Malaysia

This blog post has been a long time coming! I’ve been back in the states for about a month now, but I’ve avoided writing this post because I knew that it would be difficult to try to wrap up my time in Malaysia with words. Let me just say this: I am immensely grateful.

My time in Malaysia was personally edifying, it clarified my direction post-graduation, and offered me so many experiences, so many learning opportunities, and friends. The almost 5 months slipped by much faster than I thought they could, and by the end Kuala Lumpur felt like another home.

 I am confident that my memory of my GLT will always be marked with gratitude for the people that welcomed me, the opportunities that were given to me, and for feeling like I was were I needed to be.

Here are a few pictures of some things I did in my last few weeks and some friends I made.

 
Kailea and I in Genting Highlands with my host mom. Genting Highlands is a hill station outside of KL that has casinos.

Lunch in Genting.

My host cousin, myself, and my host mom in Taiping, my host mom's hometown.
 
Myself and my WAO colleagues at the 30th anniversary festival!

Another shot from the anniversary celebration.

Distributing flyers for the festival with coworkers and other volunteers.
Sweet friends from Whispering Hope UMC, my church home in Kuala Lumpur.

Hello friends!
I've been away from KL traveling for a few weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia. I planned this trip not long after arriving in KL after finalizing the dates for my internship and realizing that I'd have some time on my hands. I've really loved getting to see so much of Malaysia, but it seemed like it would be a waste to come to the other side of the world without seeing anything else, so I set aside a few weeks to check out some other countries.

I started in Ho Chi Minh City, which I really enjoyed, but was not what I was expecting. HCM has a much larger tourism industry than I anticipated and it would be totally possible to never leave the backpacker's district or speak with locals that aren't at least partially fluent in English. But the charming parts of HCM are not in the tourist traps or the backpackers district. The city and the people become more lovely and distinctly Vietnamese as you move away from the tourists. Kuala Lumpur has a huge informal economy- there are people everywhere selling things on the street, making food, and offering services, like cobbling shoes. But there are also a lot of very western restaurants and coffee shops with laminated menus, business with signs and standardized pricing, and other things we are familiar with in the western world. In HCM much more of daily life and the economy takes place on the side of the road. There are food stalls, or more rudimentary setups everywhere, with women sitting on the sidewalk next to a charcoal grill making waffles, and "coffee shops" that are a woman with a plastic cooler filled with coffee and a bunch of plastic tables and tiny plastic chairs. So much of daily life takes place on the sidewalk that HCM feels like it's always awake, buzzing, and crowded.

While it was certainly interesting to think about the influence of communism on HCM, (which mostly presented itself in the silent force of armed guards and law enforcement around communist party buildings, and in the ever-present face of 'Uncle' Ho Chi Minh himself, who appears on posters and in paintings all over the city) I enjoyed stumbling across the remaining evidence of French influence. There are women everywhere that walk around with giant wicker baskets covered in burlap, selling demi-baguettes. I found great pastries and bakeries, and made up for lost time in KL, which has disappointing bread options. There are some great French colonial style buildings in Saigon, which are even more striking when compared with the minimalist cement block buildings that have been built by the communist government.

I loved the food, and a few evenings had two dinners because I didn't want to decide what to eat. It was all too good. I really enjoyed getting to know a few Vietnamese people. The people that work in the tourism industry are often unpleasant and are obviously trying to separate you from your money, but the normal Vietnamese people I met were lovely. A university English teacher invited me to come sit with her and her husband at dinner one evening when they noticed me in another part of the restaurant so they could practice their English. We had a very interesting conversation about the Vietnamese educational system, and then they bought my dinner!

My next stop was Siem Reap, Cambodia. I spent 15 hours on a bus getting there, which was a little nightmarish at times, because buses in Cambodia are about as pleasant as they sound, but I really enjoyed my time in Siem Reap. I made a friend on the bus on the way to Siem Reap and we rented bikes and spent a few days biking around Angkor and seeing the different temples. Despite the monsoon rain that turned the dirt roads into rivers of mud (a little dramatic, but it was really muddy- everyone kept asking me if I'd had an accident because I was so covered in mud), this was probably my favorite part of the trip, and biking the temples is a really great way to take them in slowly and really get a feel for the countryside. The temples are surrounded by shockingly green rice fields, little villages, and the occasional cow, so it was fun to bike through that and then round a bend and happen upon a thousand-year-old temple.

I really enjoyed Ta Prohm, which is the temple that everyone's familiar with because it was in Tomb Raider, and because it has the giant trees growing out of it. All the temples are earthy colors and look more like they grew out of the ground than like they'd been put there by humans, but this was especially true for Ta Prohm and a few of the other temples that have been left to break down. Ta Prohm looks like it's being taken back by the jungle and absorbed back into the earth, which instead of detracting from the aesthetic, only makes it more beautiful.

Being in the temples themselves was sort of a trip. They're so impressive and old and beautiful, but you visit them largely unsupervised. There are few rails or signs to keep you out of certain sections of temples, and if you miss the crowds you can see some of the smaller temples by yourself. The general lack of regulations was definitely strange at first- you would not be able to get away with crawling all over the colosseum, but the lack of rules made the experience much more interesting. It can feel like you're actually exploring the temples instead of just visiting them.

After Siem Reap I spent a few days in Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh is very similar to many other South East Asian cities I've been to, and didn't have the food or French influence of HCM, so I found it to be a little less interesting. But I was able to visit a few NGOs while I was there that are doing really great work. Daughters of Cambodia is a organization that rehabilitates women that were victims of the sex trafficking industry and offers them jobs and support. They have a great cafe and shop and spa that you should definitely patronize if you're going to Phnom Penh anytime soon, and I also got to visit Jars of Clay, which is a coffee shop near the Russian Market that gives jobs to single mothers and a portion of its profits back to the community. It was really great to get to see what some other organizations are doing, and to support their work in Phnom Penh.

Now I'm back in KL and down to my final 3 weeks in Malaysia. I still have more work to do on my report, so I'll be in the office later this week to speak with my coworkers about it and to get their edits. After that gets put together, I'm finished with that portion of my time here, and I'll spent the next few weeks finishing the rest of my coursework. And then I'll be home! When I got back from my trip I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fill my last month here, but now I'm realizing that it's going even faster.

All kinds of things have been happening lately. Last weekend Kailea (my loyal travel companion) and I went to the east coast of Malaysia to visit the Perhentian Islands which are famous for their reefs and great scuba diving. We didn't do any diving, but we did get to do some good snorkeling and saw a lot of great coral, fish, and a few huge sea turtles. A turtle that was about half the size of me surfaced next to Kailea while we were snorkeling. The islands are small and there is nothing to do besides water sports, lying on the beach, or eating and drinking, but those are all things we enjoy. I knocked out half of Doctor Zhivago and got in some good hammocking time between two coconut palms I found on a small beach after a short hike.

 





I'm just past the 3 month mark of being in Malaysia and my internship officially ended today. WAO is putting on a fair to celebrate our 30th anniversary (and the 40,000 women we've helped in that time!) so I'll be assisting with that this weekend, but the daily 9-5 is over. When I started this internship 3 months seemed like an unbelievably long amount of time but this past month especially has slipped away from me. But I am happy to announce that I have finished my report on Malaysian police response to domestic violence in time! I sent it out to my coworkers this morning for editing and critiquing and I'll get back together with them in a few weeks to hear their suggestions and make the necessary revisions. In the meantime, I'll be off to Saigon, Angkor Wat, and Phnom Penh for the next few weeks on a Southeast Asian adventure.

I attended a discussion last night with one of my coworkers on the Malaysian police force and police brutality and killings and got to speak with a few of the panelists, including a guy from Human Rights Watch that covers Southeast Asia. The underlying issues that are perpetuating police brutality are so similar to the issues I've been exploring in my report, so it was really interesting to speak with him and get his take on the situation. The system seems to be fundamentally broken and it was really interesting to discuss the different ways that's manifesting itself.

My report still needs a good deal of work and I'll have a lot of feedback to talk through and consider from my coworkers when I get back, but right now I am proud of where it's going. Realizing last night that a number of people in Malaysia are trying to engage in a similar conversation and are coming to similar conclusions was really interesting and encouraging. What I'm doing is obviously on a very small scale and will not have a big impact, but I am excited to be joining a good discussion that's already taking place about the Malaysian police force, and being able to add the accumulated wisdom and experience of women in our shelter and our social workers. I feel really lucky to get to engage in such an interesting and important conversation with such smart people.

Last weekend I went to Singapore! Singapore is compact and attractive. Culturally it's really similar to Malaysia, but with a stronger Chinese influence.



We spent the first evening at Clarke Quay and on the Riverfront walking around.



And then went to dinner at a Greek/Middle Eastern restaurant and had rare treats like olives and hummus.



The next morning we went to the Botanic Gardens, which have been around since the late 19th century and are really beautiful.



We visited the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and watched a service. We were in Singapore over the Hungry Ghost festival when the Chinese believe the gates of hell are opened and ghosts come to earth. These are some of the offerings left out for the ghosts.



The Chinese community was out in full force for the festival with Chinese operas, alters everywhere, and ceremonies.



We went for a drink at the Long Bar in the Raffles Hotel. The current Long Bar is a replica of the one where Ernest Hemingway and Somerset Maugham drank but it was still fun to see.




And we had a Singapore Sling in Raffles' Long Bar, where it was invented.

I went to the wet market with my host mom this morning and I was not expecting much out of the trip, but it ended up being one of the most interesting experiences I've had in Malaysia. It's definitely in the top 10.

The market opens early in the morning and sellers start packing up around 1pm which is pretty late for a wet market here, but this market is housed in a permanent complex so it doesn't close as early as the other portable wet markets that set up in the street. The lower level is partially in the car park, and partially underground and it is reserved for the pork butchers. It was dark and smelled like raw meat and ammonia and was full of people yelling and chopping. Most people working there were wearing white tank tops, were chopping meat on giant blocks without gloves, and were sorting piles of raw meat into different piles of raw meat. The whole situation was pretty gruesome. The man that was chopping our meat pile was sort of indiscriminately yelling at other customers, flinging raw meat, and making sausage all at the same time. I learned that the adage is right, and that I really didn't want to know how the yelling man in the partially underground butcher's shop was making my sausage. At one point a woman working in the shop started piling spare pig parts into a bowl and walked around for a while, holding a giant floppy leg. The American meat section may be pretty boring by comparison, but part of me missed the standardized, shrink-wrapped meat and the muzak of the supermarket.


The meat market.


The guy that prepared our bag of meat pieces, next to his meat pile.


This guy was just shoveling a mound of meat pieces into blue plastic bags.

The next floor of fruits, vegetables, and flowers was less intimidating (less meat cleavers) but was full of people all trying to buy the same things at the same time. It felt a little like we were all secretly on Supermarket Sweep. I spent most of the time trying to ask people what things were, because I only recognize about 65% of food items here. My host dad asked me the other day what I was eating and thought it was funny when I told him that I didn't know. Some of the foods here are just things that don't exist in America, so I have no idea what they are. When I told him that I really only know what I'm eating about 50% of the time, he thought that was hilarious. He might have thought that I was joking, but I honestly have no idea a lot of the time. Usually I'll be familiar with a few of the ingredients, but sometimes it's just things that I've never seen or heard of and can't even comprehend.


Our spoils.





After racing everyone else to buy a lot of bumpy weird vegetables, we bought fish. I was trying to identify the different kinds of fish when I noticed they were selling a small shark. I asked my host mom what someone would buy the shark to make, and she told me that shark is usually used to make fish balls. Fish balls are in a lot of different dishes here (fish in general is in a lot of dishes here- if it's not fish ball in your soup, it's fish paste, or fish cake) and are often in soup. So, for the third time since coming to Malaysia, someone has let me know that I'd unwittingly eaten shark. That's about three times too many for me.


See the long black tail on the far left? That's the shark.

Before leaving we visited the spice shop that sells packets of seasoning paste to flavor dishes. Most Malaysian dishes are seasoned with some kind of paste, often a combination of shrimp paste, chili paste, and other seasonings. We bought specific meal-appropriate packets and scooped garlic paste, onion paste, and chili paste out of big tubs to mix our own seasonings.


Packets in the front row and buckets of other pastes in the back.

Sorry for the crappy phone pictures! I really was not anticipating this being as entertaining of an experience as it was!

This past weekend Kailea and I went to the Cameron Highlands. The area was first developed by the British as a retreat from the heat. The British were followed by vegetable and tea farmers and the region is still mostly agricultural. The parts of the highlands that remain undeveloped are gorgeous. The hills around towns are being leveled and covered with boxy hotels for tourists, but when you get out of town a little it's rolling hills, streams, and small waterfalls. And the weather was such a nice break from KL's heat. It's hard to want to do things outside in KL, especially in the middle of the day, but in the Cameron Highlands being outside was a pleasure.


A tea plantation.

It's a difficult area to explore without a car because the Cameron Highlands area is actually three small towns that are strung together with tourist sites. We booked a tour for our second day there, but for our first day we wanted to try and do what we could on our own. The local bus is pretty useless because it only runs every 2 hours but we gave it a shot and took it to one of Cameron Highlands' most famous tea plantations. The bus dropped us off 2 km from the plantation so as we were walking to the plantation we met a group of tourists that had stopped to take pictures. They offered us a ride because they were headed in the same direction and we ended up spending most of the day with them. They were already on the way to the top of Gunung Brinchang, the second tallest mountain in Malaysia, so we went with them and got a chance to walk around the mossy forest. After Gunung Brinchang and the tea plantation they were on their way to a strawberry and cactus farm so they took us too! We ended up going to all of the places Kailea and I didn't think we would be able to see because we didn't have a car and got to meet some very nice people. We were so thankful that we ran into our accidental tour guides and that they let us come along and join their vacation. On this trip we've had to frequently depend on the kindness of strangers but I am amazed at the amount of kindness that we've received and the enthusiasm with which it's been given. I've been watching the people that I've met that give freely and easily to strangers and I'm trying to pick up their knack for it, because it's a gift I'd like to have.


The mossy forrest.

Our second day we went on a tour to see the rafflesia flower, which is the largest flower in the world. We hiked pretty far into the jungle and even though it was a much more strenuous experience that either Kailea or I anticipated, we were glad we went. That night we met up with some German friends we'd made on the bus to the Highlands from KL. We meet Germans everywhere we go here, but these girls were especially friendly and we enjoyed befriending them. We'll see them again when they pass through KL.


The rafflesia flower.

My highlight of the trip was having tea at Ye Olde Smokehouse, a historic British Inn. It was so pleasant to be able to sit outside in the cool weather and drink tea.