Orlando's blog

I Can't Effing Take it Any Longer. Snowden is not a Hero and Nothing is Black and White (Except that)

Orlando — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:03:19 +0000

For fuck's sake.

The comments on some of these blogs are unbelievable. I'm specifically referring to a news item at TPM announcing that what's-his-face has made the move from China to Russia and will soon be traveling to Cuba with the intention of settling in Venezuela. Hero? America as a fascist dystopia? Obama as the worst dictator in the world?

Newsflash. If Obama is the worst dictator in the world, every single idiot claiming that to be true in yelling, hysterical, incredibly public fashion would not be here tomorrow.

Do you know what I think a person with pro-American, pro-democracy, ideologically pure motives would have done? I think that person would have released the information and then lawyered up. I think that person would have said "I respect my country and I respect the laws of my country. I know I broke them, but I broke them because this is a conversation that needs to happen and I'm willing to make that sacrifice because I believe it is my patriotic duty."

Fuck Edward Snowden. Now, the conversation that needs to happen is forever tarnished by narcissist who is either not-so-versed-in history or is going out of his way to be a jerk. China to Russia to Cuba to Venezuela? Could he have picked a more offensive world hop scotch route?

Before the comments start (admittedly, Dag comments are more measured and thoughtful than those I've been reading on other sites and I honestly respectfully consider the merits of each, even as I sometimes struggle with the details or my own disagreement), I want to mention that I like that we're having the conversation. I don't think it's as easy as transparency good, surveillance bad. On of the things our government does is protect us. This has never been a perfect science. Sometimes, it protects us to the extreme (and unnecessary) detriment of those that are not us. Sometimes, it protects only those among us who have the greatest number of resources. But it is charged with protecting us, nonetheless, and that includes carrying out surveillance.

So, the conversation is important. Was Snowden the only one available to start it? Maybe--since the media isn't all that concerned with news unless there's a narcissistic, sensationalistic aspect to the story. But the conversation is now tainted with the fact that Snowden is most certainly a traitor who is being hailed by many as a hero. Maybe he didn't start out as a traitor, but he told a foreign government that they were being spied on. Yes, news to no one, especially that government. But treason, all the same.

Topics:

Politics

India: The Good Parts - The Vibrant, Crazy, and Massively Overpopulated Delhi

Orlando — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 13:21:37 +0000

Qutub Minar, Delhi

Lots of travel pieces claim that places are "studies in contradiction." In fact, I'm certain I've even used the line somewhere along the way. That embarrasses me now because when I read it in a magazine, I'm sure what will follow will be lazy and not very interesting. Of course places are full of contradiction. Places are filled with people and people are happy, sad, hypocritical, violent, peaceful, beautiful, hateful, funny, dumb, brilliant, and, most of all, complicated. Duh.

Delhi is positively overflowing with people, not to mention the traffic, pollution, and filth--and the cows. So many cows. It operates on multiple levels, with the extremely wealthy and a wealthy-by-comparison middle class sitting atop the heap, with their maids and drivers catering to them round the clock and others in the merchant industry stopping by residential homes to deliver groceries or fresh flowers or take measurements for tailoring. Even doctors in India still make house calls.

Usually, the best part of a city for me is the part that is alive and modern--the energy of daily life moving around me. But honestly all over India, that part was a bit overwhelming. Jakarta, a city that has found a home in my heart, has about 8 million more people than Delhi. It's also crazy and dirty and loud, but somehow it manages to feel relaxed. Not so for Delhi. People there are going somewhere, constantly in motion, working or shopping or eating while standing next to a stall in a street market. The ever present honking of car horns is something my nerves never got used to. Luckily, I found my escape, although it was hundreds of years in the past.

Delhi has been through at least seven incarnations, and they all left something behind. I spent hours walking through the Mughal tombs of Humayun and Safdarjung, touring the Red Fort and Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi, wandering through the ruins around the Qutub Minar, and walking up and down relatively quiet, wide, tree-lined streets in New Delhi. The architecture is amazing. I am downright gobsmacked that such majestically gigantic structures could be built such a long time ago, without the modern technology that we've come to rely on. During the week, most of these places also have the benefit of being quiet, providing a peaceful break from the constant stress and noise of the rest of the city.

Historical Delhi is beautiful and fascinating. I wish I could have been there to see it in person. Modern Delhi is a city I think I could get used to, if i had to, but, at least for now, I'll stick to the laid back happy vibe of Southeast Asia and just be grateful that I had an opportunity to witness the crazy, people-infested, developing India for a very short time.

At the Dili Haat Market

A trip to India wouldn't be complete without mehndi.

Ghandi's Memorial

Humayun's Tomb

Inside the grounds of the Red Fort

Jalebis - My new favorite tea time snack

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Personal

Series:

Southeast Asia Travel Journal

Horrific Gang Rape in India is a Symptom of Larger Societal Problems

Orlando — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:44:04 +0000

This morning, I heard the news that a 23-year-old medical student who was brutally gang raped in Delhi on December 16^th had died. Another gang rape victim, in the state of Punjab, committed suicide this week after being pressed by police to drop the case and accept money or even marry one of the rapists. The girl, a teenager, and her family wanted police to open an investigation.

In 2011, in India, 256,320 violent crimes were recorded. In a country of a billion people that doesn’t seem very high. By comparison, there were 1,203,564 violent crimes reported in the USA in the same year. That’s more than four times as many crimes for less than a third of the people. Now, comparisons are problematic because of different definitions of violent crimes and much different enforcement and justice systems. In the USA, as much as there is to complain about when it comes to treatment of certain groups of people based on income or skin color, police do tend to be much more egalitarian toward victims of violent crime than police in India, where poor victims find it difficult to get the police to take much of an interest. But that’s another discussion.

My point in bringing up the violent crime statistics is that of those 256,320 recorded crimes, 228,650 of them were committed against women. That’s 89% of violent crime. Let me just state that in a style that does justice to its mind-boggling wrongness: EIGHTY-NINE PERCENT OF VIOLENT CRIMES IN INDIA LAST YEAR WERE COMMITTED AGAINST WOMEN. EIGHTY-NINE PERCENT!

Just wow.

I was traveling in India this month and was in Delhi on December 16^th, although when media accounts of the rape surfaced, I had moved on to another part of the country. My experience everywhere I went tells me that, despite the public anger currently being vented through protests, India has a long, long way to go before women can feel safe.

Growing up, I learned, without really being aware of learning it, that my body was mine; no one had the right to touch me or talk to me in a way that made me uncomfortable or in any way inflicted damage on me. As a young women being groped on a bus in South Korea, I had not yet internalized that lesson enough to overcome the other lesson I learned unconsciously: Be polite and don’t make scenes. As a 23-year old, I got off of that bus in Korea and sobbed on the street. As a 43-year old in Malaysia, when a 70-something gas station attendant groped me, I had, apparently, appropriately ranked the lessons because I went a bit, shall we say, mental on his ass. Very publicly and very loudly. I doubt he’ll be copping any feels from crazy foreign women in the future.

Before I tell the next part of this story, I want to add a disclaimer. I am certain that there are many (probably millions) of good Indian men who treat women (or at least women in their own class) with respect, who look at women as equals, and who are vehemently outraged by what happened to this one particular woman in Delhi as well as thousands of other women who are routinely raped in Delhi and around India. I know some of these men and I know that they are horrified.

When I was alone in India (which, thankfully, was not very often), I was constantly approached by men. Men wanting to be my tour guide, men wanting to chat, men wanting to “hang out” or men whose motives were never completely clear to me. I tend to be a bit cold and unreceptive to men who approach me when I’m traveling solo. It’s my defense mechanism. I’m probably missing out on many positive interactions, but it only takes a single negative one to do permanent damage to my body and my psyche, so I error on the side of bitchiness. In most places, men will try two or three times and give up. In India, the men follow you down the street, asking the same questions over and over and over and over again until my feigned bitchiness became outright hostility. One man had the unfortunate gall to ask me, “Why are you being like that?” He got a bit of the very loud and very public mental fit I mentioned above.

In Jaipur, which was the only significant part of my trip where I didn’t have travel companions, I was reduced to tears in my hotel room and seriously considered cutting my trip short. I was besieged by men any time I tried to walk anywhere on the street. At one point, a group of adolescent boys walked up and showed me porn. As I walked away swearing, they shot rocks at the back of my legs with a slingshot. Nice boys they’re raising in India. The only way I survived Jaipur was arranging a tour guide through my hotel. Once I had one, I guess I was considered “his” because nobody bothered me when I was with him. Fuck that. If there are places in this world where I can only feel safe when I have a man around to protect me, I do not want to visit those places.

I should be able to tell someone to leave me alone and have my wishes respected, instead of being followed all the way to my hotel and then having a desk clerk shrug when I told him I was made uncomfortable by the same man skulking about the hotel lobby, waiting for me to check in. I should be able to walk unmolested down a street in any city that is not in a war zone. I should not have to look at the penises of a hundred men who don’t bother to shield themselves while they are pissing on public streets or train tracks. (Seriously, I saw more penises in India than I had previously seen in my entire life.) And I should not been seen as an automatic whore because I’m a western woman. Yes, I have sex and I’m not married. But it does not follow that I have sex indiscriminately. I get to choose who and when.

That is a choice that is denied millions of women in India. Women are raped on buses, by taxi drivers, in cities, in villages—pretty much wherever and whenever some man or group of men decides they want to rape. Up until now, women haven’t been considered valuable enough for the police to take action against their rapists. India is currently in the midst of protests, some violent, some peaceful. Will it be enough to change a culture that had always ranked women as a low priority? Sadly, I doubt it.

Topics:

Politics

Southeast Asia Travel Journal: The New Car Smell is Gone

Orlando — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:52:27 +0000

Hello friends. It’s been a while. I’m still plugging away in Malaysia, approaching the end of my second year here, which seems hardly possible. It seems even less possible that it’s been four years since I was walking all over my town knocking on strangers’ doors to talk about why I supported Barak Obama for president. Still do, but that’s not why I stopped by Dag. I thought I’d give you fine people a little break from the relentless political season and tell you why I do not support living in Malaysia.

I work on a nationwide government project to help Malaysian primary school English teachers get better at using a student-centered method in the classroom. Essentially, what that means is letting the kids use the language through play and other activities, rather than the brain-numbing, call and response style. Believe it or not, it’s not always easy. Some teachers like the call and response style. Personally, I want to shoot myself in the head after watching a class of eight year olds spell yellow over and over again for twenty minutes, but as a teacher, you don’t have to do a lot of planning and you don’t have to spend time making teaching aids. Of course, after years of instruction, the kids can’t use the language, but some teachers don’t seem too concerned about that. Most of the teachers that I work with, however, are happy to have the support and willing to try new ideas. They’re seeing results with very young learners (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd grade) and I get to spend my days playing with kids. So, the job is pretty good.

It’s the country that is starting to get on my nerves. There are the little annoyances that come with living as an expat—wishing daily life was run more like it is at home because then I would understand how to accomplish daily tasks without having to put a lot of thought into them. For example, I never know which store sells stuff I want to buy until I go on a citywide scavenger hunt. Once, I wanted yarn because I was going to have the kids make animal masks and pretend to be animals in the story “The Lion and the Mouse.” I ended up using rubber bands, because after two hours of driving around, I gave up on the yarn. Why don’t they just open a JoAnne Fabrics, for Christ’s sake?

But those small inconveniences are just a part of living in a place that is not home. On balance, I’ll put it up with it to experience travel and culture and language and food that is all new to me. Even after two years, I am still learning things every day. That’s what concerns me.

Yesterday, for example, I learned that teachers will stand by and watch while a father beats the crap out of his eight-year-old son, who is acting out for some reason. After the father drags the son home, they will tut-tut about how he is such a problem child. Last year, I learned that female circumcision is common here. Last week, I learned that the opposition party, which is a far more conservative religious party than the religious party that currently controls the government, is pushing a proposal to start cutting off the hands of people who steal. I don’t steal, so my hands are safe. Still, I find it alarming.

I am so totally and completely over religion. When I left for Asia, I was an atheist trying my best to respect other people’s religious beliefs. Now, I’m an atheist trying not to roll my eyes during the morning brainwashing sessions at school. Respect has left the building. In Malaysia, the peer pressure to be a good Muslim is enormous. The cultures who are not Muslim are exempted (Indians, Chinese, indigenous, foreigners), but if you are ethnically Malay, you are Muslim. If you do not want to be Muslim, your choice is to live in another country. You cannot marry a non-Muslim. You cannot, after the age of 12, touch a member of the opposite sex who is not your spouse, parent, or sibling. No kidding—no touching. No handshakes, no pats on the back, and absolutely no hugging.

I guess I don’t care that much about the things that Muslims here choose to do or not do, because I am not bound by their rules. What bothers me is that these things are government mandated, because the religion controls the government. They have removed all choice and the sad part is that most people I talk to don’t seem to notice. Like some Christians in the United States, they have been trained since birth not to question and so it doesn’t occur to them. This phenomenon spills over into non-religious life as well. It is incredibly difficult to change inefficient or unorganized procedures or policies here. If you ask why something is the way it is, the answer is generally, “That’s just the way it is.”

In my experience, Indonesia was much less heavy-handed, due to the fact that their government is secular. I’ve got one more long year left in my contract here. You shouldn’t feel too sorry for me, however. I live in a resort where I enjoy a sunrise view of the South China Sea from my balcony. I regularly spend weekends in Kuala Lumpur or on some island or another, exploring under water with my snorkel. A few weeks ago, I saw my first shark and it was amazing! I get 12 to 13 weeks of official holiday a year and I’ve been racking up the stamps in my passport. I just know that when this contract ends, I am leaving for greener-and less religious pastures. I’ve been taught my whole life that religion has no place in government. I suppose I didn’t question it either, until now when I live in a place where the experience is so different. I’m happy to report that the Founding Fathers got it right.

**The picture at the top is my monkey friend who stops by for treats. We're not supposed to feed them, but I can't help myself. He's very well-behaved, and I try to keep healthy snacks like fruits and vegetables so he doesn't get all hyper on junk food.

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Personal

Series:

Southeast Asia Travel Journal

Southeast Asia Travel Journal: I Miss You Already

Orlando — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:05:14 +0000

Now that I’m officially not with you anymore, I miss you. Is that weird? I thought I’d share some pictures (down below) and thoughts about life away from the craziness of the United States during election season. I still read the political news and I still spout off about it on Facebook, in short rants. The nice thing is that I feel so detached. The political situation here is in some ways better and in some ways worse: Malaysia has its issues. But as a non-citizen and a temporary resident, I don’t care that much.

What I do care about are the people that I work with. They are wonderful. It’s not an easy thing to accept a foreigner who comes to your school and questions everything you’ve been taught about how to do your job—especially when that foreigner is younger than you or has fewer years’ experience. I’ve been able to build trust so that we can work together and that is just a gift that keeps on giving. Like today, for example—a teacher took some ideas I gave her and planned a lesson. Then, she ran the best class I have seen since I got here. She was so happy and proud of herself, which made me happy and proud as well.

I have found it, so far, not possible to have a bad day at school. When thirty-six eight year olds start to cheer when they see you walking toward their classroom, I dare you to be anything but happy. It would defy the laws of physics or something. I’m pretty sure there’s research to back that up.

There are challenges, but they have more to do with administration, as they usually do. Those challenges are for the afternoon, when I get home from school and check my email. So, sometimes I get frustrated or even angry, but then I sleep. And every day, I pop out of bed again, excited to be heading for a morning of joy.

The holidays are pretty amazing as well. I think I have something like 12 weeks off this year. It’s okay to hate me a little bit. I’d hate me too, if I wasn’t me. The great thing about life as an expat in Southeast Asia is that I have the money to do things I’d never be able to do at home—because things are cheaper here in general and because I am fortunate to have an income far above average, which was nowhere near the case in the States. Also, I live in a place where it’s kind of hard to spend money—the most expensive dinner in my village costs about US$2—so I don’t feel so bad if I go away for the weekend and drop a hundred US or go on holiday for a week and drop three hundred. It’s rarely more than that.

I do think, however, that I’m getting a little complacent about the beauty that surrounds me. When I first moved to Asia and started traveling, the scenery literally took my breath away and sometimes even brought me to tears. Now, it all seems so normal. I’m hoping to recapture that sense of awe in a couple weeks when I head for the beach featured in the movie The Beach. I try to remember always how fortunate I am and how different my life was just over two years ago.

Which brings me to my final point: What the hell is going on over there? When I left, President Obama was just starting to deal with a divided Congress and the economy was in the tank. The Tea Party were the talk of the town and John Boehner was so happy he was crying pretty much every time somebody turned a camera his way. The big culture war issue was gay marriage, which was on the long, slow road to justice. Two years later, President Obama is trying to figure out how to deal with a divided Congress, the Tea Party is rebelling against the Republican establishment (to my constant amusement), and gay marriage has come a couple of kilometers down Justice Road. At least one thing has changed—I bet Boehner’s feeling some pretty intense “careful-what-you-wish-for” buyer’s remorse.

Even more strangely, Planned Parenthood, Girl Scouts, and vaginas are under attack. I know that white men run the Republican party, but do they not step outside and look around occasionally? Their group is getting smaller and smaller. They’ve been pissing off African Americans for decades and now they’ve started pissing off Hispanics. They’ve never been nice to gays or lesbians and they have no idea where to avert their eyes when somebody says “transgendered.” The abortion debate never ended, but there wasn’t that much to worry about since once the Republicans gained office on the backs of conservative Christian votes, they were too busy widening income inequality to worry about those pesky social issues. But now, for some utterly bizarre and intellectually unaccountable reason, they’re pissing off women. Do they not study voting statistics? Do they not remember the 1990s? Do they not have wives and girlfriends? As a group, we might be busy and distracted when peripheral stuff is happening, but “Sisterhood is powerful” is not just a slogan some bra-burner with spiky hair and Doc Marten’s made up in the heat of a pro-choice march. It’s an innate, almost electrical impulse that alerts us when some jackass starts messing with us, individually or collectively.

I’ve been watching, and participating, in the fun on Facebook. And I’ll be participating in the vote in November. Until the primary is over, I can’t wait to see them dig themselves further and further in on this personhood, no birth control, attacking women’s health bullshit. After that, I look forward to seeing them backtrack to try to convince women that they were just kidding and we have nothing to worry about.

Good luck with that, assholes. I’ll be at the beach.

This is where I work out. Remember, I said it's okay to hate me.

Batu Caves - an important Hindu temple with lots and lots of stairs!

Chinese New Year at Budha Las Vegas, better know as the Kek Lok Si temple in Penang.

Sunset at Langkawi Island

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Personal

Series:

Southeast Asia Travel Journal

Southeast Asia Travel Journal: The Long Goodbye

Orlando — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:50:21 +0000

Hello, friends. It’s been a while. I’ve been meaning to write this post for months.

I have loved blogging at Dagblog. It was a privilege to be one of the first bloggers outside of the core DAG and it was a privilege to take part in such interesting and meaningful discussions about wide-ranging topics--and I always loved the snark. Maybe it took me so long to say good-bye because don’t really want to say good-bye. Perhaps I’ll turn up occasionally with something to say.

The problem is I’ve never been very good at writing when I’m happy. When I started blogging at TPM in the spring of 2008, I was as unhappy as I’d ever been. My mom was dying, I hated my job, I hated where I lived, I didn’t have many friends who weren’t hundreds or thousands of miles away, and I felt trapped and powerless to do anything to change my circumstances because I wasn't going to leave my mom.

Then, in the summer of 2009, she died and I was free. That sounds incredibly callous, I know. My mom was an wonderful person and an exceptional mother. The person that she was left her brain somewhere around the year 2000 and we were left to watch her lose control of her body—speech, motor function, bladder control, etc. It sucked. So when she died, I was sad, but also glad. I’d given up the guilt of wishing it over long before it actually was. Very soon after she died, I started making my plan. I knew I wanted to teach and I knew I wanted to live outside of the US. I thought I was headed to Taiwan when at the last minute I was offered a job in Indonesia. Winter was approaching--making the ultimate decision pretty damn easy.

I think about my mom when I’m doing something particularly unsafe or when I’m in an astonishingly beautiful location. These things happen a lot in Southeast Asia, so she’s often on my mind. I miss her and sometimes I feel bad for being so stupidly happy when I remember that she’s dead. But we’re supposed to go on when we lose important people. It’s just plain stupid not to.

And so here I am, stupidly happy and absolutely unproductive, from a writing standpoint. I’ve been living in Malaysia since early 2011, still teaching, still loving it, and still traveling whenever I get the chance, which is often. I’m off to Thailand in five weeks, snorkelling in the Perhentians 10 weeks after that, and there just might be a trip to Australia in the cards for me this year. Oh, and I’ll be in India for about six weeks around Christmas.

So, you see, my life doesn’t suck. I work with local teachers and children between 6 and 9 and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it is a joy every day to go to work and see their smiling faces. I have friends again who are close by and I stay in touch with my family through the magic of the internet.

I’ve missed Dagblog. This is a quality group of people here. So, as I mentioned, I hope to stop by, especially as the elections approach, to check up on the conventional wisdom and be entertained. But it’s long past time to leave the masthead and leave the heavy lifting to my friends.

Jumpa lagi, kawan-kawan saya.

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Personal

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Southeast Asia Travel Journal

Republican Semantics

Orlando — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:59:13 +0000

Seems like some knickers are in a twist lately on the right side of the aisle. To be fair, twisty knickers are not a conservative phenomenon--politicans can be remarkably thin skinned, especially considering the careers they've chosen. But, because I'm not a Republican, I find it funnier when it happens to them.

This is a party, remember, that is incredibly good at messaging. It's a party that for some reason decided (en mass) to stop using a proper gramatical construction when referring to the other party (the Democratic party) and instead decided, to the horror of grammar police everywhere, to refer to an entire party with the singular form of a noun (the Democrat party). This is a party that has called the President of the United States of America a racist, socialist, European, anti-American traitor who wants to kill your grandmother.

And now, this is a party that wants to end Medicare and replace it with vouchers. Only they don't want Democrats to say it that way. They are--seriously, they are--actually complaining that those big, bad meanie liberals are twisting their words and it isn't fair.

It's typical bully behavior. As soon as a bully is called to the carpet, they turn to whining about how they are the one who has been wronged. It's fun to watch in a sort of mind-binding, forehead-slapping, God-what-I-wouldn't-give-if-they-had-an-atom-of-self-awareness-and-reflection kind of way.

When Republicans don't think they can win on the strength of their ideas, they turn to voter ID laws. When Republicans realize that voters don't like their ideas, they whine about how Democrats should stop telling the voters about them. When voters express distaste for Republican ideas in public forums, Republicans stop holding public forums.

I suppose those are some solutions, but I have another one: STOP COMING UP WITH STUPID IDEAS.

Just sayin'.

Topics:

Politics

Republican Presidential Candidates by the Numbers

Orlando — Thu, 26 May 2011 23:20:17 +0000

Gallup has a new poll out, ranking Repbulican presidential hopefuls. The list includes three candidates that Articleman and I didn't think to mention in our recent email exhange:

17% Mitt Romney
15% Sarah Palin
10% Rand Paul
9% New Gingrich
8% Herman Cain
6% Tim Pawlenty
5% Michele Bachmann
2% John Huntsman
2% Gary Johnson
2% Rick Santorum

Interesting, right? It's too early to mean much, but for comparison's sake, in June 2007, Gallup's polling looked like this:

28% Rudy Giuliani
19% Fred Thompson
18% John McCain
7% Mitt Romney
7% Newt Gingrich

I never took Fred Thompson particularly seriously as a candidate, but at least I knew who he was. Gary Johnson? Also, I kind of love that Rand Paul is polling so high while his father is completely missing from the list. Wouldn't it be fun to be a fly on the wall at those family get-togethers? I honestly can't take any of them seriously at this point. Romney's out in front, but barely. I still say Pawlenty probably has the best shot of any of them, because he seems normal by comparison.

Topics:

Politics

Malaysian Travel Journal: Cobra in the Kitchen

Orlando — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:17:00 +0000

Not my kitchen. If it had been my kitchen, I would have hightailed it right back to the city. As it is, I have been assured that, although a colleague found a "small" (4 to 5 foot) cobra in her kitchen, since I live on the third floor of a cement block building, snakes can't crawl up into my kitchen. Roaches, yes. Ants, definitely. Rats, possibly. Snakes, no.

So, I guess I can deal. But so ends my love affair with all things in the natural, jungle-y world. I still love the monkeys though!

Other than almost crying when I heard the story about a cobra in the kitchen, Malaysia has been pretty good to me. I work hard--much harder than I did in Jakarta, which was more like a year-long vacation with a part-time job thrown in. But the work is incredibly rewarding and when I'm not working, I am surrounded by an incredible amount of natural beauty, not to mention some of the loveliest people I've ever met.

But there are some strange things here as well.

The government is a bit strange. I can't figure it out. I think it's a democracy, but if government workers, including teachers, are critical of the government, they get transferred to Borneo, where they have to take a boat to work through some serious jungle. And there's a king, but the king-ship rotates between the sultans of Malaysia's nine states. I haven't figured out what the king's responsibilities are yet. The sultan of my state is not the king at the moment (at least I don't think he is). His picture is everywhere. He's looks to be in his 80s. His wife looks to be in her 30s. Gross, right?

A lot of things here are owned by the government (gasp-socialism!). But for the most part, the government seems to use the revenue to make its citizens' lives better. Or at least it's Malay/Muslim citizens. The Chinese and Indian citizens don't get much help.

It's also really, super, freaking hot here. And I have to wear a lot of clothes--but not as many as the Muslim women, who are covered from head to toe, except for their face. I don't get it. I mean, of course I get it. But in other places where it's hot, the cultures have moved toward wearing as little as possible. Here, girls in gym class wear track pants, long sleeved cotton shirts with collars, and a head covering. How are they not passing out all over the place?

One more thing in the weirdness column: I'm pretty sure polygamy is legal.

Overall though, I'm currently even happier than I was in Jakarta, which is quite an achievement since I walked around all last year in a haze of joy. I still read the blogs and political news and sometimes my blood pressure even goes up a notch. With so many beaches to see, however, it all seems so silly.

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Personal

Malaysian Travel Journal: Sadness

Orlando — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:06:08 +0000

This afternoon, as I was driving along, I saw a monkey. In my new surroundings, there is nothing remarkable about seeing monkeys on the side of the road. Nonetheless, I still find it super cool. The monkey I saw today was acting strangely, just sitting there, shoulders hunched, back to the road. It looked almost like it was in shock. I had about 50 yards to wonder why. That's when I saw the second monkey. Same size, same color, decidedly less alive, sprawled across a highway lane, having very recently succumbed to death by logging truck.

I was overcome with sadness for the poor monkey, left alone, in shock, wondering what to do next. I've always imagined that animals can feel emotions, especially animals who mate for life or run in packs. Until today, though, I'd never witnessed animal grief. Hours later, I'm still thinking about it.

Aside from the laws of the jungle being usurped by the laws of vehicular physics, Malaysia is a happy place for me. Adjusting to small town life has been easier than I thought. Having a car helps, as does the fact that Malaysia isn't that big, at least from my perspective as a road-tripping Midwesterner. The folks in my new town think two or three hours is a long drive. I think anything less than 10 hours can be driven after work on a Friday.

I like the quiet here. I like the clean air, which is a true gift after living in Jakarta. I like coming home from work and staring out my window at massive cumulus clouds gathering over the palm tree plantations. I kinda miss the booze though. Still, all signs point to more opportunities for amazing experiences. I know the 2012 is kicking off at home, but I simply can't get excited about politics when there are so many new and interesting things to learn.

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