June 13, 2006
i'm back in KL until friday when i leave for Indonesia, staying with my friend As and her family again. and unlike the first time i stayed with her, when i felt grateful but also slightly overwhelmed and terrified, now i just feel grateful and happy that i get to see her and her family before i leave. not that i don't feel overwhelmed, which i probably haven't stopped feeling since i've been here. coming for only 7 weeks, and splitting that 7 weeks between two different cities makes this a little like summer camp, all your time is spent either making new friends or saying goodbye. only summer camp in another country in another language and with no counselors to show you how to get around
anyway, i got to bring buah pala (pickled nutmeg, which Penang is famous for) and t-shirts with cheesy pictures of seashells or the Penang Bridge to my friends in the restaurant today, and last night i finally got to sing karaoke, which here is not usually in a bar with a DJ like the US but in individual rooms that you rent out with a TV and a microphone. the track list included a song in English by the winner of last seasons Academi Fantasia (like American Idol, but hosted by the Malaysian equivalent of David Letterman), a song by P. Ramlee who is sort of like Frank Sinatra crossed with Woody Guthrie and probably the most famous singer here (for instance there is a road named after him in Penang), Malaysian 80's pop, a Japanese pop song and Cat Stevens
Posted by diparker at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2006
an incomplete report of my dept so far
i got a present the other day, 10 Kyat from someone i know who works at a Chinese restaurant i go to sometimes down the road from my kampung. he wanted to give it to me since it has a picture of General Aung San, the leader of the Burmese resistance movement against the British, whose daughter is now under house arrest in Myanmar and is the leader of the resistance movement against the current regime. of course, despite have numerous lectures on Myanmar's political history just last semester, still couldn't remember Aung San's name until i looked it up on the internet later (here's a wikipedia article about him by the way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San)
i just gave him a lame postcard (i'd already run out of one dollar bills, and anyway George Washington is not quite as close to my heart as i'm sure Aung San is to my friend from Myanmar.) it had a picture of some trees in michigan, snow covered, but, as far as i know, without any significant political history
anyway, its one of my favorite gifts so far, which, although i've only been here for a few weeks is saying quite a lot, since it seems like everyone i meet wants to give me a present. for example, last wednesday i got to go with one of the families from the kampung i've been staying at to their cousin's engagement. engagement's here are nothing like in the US, the whole family and extended family is involved. when i was picked up by my friends from the kampung in the morning a cake was immediately placed on my lap, as every adult in the car with the exception of the driver had to be responsible for at least one cake, which were used later as "hantaran", or gifts given at the engagement from the girl's family to the boy's. the boy's entire family is also involved, arriving in the afternoon, at which time the two fathers discuss when the wedding will be and how much the boy's family is going to give to the girl's family to pay for the wedding. usually the couple has already talked about this and told their parents, but they still make a big deal about the discussion, doing things like renting microphones so that everyone can hear whats going on. after that the hantaran are exchanged (both families bring gifts, although the girl's family always has to give at least two more) and the boy's mother (he has been sitting alone at his house this whole time) goes into the girl's room and puts the engagement ring on her finger, while all the relatives take hundreds and hundreds of pictures
the party lasted all day, however i, again, despite having had the opportunity to learn this lesson at nearly every house i've been to here, had not brought extra cloths to change into after showering, which people here do at least 2-3 times a day since it's so hot, whether or not you're at your own house at the proper showering times. instead of just letting me change back into my old cloths, the girl's aunt invited me over to her house nearby where she went through her closet until she found an outfit for me, baju kurung, which isn't cheap and wasn't necessary since the formal part of the party was over and plenty of people were changing into casual outfits. i kept telling her that it was alright and that she didn't need to worry about it, which she kept replying to with "don't worry, its new!" when i finally told her that i just felt bad about borrowing her cloths and making her go through all the trouble she told me that she wanted to give me a gift, making it the 4th baju kurung outfit i've been given so far, and the 8th article of clothing in general. and that time i didn't even have anything as stupid as a postcard to give her
possibly my favorite gift, though, even better than the 10 Kyat, is from, i guess my Nenek angkat (Nenek, in Penang, means great-grandmother, so she is the mother of the person i call Tuk--grandmother, and a title used for older women--and the grandmother of the woman i call Mak Cik--auntie, and a title used for women to old to call "sister" and not old enough to call Tuk. Angkat, when talking about a person or a family, means adopted). last Friday and Saturday i got to go to another kenduri (sort of means party, but more serious and with more ceremony--it's the Malay version of a slametan for people who know a little about Javanese culture. so the engagement "party" was actually an engagement kenduri). this time it was for a perkawinan, or wedding. friday night, when everyone came over to the brides family's house for dinner after the official wedding ceremony at the mosque, and while the bride was busy changing into elaborate outfits from Thailand, Java, India, and a bunch of other countries from all over the world to get her picture taken (one of the wedding traditions here, at least for Malay families in Penang, i'm not sure about other ethnicities or other states), her Tuk, my Nenek angkat, offered to put inai (henna) on my fingers. the adat (tradition) is for only married woman and the bride to wear inai, but people don't really follow that much anymore, so at this wedding most of the girl cousins who were old enough to sit still for the hour or so you have to wait for it to dry were wearing it. the next day the girl watching the desk at the hotel complimented me on my inai and asked me how much it had cost. when i told her that i got it for free from the grandmother of the bride at the wedding i went to last night i guess i felt pretty besar hati about it ("besar hati" literally translated means "big liver" or "big heart", but the saying "besar hati" means something like proud, but a good kind. i think at least, i've also heard people use it to mean generous, so if anyone who knows Malay better than i do wants to correct my use of this phrase feel free)
actually though, this is maybe not quite my favorite gift. my favorite gift came from my friends who work at the restaurant in KL. sometimes, right before the restaurant closed they would make a little food to take home for dinner, and one day when they knew i didn't have anyone to "jalan-jalan" with later they made an extra bungkus (packet, in this case it means food wrapped up in a banana leaf or wax paper and newspaper) of nasi lemak for me, and the woman there who i address as Kakak (sister, what you call women older than you but too young to be called Mak Cik) gave me the first mango that i had in Malaysia
Posted by diparker at 07:48 AM | Comments (0)
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 12:38 AM | Comments (1)
May 01, 2006
labor day weekend
so i've been here a few days now, and i guess maybe i'm starting to get my footing here. its labor day weekend so i haven't been able to meet with anyone yet or start any serious work on my project, but i think spending the last few days just learning how to get around was useful anyway.
the first thing that struck me when i got here was how difficult doing almost anything seemed. little things like ordering lunch, taking the bus or buying a cell phone felt like huge projects. i'm not sure why i didn't quite expect this, since i've been to foreign countries and big cities before, but i think traveling alone makes a bigger difference than i thought it would. i also think, though, that traveling alone has forced me to get comfortable with things here a lot faster than i might have otherwise, and even after just a few days i already feel a lot more confident.
the same thing goes with language. i feel like i've been sort of cripplingly shy since i've gotten here, which again i'm not sure why i didn't expect, since i can be awfully shy even in ann arbor. but while i still feel like i have a long way to go before i'll be confident enough to do the things i'll need to for my research, talking to people has also gotten easier a lot faster than i thought it would.
anyway, hopefully i'll have something more interesting to write about in a few days.
Posted by diparker at 02:29 AM | Comments (0)