Crown of Shyness (FRIM)

Friday was a public holiday in Malaysia so a few of us went out to FRIM or Forest Research Institute Malaysia. Basically it is an area where they have protected the rainforest and put in trails to walk on, a canopy walk (which was closed), a Malay teahouse and there are tours as well. We were just out hiking along when we met a Malay family who had a tour guide, a young girl from Malaysia Nature Society (MNS). We joined the tour and she showed us this amazing phenomenon called the 'Crown of Shyness'. In the rainforest there are certain trees that will give room to other trees and don't even touch as they spread out to form the canopy. I have pictures below but it doesn't do it justice. It reminded me of those optical illusion pictures, when you looked up it made you dizzy and you searched to figure out what was going on. It is one of those things that you never expected and are surprised by it. Stunning really.

We were headed down the slope and our guideline was already staked out by this massive caterpillar.

The National Mosque and KL Train Station (CNY Adventures Part 2)

The inside of the mosque. The guys on the right are performing their prayers (solat).

KTM HQ from Masjid Negara

Interior of the mosque

They made me wear a gown thingee as I was in shorts. The hood is for women but when you are having a day out and you have just bought novelty green frame glasses you gotta get your Yoda on.

KTM HQ

KL Train Station

Yup, still having fun with the glasses

Interior of the train station. Just uploaded then realized its not centered :(

By the end of the day I had scored some sweet new glasses and a new T-shirt (2.50 USD).

Then you gotta have some fun with the silly pics setting on the Macamera. Kinda froggish.

Petronas Twin Towers and Some Joss Sticks (CNY Adventures Part 1)

The fountain in Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square)

Petronas Twin Towers

The Towers reflected in the fountain.

I'm a little yellow from the streetlights.

Sometimes you get tired of seeing the Towers in virtually every ad, commercial, movie, etc and then you see them again and realize just how spectacular they are.

Lots of Chinese families visit the temple at midnight on Chinese New Year. They light incense sticks...in this case giant one.

Giant Joss Sticks.

The Night Market

Kuala Gandah Elephant Santuary (Deerland too!)

Don't forget to wash behind your ears!

Fun for some, pain for others.

Bottle feeding a 6 month old elephant.

A few students get to ride on an elephant.

Mommy, I'm dunking the elephant underwater!

The teachers pose the the Malaysian Sun Bear and Encik Abdullah.

Should we let the bear lick sweetened condensed milk off the face of a student? Sure, why not. What could possibly go wrong there?

Monkey butt!

As the conga line wound its merry way into the jungle, the evil monkey planned its attack on the noble American teacher.

Deer me!

Korea in Pictures

This is Hey Jang Guk or Hang Over Soup. That big dark red thing is congealed blood. It was probably my favourite new dish.

Sometimes self-photos don't turn out very well.

Snow in downtown Seoul.

Unfortunately they didn't let me ring the bell. It would have been fun.

Me atop the Seorak Mountains. We cheated and took the cable car to the top.

Min Ji's grandparents, Min Ji, her stepdad and me.

Sunrise at this very popular place for watching the sun uhhh rise.

At the cultural village...old style building.

Also outside the cultural center complex.

Very wise advice for us all.

Camp outs and Childhoods Lost

This last Friday we had a 'camp' at school. I would call it a lock-in or sleep over. The students came at 4 p.m. in the afternoon and left the next morning by 11 a.m. Now this is a common thing to do. In the churches I have attended over the last 10 years I have probably organized 8 such lock-ins. What amazed me was the 'hoo ha' made about it. There was a parents committee, hats were made with a camp logo and lots of flashlights were purchased and given. Every student who attended got a certificate. I kind of chuckled and then it hit me, oh, yeah, these are ASIAN kids.

Now I don't intend to be racist but these are observations that I have garnered over the years. Of course there will be families that are total opposites of this but here are some broad sweeping generalizations.

Asian kids live very sheltered lives. Most of them really got into the camp out when most American kids would have been bored to death. Some families in the US camp out the entire summer at the lake while Asian kids have probably never even spent the night in a tent in the backyard (Malaysia child, "Mommy, what is a backyard? I saw a picture of one once"). Several years ago, the Korean church I was attending asked me to help with a camp out. I organized the camp out, which was held on the church property in Bellingham. Every afternoon we would go to a place to swim or hike or climb around on rocks. I remember vividly the first day when we went to Larrabbee State Park, one of my favorite places in the Ham. I thought I would have trouble entertaining them but they were fascinated with the tide pools and we started trying to climb up some of the rock faces there. 4 hours flew by and as we left I realized none of the kids had ever been there despite the fact it is only 15 min from B'ham. I have biked and run there from the Ham. This trend has continued as I have known more and more Asians. Most of the kids I have known have rarely been afforded the opportunity to camp and to be outdoors for long periods of time. As I was teaching one of the kids how to roast a marshmallow on Friday night I felt a deep pang of sadness. I consider it essential to childhood to know how to make smores, to camp out and swim in the lake. Malaysians do like to go swimming in waterfalls as a family activity but most Asian children are very overprotected.

Let me finish with this thought. Perhaps it is worth it to trade the outdoors experience for parents that care deeply about their children's well being. Many American parents allow their children to experience far too much at a young age. Parental neglect, to my knowledge, is rare amongst Asians. The opposite is true. The care fiercely for their children. Grandparents raising children is now common in the USA but I don't know of a single case of this in Malaysia. The grandparents may live with them but aren't their sole guardians.

In the end, as with many things I've seen and experienced, a middle road is best. Care fiercely for your kids but allow them to experience (and to fail sometimes) all that life has to offer, when they are ready. P.S. Stand back ready to catch them should it be too much :)

Korean Christmas

Well, I’m in the Beijing airport (not one of my faves) on my way back to Malaysia. What to tell you about Korea?

My first impressions of Korea were very good. Nice airport. Great highway system. Comfortable housing. Good public transport. I thought it would be more vertical, it seems most apartment buildings are not over 20 floors where KL seems to be populated with many that are 30 or even higher. Or maybe that is an wrong perception.

After a couple of days we went out to see Min Ji’s aunt, who bought us a 300 USD meal (for 4 people). We rode the bus one hour from her house to the center of Seoul and then another hour from the center of Seoul to Suji where Min Ji’s parents live. I started to dislike Korea a bit at that point. It was the same, endless apartment buildings and urbanization as far as the eye could see.

The next day we went across the peninsula to Sokcho, a beach resort town. We left very early, 3 a.m., in order to go watch the sunrise at a famous spot. The sunrise was very spectacular and I wish I had better pictures but, alas, my battery died just before the sun actually came up. We then spent the next two nights in Sokcho. The first day we spent celebrating her grandfather’s 82^nd birthday and the next we went sightseeing. The Seorak Mountains are nearby and we rode the cable car to the peak of on of the mountains. Then we went north to the area near the DMZ where the current dictator, Kim Jong Il (is he still alive?) of North Korea spent his summers. His parent's summer home is now a museum.

Christmas Day we were out in Seoul after going to church. We went to an exhibit called “From Monet to Picasso”. It was a traveling exhibit from the Philedelphia Art Museum. We also went to a huge clothing market that evening, one that is famous in Seoul. The next day we went to Sherlock Holmes with Min Ji’s step-brother and then to lunch.

He also reserved us a spot at a nice buffet at the Ramadan in Suwon. Now, there is a buffet experience in Asia that most Americans never have experienced. The buffet is all you can eat and open for two hours. This one was from 8-10 pm. So, you go at 7:45 and when they let you start filling your plate, you have to start slow. Eat the best. I had raw oysters and tuna and salmon sashimi for my first go. Basically, you keep eating till it closes at 10 p.m. They have several varieties of food, like lamb, beef and chicken in Western styles to Korean to Japanese. I tried to eat my weight in steak tartar, tuna and oysters because they were so fabulous. There was also a chocolate fountain to dip fruit in. All this cost 40USD per person.

The last day we went out to church and then off to the Korean National Palace. After the long train ride, we came out of the station to find it snowing. It turned out to be one of the best experiences that I have had in ages. The snow muffled the city sounds and the palace complex was sprawling so it felt like you were back in the ages it was used. That and it was gorgeous in the snow. It was a fitting end to the trip, in fact, a fairytale moment that will always rank near the top of my travel experiences.

Korean parents

Min Ji’s parents were amazing in that they paid for everything. Add to that the fact that we went to the best places to eat and I would guess that just in food alone they spent 300 USD on me. Add into that her aunt’s meal and I was treated like a king. The hard part was that her parents treated me like a child. Min Ji was given a 15 minute lesson on how to ride the trains when all was needed was to tell us the stop to get off at. I was told to tuck in my shirt by her step-dad. It made me realize something. I have had several Korean friends and they lived with their parents but sequestered themselves in their rooms. They didn’t watch TV with them, didn’t talk to them much and seemed to do little more than share a house, not a bloodline. Now I realize that is how they kept their parents out of their lives. They kept the relationship active, still living with them, they just didn’t tell them any details or else they would have gotten an earful on how to handle their lives and then expected to act on that advice.

The other side of this was a realization for me as to one reason that Asia crushes creativity. I didn’t bring a plug adapter because I thought they would be easy to find when I got there. Min Ji’s step-father swore you couldn’t buy one in Korea. I stopped two whites in the street and asked them where to get one. They told us a store called ‘Home Plus’. We went there and found the adapter. Min Ji’s step-dad didn’t think it would work and was didn’t conceal the fact that he hoped it wouldn’t work. When I got it home, of course it worked. In this situation I realized that many good ideas, such as Google, Facebook, etc have come from younger people. However, in Asia, the hierarchy is set up so that you have to wait to get to the top. Therefore, when you get to the top, you feel it is your turn to spew idiotic ideas (not always, of course) and that others should blindly follow you, just as you did when you were in their shoes. Hence creativity is crushed. I have seen this some in Malaysia. I call it pak cik syndrome and I have spent many a night over a cup of teh tarik listening to how to cure diabetes by eating chicken livers and other mad tales. Min Ji’s step dad told me I could get to the airport at 9 am for my 9:30 flight. It was kind of shocking how openly (nonverbally) and badly he wanted the plug adapter to not function.

Korea dreaming

Before the trip I had secret fantasies that I would love Korea and move there next year. I can say I don’t really feel that way anymore. You can make good money as an English teacher in Korea but the country is so populated you should be ready to never be alone. We watched the sunrise with maybe 300 other people doing the exact same thing. We went to the top of the Seorak Mountains with tons of other people. I did some figuring and the peninsula of South Korea is roughly the same size as the state of Oklahoma. 50 million people are crammed into Korea whereas Oklahoma has 3.6 million. That means Korea is 14 times more populated, which means the density of the population is intense. KL is a city of roughly three million and it is too big for me sometimes. The Seoul/Incheon urban area ranks in the top three largest cities by population on some lists.

Secondly, I found the level of English low. Maybe I should say confidence level because I think Koreans can speak English but they just don’t think they can speak it so they are shy to talk to you. One major place I found this evident was at church.

My church in KL has a fellowship time after the service and usually I find myself chatting for 20 or so minutes with someone just about every Sunday. We went to church three times during the stay and I only met one Korean besides the pastor. I did meet several English teachers. That was the very good thing about the church. In KL, you either get the hedonistic foreigner or the Christian ‘worker’. Seems that an average, Christian person steers clear of KL. It was good to be reminded that lots of Christians work in other countries and still live out their faith.

Malaysia's National Past time

Ask anyone what America's national past time is and you will get one quick answer from 99% of people: baseball. If you were to survey other countries my guess is that sports would enter into most of the national past time arguments. In Malaysia there are no sports. No Little League baseball, no Saturday morning soccer leagues, no professional sports, no high school athletics, no university sports teams. Nothing. In fairness, I will say a handful of people play futsal (indoor soccer) and there are a handful of pickup soccer or basketball games. If you were to compare Kuala Lumpur to Denver, Colorado it would look like this: Denver-hockey (Avalanche), basketball (Nuggets), American Football (Broncos), baseball (Rockies) and soccer (Rapids), probably 40 or more high school teams, probably 6 universities with teams. Kuala Lumpur: a few soccer teams in the Malaysian Super League or whatever it is called. Now, I could launch into America's unhealthy obsession with sports but but I'm not, this blog is about Malaysia's national past time.

So, what do Malaysians do during the weekend? What would be their national past time? Simple: the mall. When foreigners arrive in Malaysia and are taken to their first mall, they usually have to pick their jaws up off the ground. I have never been to a mall in the US that would be considered equal to the top dozen here in KL. On any weekend, the mall is packed with a crowd greater than the Christmas crowds in the USA. Two facts I can't back up but believe to be true are these. 1) Malaysia has more shopping malls per capita than any other city on earth. 2) The parking areas are roughly double the size of a US mall because of the massive number of visitors. One of the largest malls in the world is in KL, Berjaya Times Square. It supposedly has 7.5 million square feet of shopping. I have been there once and was completely unimpressed. (Wikipedia is confusing, saying on one page that Times Square it the 13th largest mall in the world and on another page that it is the largest. Let's split the difference and say it is 7th largest in the world. And my students wonder why I won't let them cite Wikipedia!)

I created the national past time comparison because last night as I left the Curve (FYI, 1 km from the Curve is 1Utama, another huge mall) the scene reminded me of the one you see in the US after a sporting event finishes. Stop and go traffic inching out of the parking areas, long lines of red tail lights trying to enter onto freeways, 20 minutes waits to get from the parking spot to traffic that is flowing near a normal pace.

A few final thoughts about sports in Malaysia. Malaysians love soccer but they love the English Premier League. The time difference means that many games come on late at night, after midnight. Guys will get up and watch the game in one of two ways (that I know of). One is to watch it at home. The second is to go to a local restaurant (mamak stall) that is open 24 hours and meet up with friends. I really miss the community aspect of watching sports, like a good Super Bowl party (at a decent hour). Lastly, Malaysians will like one of four teams in the English Premier League: Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea. If they like a different team, check their passport because they may be imposters!

Error of attribution to culture

Once you have lived overseas for a while, you start to realize that many of your assumptions about culture are not true. Most of this realization comes via comments others make about your home culture, as they assume that you represent the norm for what every country you hail from, in my case America. I have created a term for this called error of attribution to culture. By this I mean that someone observes a behavior in a person from another culture. We then conclude that all members of that culture must act exactly the same. We attribute their behavior to an entire population. Saying it another way, we take the actions of one individual and stereotype the entire culture as being exactly the same.

The offending wallet.

An example of this that I have seen recently is my wallet. For years I carried a wallet in my back pocket. The wallet would become a thick monstrosity as I accumulated receipts and business cards. Eventually it was like sitting on a phone book. I took quite a bit of good-natured ribbing about this. So, last year when I thought it was time to get a new wallet, I bought a front pocket wallet. This is basically a couple of leather pockets and then a money clip for your cash. I love it. It worked better in the US because you can pay everywhere with your credit or debit card and just keep a bit of money on you. Here in Malaysia it doesn’t work as well because I carry more cash due to a high rate of credit card theft. You give you card to someone, it comes back but they swiped it in a machine and then make a second card and charge things on your account. Malaysian money is also poorly designed for this. Denominations are 1, 2, 5, 10, 50 and 100 so if you break a 50 to pay for a 7 ringgit item, then you get 4 ten ringgit notes and 3 one ringgit notes. Therefore, my money clip often looks untidy. I pull it out and people notice it. They then say, “So this is the kind of wallet Americans use.” I laugh and try to set them straight. “No,” I say, “I’m the only person I know with a front carry wallet.” But I know the damage is done. They will forever think that Americans use the kind of wallet I do.

Of course this is a two way street. We have all met people of different cultures and labeled an entire culture bases on our interactions with .00001% of the population. What I’ve tried to do is show how this is different than stereotyping. Stereotypes are the nerdy Asian kid, the AK-47 wielding Arab, the loud and boorish American. Those are based on a larger sample of the population. This is how we personally stereotype a culture based on our own experiences. Perhaps the safest thing to do is see each person as unique and try to shed our own or societies stereotypes. It is only then that we can really get to know the true heart of another person.

Economies of scale

This blog will deal with the idea of economies of scale so let’s make sure the definition of that is clear. Economies of scale are when it costs an enormous amount of capital to build something but then as that item operates it becomes cheaper and cheaper. A classic example is a power plant. Let’s say that it costs 1.2 billion to build a power plant. The first kilowatt generated cost 1.2 billion dollars to make. However, as the years pass it becomes cheaper and cheaper with each unit produced. Usually with items such as power there is little marketplace competition because of the massive amounts of capital needed to get the first unit produced.

Economies of scale impact us everyday and not just when we flick on the light switch every morning. Some economists may disagree with me but most of our lives are made easier by this idea. Walmart sells millions of items each year at lower prices than their competitors because they allow the factory producing it to work on the economies of scale principle. The factory that supplies Walmart’s hair ties for them can actually lose money on the first million if they can make money on the second million and the third million and so on.

This impact has given us better lives. We have more income to spend on other things because we can get cheap items at the local Walmart. Even the smart rich people shop there for their daily necessities.

What is the unmeasurable cost of all of this? I believe it is the standardization of our lives. As economies of scale caught on they swept across America. You can see the proof of this in franshises. I’m sure McDonald’s did something right back in the day, maybe even made edible burgers. Today they are just cheap, quick and for children.

Americans, well, everyone in general, love this standardization. We love the fact we can drive 500 miles and stop at our favorite restaurant and order our favorite item and it will taste just like it did in our hometown. I see it all the time in Malaysia as Americans like to hit TGI Fridays and Chili’s. We know what we are getting. Gone is all the guesswork.

Actually, I was shocked by it last year when I moved back to Oklahoma. Ask any person in Oklahoma or Texas what their favorite restaurant is and they will tell you a chain restaurant. Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse or On the Border. (Ok, may be not EVERYONE) In Bellingham there were many, many more local restaurants. Skylark’s Hidden Café, Grace Café, The Bagelry, La Fiamma, Bob’s Burgers and Brew (now a franchise) are all my favorites. New Orleans is much the same, with many restaurants being one of a kind. In fact, it may be a way to mark the quality of life in a city, by the uniqueness of the restaurants found there. This is a new thought as I write this blog. Oklahoma City definitely has seen the number of restaurants explode with the growth of Bricktown.

This whole idea came about because the other night I was sitting in a Malay food stall and I ordered roti canai. Roti is a staple here, a kind of tortilla that is fried on a griddle and served up with some sort of gravy. That night it was dhal, a lentil based curry that is flavorful but without spice. On the side was sambal, best described as Malaysian salsa without vegetables. I mixed the dhal and sambal and proceeded to devour the roti in a couple of minutes. I sat back and thought about how good it was. I wanted another. So I summoned the waitress and ordered up a second roti canai. Then I started thinking, “Why do I never order a second of anything in the USA?” Then I realized it is mostly due to the economies of scale. It tastes the same every time, everywhere. I have never eaten something and then said, “Wow, that was perfect, give me one more please!” Because everything is standardized, everything tastes more or less the same. Maybe you have been to a bake sale or food fair and had this experience but they are increasingly disappearing from the landscape of the American experience.

Roti canai with dhal and sambal. When done right it is the best thing in the world.

Malaysia still has this unstandardized life. The roti guy at the bottom of the hill makes wonderful roti, crisp the way I like it, and the dhal and sambal blend together into a delectable, savory slurry of perfection. The guy down the road a bit may be selling roti having the consistency of wet socks and gravy that is bland and dull. You never know. And when the cook gets it just right, well, order up another round.

Standardization means the loss of creativity and ingenuity. Take chocolate chip cookies. The recipe is everywhere, most notably on the back of every package of Toll House Morsels sold. So why is that some people can make amazing cookies and others can’t? Well, we decided to get rid of that and now you can buy cookie dough at our local grocery or with your pizza.

We need economies of scale to give us a higher quality of life. But we need to keep them in check so that the uniqueness is maintained and our lives are a bright tapestry rather than a dull, drab coat of gray. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go see the roti guy. There was no teh tarik in the post but in real life there was. Nothing beats a good roti and teh tarik breakfast.