Massive Mumblings from Malaysia

I feel the need to write, but not the inspiration/motivation yet. But I’m on the road again and want to write this now before I have even more to write about. I'm feeling a bit lame for just writing "this is what we did," "this is what happened," but that's all I can do for now.

I'm in Melaka, a cute little town 2 hours south of KL, for a research interview in the morning. I won't have much time to explore here, but am slated to come back in two weeks for another interview and intend to do it then. Tomorrow afternoon it's a mad dash into Singapore for the sole purpose of getting a visa extension (I said before it may be the first country I've visited where I thought it didn't matter if I never returned again). There I'll be meeting up with a Canadian friend just off two years of teaching English in Korea. We'll head to Tioman Island to soak up the sun, assuming the monsoon isn't too far underway.

But first:

Having Andi here was great. These days Andi has hair long enough to pull into a pony tail—something I haven’t seen since freshman year. And she’s got major guns from all her sword swinging. In Malaysia, she saw things I had stopped seeing/appreciating and reopened my eyes. I can’t wait to read what she writes about her trip here once she gets the chance. I also feel hesitant to write about it now because I know she’ll do a much better job (and be more analytical). I not-so-secretly wish I wrote like her!

Her first full day here we went to the big Buddhist complex in Brickfields. They practice Theravada Buddhism, as opposed to Andi’s Mahayana (the difference as I understand it is like that between sects of Christianity). Andi joined them in a short service of chanting and bowing because it was the half moon or new moon or full moon. Lay people (us included) served food to the Sri Lankan monks after a blessing of some sort and then we had the free vegetarian lunch provided.

Lay people bow to monks—I suppose that’s okay as a sign of respect of their vows and devoting themselves to Buddhism. But if part of Buddhism is obliterating the ego, it doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. The way I see it, a good monk shouldn’t allow it and certainly shouldn’t require it...

That same day we wandered into a Chinese temple through a thick cloud of incense and half a block later glided through a Hindu temple, not exactly sure of what we were seeing or its significance.

Inside

Then we bussed out to the Islamic University to meet my Muslim friends there, who were supposed to take Andi into her first mosque. We waited near the sisters’ entrance as the rain started. When Farida (Tanzania) got there, she asked Andi questions about why she wanted to go to the mosque and revealed that her friends inside had told her that non-Muslims weren't allowed in mosques.

I was floored--just last Ramadan they'd insisted I come along for prayers; mosques in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Malaysia allow tourists, even providing robes to ensure proper coverage. (Actually, in one or two touristy mosques in Egypt, they didn't even require non-Muslims to veil, which I thought was wrong--you've gotta show respect!) I can understand not being able to go to Mecca and being required to dress properly, but to hear that someone thought non-Muslims couldn't enter was a shock to me. Islam places a high priority on knowledge and if a non-Muslim (tolerant and respectful) is interested in being educated, it be seem logical to me that it would be alright.

Farida was in a difficult position though; her friends were still inside and she wasn't sure what to do. So we postponed the trip and headed to her room where we would look for the answer in a 4 volume set of fatwas (religious rulings). Farida is very legalistic about Islam, always wanting to consult legitimate scholarship. Unfortunately, the answer wasn't readily available, so we stayed in the room and talked. When I got home, I googled for an answer and got the following, though Farida later SMSed me that it was not an acceptable source...I have yet to hear from her on her own findings. But my Malaysian friend Lathefa said it was "stupid" and the professor serving as my advisor at the Islamic University said it was "bull" to believe that non-Muslims couldn't enter a mosque...I guess this is just another reason why I'm unlikely to accept a religion: I value my own logic/judgment too much to defer to someone else, wherever he may have been educated (be it a Mufti or the Pope)!

The conversation that day was great, as always. And both Andi's first time talking to conservative Muslim women and their first time talking to a Buddhist. We watched them pray and they asked Andi to demonstrate how she prays. They joked about whether I have a special way to pray. The great thing about the exchange was the openness and the desire to understand the other's faith. I learned more about Buddhism in Andi's week here than I'd ever known before!

I had once wondered why the women didn't completely unveil when I hung out with them (of course, my scarf always comes off immediately!) and assumed they were just used to having something on their heads. It wasn't until that day that I discovered it was because I was non-Muslim and they believe that they should remain covered in case I should report to others about their hair and appearance. Others are not so strict about this, of course. I noticed that after this discussion, one Sudanese sister reappeared with a scarf loosely over her head--it was the first she'd heard of it, too.

Penang, in brief

The ex-girlfriend of a former Fulbrighter called me up and asked me to look after an American rugby player in town for a tournament...When he called and we said we were headed to Penang in about an hour, he somehow managed to get a bus and arrive before we did. We found him at a cafe near the hotel we'd decided to stay at. He told us that they said there were no rooms left. I had an inkling that it was because he was black. After we ate, Andi and I headed back to the front desk and asked if they had any more rooms--they did. So we went and got Ray.

"Oh, you," said the guy at the front desk. They'd turned him away because "Africans always make trouble and the police always have to come." If he was American ("show me your passport!"), then it would be okay.

I know people have different experiences than I do in other countries. Africans in Egypt are also treated very poorly, so sometimes it's difficult for them to understand when I proclaim my love for the country and its people. And Arabs in Malaysia are seen as $ signs much the way Westerners in Egypt are. But this may well have been my first encounter with out-right racism.

This was my third time to Penang. We went hiking to Turtle Beach and I managed to do the trail in flip flops. We went back to the Park Royal, where Erika, Kin and I had snuck in and subsequently gotten kicked out of back in February. I was on a mission, looking for my (original Sufi) friend L., who I hadn't seen since he'd come back from Europe. Only he wasn't there (he has a stall there, painting). But the guys working there found out we knew him and we got special treatment; we got to zoom around in the speed boat while others parasailed and got the guest rate for the parasailing.

We met my friend F. on Thursday night at the Shamrock and it turned out to be ladies' night. The bartenders were doing really cool Tom Cruise "Cocktail" type moves, which was enough to bring us back the next night. We ended up hanging out there the whole night (brushing off pesty men, who were surprisingly mostly Aussie and British), grabbing food with the bartenders at 4 am, and watching the sunrise on the beach as dolphins played in the distance.

There was a newspaper article a few days ago about people selling fake bus tickets (mostly to unsuspecting/gullible/naive women, children, and foreigners!) and the picture accompanying it: me, Andi, and my Malay friend A. with his face blurred out! We had been hanging out by the bus station before we left to Penang and the photographer must have been standing on the overpass bridge when he shot the pix...A.'s friends at Central Market showed us, knowing it was him because they recognized me!

When I was in an internet cafe in Penang, a guy standing behind the computer next to me made a noise that caught my attention (like he was drawing his breath in or letting it out, I can't remember now), so I looked over. It was a video clip of a beheading. I couldn't look away for a second and when I did, I couldn't get the image out of my mind. A few days later, A. was using my computer and when I saw he was looking at an email with photographs of a beheading, I asked him to stop. The email had come without any commentary, so he says, just the pictures. I can't imagine what people think when they send it, why they do it. Do they feel joy at seeing it? I turned back to my book to take my mind off of it, which didn't work since the book I'm currently reading is The Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, by Samantha Power. Now I had a visual image to go along with the "bloodbath" referred to in the first sentence I returned to. And that sent my mind off to the stories of the refugees I had worked with...[just got an email with a link to the following poem by a Burmese mother: How Can I Feel Other Than Broken-Hearted?]

Found out

I don't tend to write bad things about people on here; the one exception was about my old roommate who cheated me. Well, a few days ago I got a phone call; I'd been found out, not by him, but by someone close to him. I felt like Harriet the Spy must have. I went back and read what I wrote and stand firmly by it. At her request though, I removed the email link to his business website. She worried it would be bad for business; I suppose at the time I had hoped that would be the case. But now, months later, after a polite request to change it, I yielded. Part of me, though, wanted to rebel and make it even more prominent. But what is past, is past.