side. One is ridden by seven Muslim girls in orange life jackets, straddling the torpedo and hanging onto the pommel-like handles provided. The climax of the ride is always when the driver slows the boat suddenly and flips the banana, toppling all the riders into the water. They scream appreciatively at the proper moment.
The roar of the speedboats and the laughter and cries of the bathers are broken occasionally by the bicycle bell of the Good Humor man who rides up and down the beach on his motorbike equipped with a small freezer cube on the back. He carries sleeves of ice cream cones behind him. Like all proper Malaysian bikers he wears a helmet in the scorching sun, even on the trafficless beach. He does not appear to have much business, though he is just now stopped by two girls in long sleeved shirts and track pants, one with a head scarf and one bareheaded, who choose ice cream bars out of his freezer, pay him 2 ringitt each from a small zippered purse, and retire to the shade under the trees.
The sky is hazy at the horizon, becoming brighter blue as it stretches farther from the ocean. A single, three-dimensional bank of cumulus clouds rises like a genie from the sea, surrounded by wispy, smoky cirrus clouds. The sky looks hot. I feel anonymous and very far from home.
I think of the verses from the Psalms I read this morning, "You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. . . Those living far away fear your wonders, where morning dawns and evening fades, you call forth songs of joy." I don't feel exactly joyful, but I am content to be here for now, sitting on the edge of the farthest seas.
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