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May 08, 2006
eating rojak, speaking rojak
i'm still in KL, and compared with my last entry i think maybe i'm starting to get the hang of things now, although i say that with a grain of salt, since, just like with language, the more i think i'm getting used to life here the more i realize how much more i still have to learn
example: for most of the weekend i got to "jalan-jalan" ("hang out", literally "walk-walk") with some friends i made at this little cafe (or "kedai") near the Petronas Towers where i go to practice language sometimes. they are really excited to teach me about Malay culture, and have shown me more hospitality then i deserve (when i told them this, they told me they were "proud that i was learning their language." the irony i guess is that they said that in English, which of course they can speak infinately better than i can speak Malay)
anyway, they invited me to a wedding, so the night before i had to go to one of their houses to borrow some traditional cloths. before trying on the cloths my friend asked me if i wanted to have a shower (literally if i wanted "to bathe")
i had never been invited to shower at someones house like that before, so of course i was panicing from the beginning and not quite sure what i was supposed to do, and then once i was in the bathroom i couldn't figure out how to use the shower. so after standing there for a while trying to figure out what to do i eventually just used the big, uh, sort of tall tub of water with a scoop in it that they have in most bathrooms here, to scoop out some water to wash my face and hands (panicing more and more every second)
then i had to go out and admit to her that i couldn't get the shower to work, at which point she looks kind of concerned and then laughs at me and motions like she is scooping water over herself and tells me that the shower head doesn't work
humiliation like this is standard, but i guess its the price i have to pay if i want to learn anything while i am here. and i have been really lucky. the rest of the night when i wasn't trying to figure out foreign bathrooms i got to eat the supposedly most famous nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut milk and served with chili sauce and sometimes with other things on the side) in Kampung Baru (an old Malay neighborhood right in the center of the city, which apparently the government keeps trying to develop but hasn't been able to because there are huge protests whenever they try), then went to a night market where i got to eat rojak buah (diffent kinds of fruits mixed together and covered in this sweet and kind of spicy soy sauce), "speak rojak" (slang for mixing english and Malay), and drink tons and tons of nescafe and iced tea until two in the morning when the night market started getting a little less "happening," although had it not been raining it would have probably been busy and crowded until 4am
the next day the wedding was beautiful and again i was fed constantly, and for the second time here i ate with my hands which was awkward at first, and again i was embarrased on constantly afraid that i would do something wrong, although once you get used to it eating with your hands is much nicer than with a spoon and fork
so making friends here isn't as hard as i thought it would be i guess, although i'm not sure how to make the transition between making friends and doing research. the first friends i made here are actually from Indonesia, three women who work at the kedai where i like to go to. they have also been incredibly friendly and showed me so much hospitality that i don't really deserve as soon as they found out that i could speak Indonesian (no matter how terribly). i haven't been invited to any of their houses yet but whenever i got to their restaurant they won't let me pay for my drinks and if they aren't too busy will speak with me in Indonesian (which must take incredible patience on their part since they don't speak Enlish so we can't "speak rojak"), and when they are busy they will introduce me to some of the regular customers there so that i can practice Malay. after work i've even gotten to "jalan-jalan" with one of the women who works there who is about my age and some of her friends
before i came i didn't really prepare any formal interview questions or anything because i thought that if i just made friends with people then questions for my research project would just sort of naturally come to me. the problem with that is that as soon as i made friends the idea of research seemed wrong. i was too embarrassed to even tell them at first the real reason i was here at first, and although i would like more than anything to just spend the rest of the time here hanging out in their cafe, the last thing i want to do is involve them in my research. and when i did start feeling guilty and told them a little bit about why i was really here, even though i tried to make it clear that i wasn't going to use them for my project, it was horrible and humiliating and i was afraid i had ruined the friendship. at any rate i'm sure they don't trust or respect me as much as they did before
i had thought that the most difficult thing about getting people to trust me would be separating myself from their employers, or from people who look down on them the same way a lot of migrant workers are looked down on here. i thought that once i could make people feel like i was on their side the most difficult part would be over. but what makes this kind of research difficult has nothing to do with sides, its humiliating in and of itself. before i came everyone warned me about using a tape recorder, about how you have to tell people whenever you are recording and that i should be prepared for people to act differently when you turned a recorder on. but no one ever warned me about how hard it would be to explain to people that you wanted to use them for a research project in the first place. i should have known it wouldn't be easy, but i still have no idea how to go about it. my faculty advisor here keeps suggesting places for me to go to find Indonesian migrant workers to interview but i haven't followed up on any of her advice. its not finding people that's difficult
anyway, i'm staying in KL for one more week and maybe i'm sort of wasting my time since i still haven't started any research yet besides at the library over here, but i think that for now i'm doing the right thing, and maybe i'll be able to figure out how to start my project by the time i get to Penang
Posted by diparker at May 8, 2006 12:38 AM
Comments
You should be very proud of yourself for venturing overseas on your own to conduct research. You'll hit your stride soon enough. I suggest searching out women's organizations that may be able to help you connect with potential interviewees. Non-profit groups usually know the in's and out's of the groups they serve, so they should be able to give you advice about who to talk to, when, how, and where. An alternative is to seek out the Women Studies folks at the local universities. Sometimes affiliation with an organization can lend you more legitimacy. There are of course some cons to having an affiliation (e.g., perceived bias by others), but the pros may outweigh the cons. Good luck!
Posted by: jepley at May 17, 2006 02:35 AM
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