Sunday, March 14, 2004
Remembering not to forget
I was walking down the street last week and passed by a toy store. A lot of the stores have open fronts, with a big metal door pulled down when it's closing time. Well, I looked into the store as I passed by and saw a monkey right by the front. I stopped on the sidewalk to watch, wondering if it was a pet of the store's or had just wandered in. There were no workers near the entrance and pretty soon the monkey had gone over to a pile of stacked boxes and taken two into his hands. An employee was walking into the store at this point, saw the monkey, sort of screamed and grabbed hold of me, and used a big piece of cardboard box as a barrier between us and it. When she made all those sudden movements and screamed, the monkey kind of freaked, running out the store and up a tree right beside it. I laughed, especially because a man on the street was watching me watch this scene and because it had startled the employee so much. It made me wander if perhaps I should have been more frightened.
So on that ordinary day, just when I was feeling that KL was not that different, this served as a nice reminder that this isn't Kansas anymore.
The Way I See It...
On my way to dinner tonight, down the same street but opposite side, I noticed two rats in a parking area, but kept right on walking. I've dined with rats on more than one occassion. Tonight, I was hoping to find a burger-food-cart (NYC hot-dog stand on the street style); they put fried egg on the burger and was in the mood for one, but ended up having to settle for some fried noodles.
I sat down at a round table directly next to one with five or six Africans. I strained to hear over the sound of motobike revving what language they were speaking, hoping for Arabic but also looking for some possible Tanzanian connections. I didn't think they looked to be from Sudan or East Africa (having honed my skills a bit while in Egypt at recognizing certain African countries' people) and couldn't make out the snippets of sounds I heard. Well, pretty soon, one of them decided to join me at the table: they were South African and Nigerian. It seems to me that there is some kind of connection between South Africa and Nigeria, but I don't know what that is (always find them together, more so than other nationalities).
I had been reading a book I just picked up about Vietnam, but now found myself chatting with this bloke, who told me his "last bus stop" was the US. I found myself disagreeing with him about the war in Iraq (he supported it) and challenging his generalizations about the Malaysian people (not good hearts, unwilling to help others, etc.). Perhaps that has been his experience, but it has not been mine. "They are people of low mentality" and "I've traveled and know," he said. I have never believed that certain peoples are of "low mentality" or even low morality, knowing that bad/good/smart/stupid/etc people exist in every society, but more accurately, that a person is not entirely bad/good/smart/stupid/etc.
The book I'm reading, Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam, has made me glad that I don't really have any idea or picture of what to expect. It begins by dispelling popular American-held views (mostly inspired by books and movies) of who the Vietnam are; I guess I'm one-step ahead because I don't have any of these perceptions. Because of this blank slate, I'm reading with a critical eye (encouraged by the fact that the author of this book criticizes previous depictions of Vietnam that have been been perpetuated unchallenged), conscious that any version read is in reality just that: a version. Just as this South African's version of Malaysians was incomplete and simplified, many books (particularly written by an outsider trying to look in) will be similarly inadequate.
I choose the book from an online syllabus for a Yale class; had I been in the class, most likely I would have failed to do the required reading. Now, I find myself pursuing knowledge and wanting to understand things, when before I looked for excuses to not do my work...
I was walking down the street last week and passed by a toy store. A lot of the stores have open fronts, with a big metal door pulled down when it's closing time. Well, I looked into the store as I passed by and saw a monkey right by the front. I stopped on the sidewalk to watch, wondering if it was a pet of the store's or had just wandered in. There were no workers near the entrance and pretty soon the monkey had gone over to a pile of stacked boxes and taken two into his hands. An employee was walking into the store at this point, saw the monkey, sort of screamed and grabbed hold of me, and used a big piece of cardboard box as a barrier between us and it. When she made all those sudden movements and screamed, the monkey kind of freaked, running out the store and up a tree right beside it. I laughed, especially because a man on the street was watching me watch this scene and because it had startled the employee so much. It made me wander if perhaps I should have been more frightened.
So on that ordinary day, just when I was feeling that KL was not that different, this served as a nice reminder that this isn't Kansas anymore.
The Way I See It...
On my way to dinner tonight, down the same street but opposite side, I noticed two rats in a parking area, but kept right on walking. I've dined with rats on more than one occassion. Tonight, I was hoping to find a burger-food-cart (NYC hot-dog stand on the street style); they put fried egg on the burger and was in the mood for one, but ended up having to settle for some fried noodles.
I sat down at a round table directly next to one with five or six Africans. I strained to hear over the sound of motobike revving what language they were speaking, hoping for Arabic but also looking for some possible Tanzanian connections. I didn't think they looked to be from Sudan or East Africa (having honed my skills a bit while in Egypt at recognizing certain African countries' people) and couldn't make out the snippets of sounds I heard. Well, pretty soon, one of them decided to join me at the table: they were South African and Nigerian. It seems to me that there is some kind of connection between South Africa and Nigeria, but I don't know what that is (always find them together, more so than other nationalities).
I had been reading a book I just picked up about Vietnam, but now found myself chatting with this bloke, who told me his "last bus stop" was the US. I found myself disagreeing with him about the war in Iraq (he supported it) and challenging his generalizations about the Malaysian people (not good hearts, unwilling to help others, etc.). Perhaps that has been his experience, but it has not been mine. "They are people of low mentality" and "I've traveled and know," he said. I have never believed that certain peoples are of "low mentality" or even low morality, knowing that bad/good/smart/stupid/etc people exist in every society, but more accurately, that a person is not entirely bad/good/smart/stupid/etc.
The book I'm reading, Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam, has made me glad that I don't really have any idea or picture of what to expect. It begins by dispelling popular American-held views (mostly inspired by books and movies) of who the Vietnam are; I guess I'm one-step ahead because I don't have any of these perceptions. Because of this blank slate, I'm reading with a critical eye (encouraged by the fact that the author of this book criticizes previous depictions of Vietnam that have been been perpetuated unchallenged), conscious that any version read is in reality just that: a version. Just as this South African's version of Malaysians was incomplete and simplified, many books (particularly written by an outsider trying to look in) will be similarly inadequate.
I choose the book from an online syllabus for a Yale class; had I been in the class, most likely I would have failed to do the required reading. Now, I find myself pursuing knowledge and wanting to understand things, when before I looked for excuses to not do my work...
