Comfort is easy: Advice for travelers in Southeast Asia

Even for the most well-meaning traveler, it's easy to fall into a group of people who speak your language or hail from your home country when you're abroad. But if you're looking for a meaningful experience, it's important to get out of that comfort zone. I've written an article for Expat Arrivals with tips on how to meet locals and immerse yourself in Southeast Asian cultures. It'll also be appearing (hopefully with some of my photographs!) in the second issue of Overseas Registry magazine, probably in July. I'll keep you updated.

For more of the Southeast Asian flavor, check out this gorgeous blog about the Baduy community of Indonesia. "The Frame," hosted by the Sacramento Bee, is a photo blog with an international focus that at times rivals the Boston Globe's "Big Picture" in the realm of the lusciously visual.

Selamat Hari Raya!

I just returned from the Terengganu Chief Minister's house, where buffets of traditional Malaysian food line the packed verandas in celebration of the first day of Hari Raya.  Today is Eid ul-Fitr, or Aidalfitri as the Malays call it, the day after the end of Ramadan but certainly not the first or the last day of celebration.  Graham and I sat with our Nasi Dagang, Nasi Rendang, Sarawak cake, Hari Raya cookies, and corn juice (that was a mistake) admiring the men's intricate, shimmering songket wrapped over their Baju Melayu and the women's new Baju Raya, counting the thousand-and-one ways to wear a head scarf.  Everyone buys a new outfit for Hari Raya, and often whole families match.  The Chief Minister's family was all in orange as they greeted us at the entrance.

Some schools let out early on Thursday (the end of the week day in Terengganu) while others opened to generally poor attendance as many students stayed home to help prepare for the celebration.  It's not as though Malaysians weren't celebrating during the whole month of Ramadan.  As a friend explained, "We fast all month, why not celebrate all month?"  Not only has there been the occasional daytime "bang" of poppers in a can, but every day, shortly after the cannon shot from the top of Bukit Puteri marks the time for fast breaking (not nearly as loud as the bang that nearly knocked me out of my chair just now) and the prayer, the fireworks begin.

But none so incredible as last night.  Fireworks erupted all over Kuala Terengganu and across the bridge at Pulau Duyong, blooming over the Crystal Mosque.  We ran to the top floor of the building to watch.  The streets of the kampung below were filled with children and adults shooting firework guns (never have seen those before), noisemakers that hop across the ground before a horrendously loud pop and ball of white flame, and real bungga manggis-style explosions of color.  The smoke hung low and the streets were empty, but they blocked off the kampung with shopping carts and the police cruised slowly on by.  I've been told fireworks are illegal here, but as Kentuckians make the pilgrimage to Tennessee each year, my presumption is that the Thai border isn't such a long trip.

The spirit of celebration has enlivened this sleepy town, where staying at home has been the modus operandi the whole time I've been here.  Now, I'm scheduled to visit eleven houses in the next three and a half days (and scheduled to eat at least one meal per house, count it) and I am so glad to be here.  Malaysian culture has been in many ways closed to me so far, because Terengganu Malaysians spend most of their time with their families and I have no family here.  So living a "Malaysian life," which is what I came here to do, has been difficult.  Now, in the exuberance of Hari Raya and spirit of Ramadan, everyone is being so warm and so welcoming.  A teacher invited me to her mother's house two days ago to teach me how to wrap palas leaves to make ketupot pulut, glutinous rice satchels that keep the insects off and can preserve the rice for a week.  I'm now officially Not Bad at it:

(No, I did not make all of these.)

I'm also learning two Hari Raya songs to sing on the first day back from school, when we're skipping classes in favor of a buffet and potluck, beautiful-baju contests, and performances.  In a lot of ways, the Malaysian manifestation of this holiday reminds me of Christmas, with its special foods, holiday cookies, extended build-up, and emphasis on family togetherness, love, and world peace.  For children, it's magic; for adults, it's the magic of childhood.

One difference is there doesn't seem to be much gift-giving, and certainly not at the magnitude of Christmas in America.  The chain stores hint at it with displays of overstuffed "hampers" (food baskets) and Hari Raya cookies; perhaps they know how Western stores cash in during the Christmas season and envy the trend.  But it's refreshing that it hasn't really caught on in Terengganu.

A colleague told me on Thursday that even in Egypt and Saudi Arabia Eid ul-Fitr isn't celebrated so much as it is here.  Hari Raya is counted in days (I have plans for the first day, second day, third day, fourth day ...) and one student even exclaimed that it's a month-long holiday after Ramadan ends, though that may be a little excessive for some.  It's already been in high gear for the past month and now a week of festivities is in order.  

The only problem is the 10 pounds I'll have gained by the end.

Malaysia's War On Beer

Malaysia has been testing the waters of international opinion and may find them still a little too hot.  This is after the caning of a Muslim woman caught drinking beer was postponed until after Ramadan, then suspended temporarily as the case was put under review.  In another case, the government forbade Muslims to attend a Guinness-sponsored Black-Eyed Peas concert, then revoked the order.  The country's ban on alcohol-sponsored public concerts had been excepted for this event to boost tourism.  

The caning sentence was delayed, some say, because of the possible damage a public caning for drinking beer could do to the country's reputation abroad. One wonders whether the first woman to be caned in Malaysia may be (unwillingly) spared thanks to a bout of mercy or because of just how bad this sentence looks to outside observers. Skeptics inside Malaysia also worry over the motives; as one letter to the editor in the New Straits Times asked, "Is this because of the unwanted attention worldwide or is it because of compassion?"  

As for the Black-Eyed Peas concert, little has been said about why the ban was lifted but I'm a little mystified that any company would agree to sponsor an event where its product isn't even permitted to be sold and its name not included in promotional materials. This isn't the first time Western musicians have been criticized for their concert appearances in Malaysia, and my guess is it won't be the last. 

Interfaith collaboration: The panel to summarize all panels

Issues of male-dominated interpretation, problematic scripture, women as recognized religious leaders, and stereotypes of religious women invade the majority of world religions.  This is the message of the "Change Through Collaboration" panel that will be the concluding panel discussion of the 2009 WISE Conference.  The questions being asked right now are lively, involved, adamantly open-minded: it is a refreshing experience to be sitting here now.  The panel features a Muslim moderator, a Jewish woman, a Christian reverend, and a Hindu academic discussing how different faiths can find common ground to be able to work together, as a more powerful force, on behalf of women everywhere.

"This conference is extremely unique in that I don't feel alone anymore," said the moderator, Mehnaz Mona-Afridi of the United States.  The panelists strongly asserted that women and minorities can work together for positive change, and for the equality and peaceful principles shared by all the religions represented here today.

Equality is a fundamental principle of Islam: So say a few WISE women

Where I expected anger and resentment, there was none in sight.  No furious protests, no stormy exits.  A person’s individual vision of God or spirituality can be the easiest subject to offend, so I expected that today’s opening session at the WISE Conference would be the event’s most controversial.  The topic was Qur’anic interpretation. 

Many of today’s panelists insisted that interpretation of the Qur’an is influenced by the historical context of the interpreter, as well as the personality and personal convictions of that interpreter.  If this is so, the absence of significant contribution to Qur’anic interpretation on the part of Muslim women seriously offsets the balance of the collective dialogue.  Meanwhile, if culture has no influence on interpretation, then there is little way to explain why different groups of people adhere to different tafsir so fervently, and without question. 

The conviction that there is a single correct interpretation of Qur’anic texts is felt strongly by many people where I am living in Malaysia, on the more conservative east coast.  That is why I expected significant tension during the discussion today.

But issues of interpretation start at a more basic level, as the primary concern of many women at the conference was education of women on their rights in Islam; education of women around the world on even some of the most fundamental principles of their own religion, which, because of cultural restrictions and variant practices or poverty and lack of access to education, has been kept from them. 

Shahina Akbar, an attorney based in Islamabad, Pakistan, chose her profession when fighting to assert her own rights under Islamic law, as well as Pakistani law, during her divorce.  The majority of Pakistani women sign a legal document when they get married, but very few have actually read it; in many ways it is kept “top secret,” Shahina said.  The document assures women marriage rights as accorded in the Qur’an, but “tradition is such in Pakistan that this legal document is considered un-Islamic.”  Women sign this document with whole sections crossed out, sections that assure them rights in cases of inheritance, divorce, dowry and support. 

“Married women to their death, they do not see this document, what they have signed,” said Shahina.  “It is the customary tradition.”

Shahina has set out to educate women around Pakistan on their rights under Islamic law, knowledge which has been inaccessible to them, as the Qur’an is generally read in Arabic rather than Urdu in Pakistan.  The outcome of her countless visits to homes, schools, vocational centers, banks, clubs and hospitals around Pakistan has been agreement on the part of a large number of families to follow what the original document states, with women claiming their rights through interfamilial negotiation long before the marriage takes place and matchmakers learning to strike proper terms between families.

On the first evening of the WISE Conference women were asked to write about what their greatest concerns, and primary goals, were for the future of Muslim women.  What they wrote was pinned on the walls all around the room, forming a web of dialogue and a framework for the whole conference.  The two words I saw most often on these sheets of paper were “education” and “empowerment.”  Reasserted over and over again this weekend was the following: that Muslims who know the Qur’an know that it is good to women; women who know the Qur’an know that it affords them rights equal to men’s.  At the start of the conference, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, co-founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement with his wife Daisy Khan, pointed to Mohammad’s mandate on behalf of women: “If you want to be the best of men, the best of Muslims, you have to be best to your women,” he said.  “A society that does not treat its women well is not a society that can call itself Islamic in the highest sense of the word.”

This idea that women are not subsidiary but primary participants in a society of faith recalls for me one of the most poignant invocations still pinned to the wall in the meeting hall now sleeping through this conference’s last night: “Stop being invisible,” it says.  “Participation in every event of the society. 

“You and me are the examples.”

Debate that moves

Only half an hour after a work group session discussing “Change Through Communication” concluded in the hotel conference hall, the tables had been pushed back, the notes and the debates cleared away, and women were gathering on the clean white sheets spread out on the floor of the meeting hall, all facing the Kiblah.  Those who didn’t wear scarves during the meeting now draped them over their heads, set their shoes aside, and sat to listen to one woman speak, in the calm tones reserved for prayer.

She spoke of Islam’s commitment to the improvement of the human condition, of its openness to all available knowledge: “the essence of the universality of Islam.”  The Qur’an discourages attempts to convert people of other faiths to Islam; “they have the right to choose their path,” said the speaker, and as long as they are working toward the human good, they are also on the right path.

 

It was a message that would come as quite a surprise to Westerners used to the post-9/11 quick-and-dirty tutorial on Islam, who have so little knowledge of – or little interest in – the faith’s similarities to other Abrahamic religions in the central emphasis on peace and love for one’s fellow men.

 

The power that a shared religion has to break through cultural boundaries, to silence for a moment any contention that may have occurred during the discussion earlier today, struck me.  In an ideal world, its purpose is not so dissension cannot occur, because I believe that it as vital a force as compassion or generosity for cracking foundations, for building new ones; and I expect that most of the women at this conference agree.  Instead, it is so that, standing to leave at the end of the Jumu’ah prayer, to turn to the person next to you with malice is more difficult than it had been before. 

Signing on from the WISE Conference in Kuala Lumpur

Stay tuned in to my blog for the next five days - I'll be providing a first-person perspective on the 2009 Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) Conference, to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on July 16-19, 2009.  As an evaluation assistant charged with gathering feedback and helping the conference run smoothly, I'll be listening in as more than 100 female scholars, theologians, activists and artists gather in one of the world’s most multicultural and religiously diverse Muslim nations to discuss how women's voices can be amplified in the arena of political, social and theological discussion in the global Islamic community.  The event is the brainchild of the American Society for Muslim Advancement in collaboration with several international organizations including the Malaysia-based Sisters in Islam.  The latter has been the object of some controversy in its home country, particularly for its assertion that the Qur'an does not mandate that Muslim women wear headscarves.  

I've been living in Malaysia for six months now and, however I actually feel on any issue discussed at the conference, I'm excited for some healthy and open-minded discussion.  More than a few Malaysians will assert that "We don't discuss controversial/sensitive issues."  More than a few women at this conference will surely disagree.   

Shout Out

All my "terima kasih banyak"s to Mama Brass for letting me borrow her camera for the Bali trip or I'd have nothing right now.  She also gave me a sarong and two bead bracelets - one with my name and one with Graham's ("Is that your boyfriend?") - when I got back.  I got her a keychain.  

Will do better next time, okay-lah?  

Bali and Bali and Bali, Goodbye

Our second full day in Bali began with the incredible banana crepes and fruit plates with salmon-pink papaya served at our hostel.  All of us were still in awe from the day before when we had EGG SANDWICHES.  Obviously, we'd been missing some odd staples.  After saying goodbye to our roly-poly tough-guy buddy Ubud (we named him that), who satisfied our craving for puppies ...

... we all piled into a taxi-van for a day-long tour of the island.  Not an official tour - self-guided, with the advice of our driver.  Renting a taxi for 10 hours is not too expensive.  The problem is that the roads are bad enough that you really do need it for 10 hours, and still won't see everything that you'd like to see.

We stopped first at Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave) - possibly once a Buddhist hermitage - where in a courtyard several fountains were smoothed and partly crumbling from the centuries that have washed over the jungle since it was built.  The entrance to the cave was a gaping mouth surrounded by a mane of wind - but inside, only a humble passageway, a few small altars wrapped in damp checkered cloths in the dark.  

Carvings in the rock lay unexcavated in the jungle outside the site. 

We stopped next at a bubbling green holy spring inside a temple that was teeming with celebrations - Pura Tirta Empul - everyone in their best clothes wandering through the temple, talking together, gathering in no particular place though many were sitting near a platform where the music - all manner of gongs, bells, chants - swelled in an obsessive, hypnotizing flood.  

I forgot my sound recorder today, which at this moment was tragic.

(Note that this was one of the many places our taxi driver disappeared for a good 45 minutes too long then appeared out of nowhere, a cigarette in his hand.)

We drove very far for the next site, up and up all the way toward Danau (Lake) Batur and Mt. Batur to Pura Ulun Danu Batur, a temple open to the wide sky looking down on the lake, across which we could barely see what may have been Trunyun village, where they lay their dead to rest in cages on top of the earth.  The temple was crawling with children who hung all over us, begging us to buy postcards for seven times their worth.  They could speak English very well, actually - or at least, the type of English that they needed; I couldn't even escape them by speaking French, because one man immediately responded to me in French and handed over a full sales pitch written out in French.  We met them going in and coming out of the temple, but inside it was more silent while we explored altar after altar, arranged almost haphazardly within the walls.  The twenty-foot bamboo stems arrayed with husks and flowers that we'd seen all over the island in celebration of their Hari Raya week swayed in near-solitude.  No celebrations here today. 

 

Mt. Batur and the lake:

On our way back we stopped at Bali's second-largest temple, a much quieter but incredibly lush turn-off on the way back to Ubud.  A million-spined tree towered over the first courtyard, a treehouse long overgrown into inaccessibility perched in its wings. 

The door was a deep blue (Graham says black), which was striking, as most of the doors elsewhere were red.

The carvings here were really gorgeous.

We saw a Wayang Kulit (Shadow Puppet) play that night in Ubud which was incredible - incorporating all the exhausting pitches of the temple music and the wails of the Fire Dance narrator the night before with the ghostly shifts from fast to slow, from immobile to sudden disappearance, of the puppets, snapping against a taut sheet with a single flame lit behind.  Even a little broken-English humor was added in, in Balinese voices - they knew their audience.  All the puppet work done by only one man, or so it seemed when we peeked behind the screen after the show, and all the music by only a few more.  It had groaned and roared; it had been as engulfing as an orchestra, and more ruthless.

That night Graham and I followed the sounds of a Nirvana-Rod Stewart cover band and ended up spending a long time listening to them and watching the old hippies dance.  They do love Rod Stewart here. 

--

The next day we tearfully bid Ubud (the puppy, but also the town) goodbye and stopped first at a rather European-style temple with broad clipped-grass fields surrounding it.  Then, again, we began to go up and up, into the center of the island, until at last we arrived at what was probably my favorite temple - Pura Ulun Danau Bratan, a temple dipping its toes into Lake Bratan, spread out luxuriously on the banks under colossal trees skirted in checkered cloths, throbbing with the noise of ceremonies, and music just beginning in the open air - the COOL air! the BREEZY lake air! isn't this why I liked it best?  We've lived for months in 86-feels-like-104 weather, windless, scented of smog and burning trash and things frying - but this was AIR.

On to Gitgit Waterfall, which is crowded on all sides with vendors who will chase you all the way up the steps (usually offering you a bad deal the whole way), but is absolutely worth it.  It's an incredibly powerful drop, straight down, and Graham and Shelly and I crept closer and closer to it until the spray made it hard to breathe and there were rainbows caught in our eyelashes. 

Finally we headed south, to a black-sand (igneous rock) beach that our driver picked for us - certainly not a place to lay out, but we only wanted to see the black sand.  We then drove back into Denpasar to wait for our bus, which left at 7:30 p.m. and didn't arrive to the Java jetty until past midnight. 

The bus drives right onto the Ferry, crowded in with two dozen midnight delivery trucks and other buses.  Shelly and I went up to the roof and in the moonlight watched the now-dreamscape of Bali recede, and one dark mountain, a stretch of hills, the gatekeepers to Java, approach. 

Do I drive too slow?

An eight-year-old kid on a bicycle overtook me on my moto today.  In my defense, I would have owned him if there weren't speed bumps.

Bali & Java: A Slide Show

Pictures at last!  I'll be including pictures in my past and future posts, but for now, I hope you enjoy this 6-minute summary of our trip.

(If you have the time, would you please comment to tell me if this video did or didn't play on your newfangled Functioning Internet?  Thanks a lot!)

Bali: Our First Two Days

I'm four days back from Indonesia. Four days in Bali, about five in Java, still kickin'! I love being out and moving again. The exhaustion of bus-sleep-train-sleep-no-sleep can't get to me too much - the excitement of that sensory whirlwind keeps me awake.

Which isn't to say I didn't sleep for 18 hours when we got back to the apartment in Kuala Terengganu.

But that's the end of the story.

I went on the trip with five other ETAs - my flatmates Stephy and Graham, along with Ruthie (Kijal), Maggie (Chalok), and Shelly (Marang). We left from KT Thursday morning, and after skipping through KL made it to Bali at 6:30 at night. The sun was going down over an eerily frozen ocean - waves ceased at mid-crest, the broad tails of currents uncurled on the open water - pooling around the sudden green hills of Bali. Made a turn over Lombok island, 2 hours out by boat, 8 minutes by plane, before we landed in Denpasar. Already night at the taxi station.

And there we were cheated our first time. After paying 1/4 of all our budgets just to get into the country, we were brutally but inavoidably overcharged for a night ride to Ubud, where we would stay for the remainder of our time in Bali. I'm a hawkish bargainer by now. Really, the skills I'm accumulating ....

We stayed at Wena Homestay, which cost around $3.50 American dollars per person for a charming, stony little courtyard with ponds and porches and ... puppies! Yes! There are no dogs in Kuala Terengganu, needless to say. More on them later.

Ubud is a windy, touristy little town packed with little boutiques (three Dolce & Gabbanas, interestingly, all presumably fake, though how would I know? I own Ray Bans now!). It's apparently been an international artists' Mekka for some time, but it's really a jungly, fun little place, and a good hub if you have only a few days on the island. A good number of the little towns in Bali seam their streets with temple wall after temple wall - florid narrow doorways leading into shady courts, and surely a few odd little secrets. You go to Bali and expect perhaps that there are the "main" temples, some "mid-sized" temples, and then the few village ones that are improvised and cement-block modern. At least, that's what I expected, because that's what most other places in the world are like - the tourist "sights," and then life as normal. Bali is not like this. Perhaps because even their conquerors, for the few decades they kept their grip, embraced the culture there. Perhaps since then they've been indulged - remained Balinese, became more Balinese, never Indonesian, never part of any whole beyond their island, which their gods have deemed the center of the Earth and the door to Heaven.

Toward one of these little doors Graham turned on instinct that first morning. We crossed the street, slipped in, and found ourselves in the Ubud Water Palace. [Future Self: Insert picture here.] Water lilies and broad, lush lilypads framed a walk up to the main structure, a towering central doorway flanked by two smaller entries, stairs guarded by two roaring wild Balinese-Hindu long-toothed bulb-eyed gods. We slipped in behind, where we found a courtyard with many smaller altars, each decorated differently and for some different purpose, most with a miniature stairway, a small gate.

These would become more familiar to us. But not one altar had its replica. Each seemed designed according to some unique idea in the creator's mind - still in development perhaps, able to sprout new heads and tie on layer after new layer of meaning and history with each new visitor. [Look for lots of badass pictures here later, ye who wander here too soon for my sassy internet's tastes.]

Later with Ruthie and Shelly we made it up to Guning Kawi, a collection of 11th-century carvings, 30 feet tall and softened with age on a stone face, skirted by a newer temple, cradled by a clear little creek in a nest of electric green rice paddies. The driver took a back road, one-way (but functioning as two-way) and pothole-ridden, as we would find the majority of Balinese and Javanese roads are, that ran along what the driver explained was only one temple, but was a maze of small family temples in one collective, for more than a mile. The women walking along this road wore sarongs slung more carelessly, and comfortably, around themselves than you would ever see in Malaysia, where they're really never worn outside the house, and with them wore transparent lace shirts with only bras beneath them. We were in awe at that - and jealous, because it's so much more appropriate to 100-degree weather than, say, a baju kurong. And just as I've seen the most impossibly heavy and gigantic loads speeding by on motorcycles, I've now seen a five-foot-long, three-foot-tall bundle of branches balanced on top of one small Balinese woman's head.

The vendors that afternoon at the market in Ubud were almost as aggressive as the woman at Guning Kawi who tied a sarong on me and wouldn't let me take it off until I paid her an outrageous price for it (we found out only too late that we were expected to wear sarongs in the temples). We came to realize that if you touch ANYthing, the bargaining begins there, and it begins far too high. Also, expect to be chased. Though the price will usually go down by 75 percent if you walk far enough. The vendors were pretty desperate to sell, it seemed to me - it's still a few months before the height of the tourist season, and I wonder how long it's been since a harvest. The crops seemed in all states of growth as we toured the island.

The first night we saw a fire dance performed in one of the temples - a more dramatic than "junglic" performance, I'd say, but hey, everyone's allowed some artistic license. White monkey gods, Rama, quivering poised maidens all made their appearance in a crowd of men meant to represent the tribal Balinese. All the while they affected a multilayered, hypnotic chant, one voice raising a wild, fearful cackle intermittently and an outrageous storyteller's growly wail illustrating the tales of the gods. At the end, they did a performance of what I think could be called the "real thing" one man holding a horse of husks on a bamboo frame, who keeps running at thebright coconut-shell coals that other men have swept up, scattering the pile and sending fiery streaks through the dark. Sweep sweep, then a stomping of hooves, and charge! Until at last he is pacified, the horse frame is taken, the man sits stunned, until he is blessed with holy water, he stands, is whole again.

That was our second night in Bali.

More to come, very soon. I'll even come back to this freezing internet cafe if I must. Meanwhile, keep watch. And thanks for reading.

The Jungle

I can start and end this story with that sheer wall of static that rose above me as I lay back on the rocks in a fresh stream in Setiu.  A 100-foot palm arced up from the jungle shore of the stream, marking the gateway through which burned this powerful hiss.  Insects throbbed to a thousand different beats so the music was near hysterics, while birds called out into the din, invisible and unimaginable.  The other side of the creek was flanked by a road, a bridge, a small dressing room where I changed into pants and a T-shirt to swim.  A few palm branches would begin to sway violently as some unknown weight hit them and sank into the jungle.

The stream was calm, warm, half-shaded by the jungle and smattered with warm rocks to sit on.  A family barbequed satay on a wide, clear rock at the shore.  I, my mentor, and another teacher from my school drank water and ate cantaloupe, a less-sweet Malaysian variety, while we soaked in the stream.  We are all unmarried, so we had to ask permission from no one to be here now, with a deadline of no time, waiting for nothing, on the border of wilderness.

*

We came into Setiu, the region of Terengganu north of the Kuala Terengganu area, to show face at a traditional Malaysian wedding in a small, rural town I'm still searching for on a map.  We pulled to the side of the road where a crowd gathered, left our shoes at the foot of the stairs leading up to a house on stilts, inside which the bride and groom, on an upholstered stage with tiny chandeliers protruding from both sides, sat dressed all in green to present themselves to the attendees.  The bride wore less makeup than she would wear at the evening ceremony, for which it would take her and her entourage hours to prepare.  They had just returned from the solemnization at the mosque and were, I believe, essentially married at this point, though another reception was scheduled for the next day in Kuala Terengganu, the groom's home town. 

Perhaps by grace of being a mek saleh (white woman) and a rarity in these parts, I was enthusiastically encouraged to pose on the stage next to the bride and groom more than once.  Once they had left their dais I was also one of six posing up there on the bench with "All the Single Ladies."

Out on the porch I shook hands - you touch one hand or fold all four of your hands together, then touch your face or heart, a sign that you're placing the friendship there - with the mother of the bride, who was seated on the floor.  The two other ladies, my mentor Sali and Farida ("Da"), did the same, placing little packets of money in her lap and receiving small packets of candies and cakes in return.  Someone also gave me a bag, inside which was a wooden stick with a faux gold rose, laces, butterflies on springs, and a brown egg wrapped in mesh hanging from it.  The explanation for it was, "traditional."

We went to wash our hands with a cup of water and ate beef curry and something made of young coconut sprouts in an ochre sauce that was deliciously tender, that tasted exactly as it sounds.  

Then we left for the waterfall.

*

The waterfall was only a creek with a few frothy disturbances where I would lay back sometimes and float down, scaring a frog out of the water and watching up at the trees and the approaching rain.  The water was clear, free of leeches, not jungle water.  We rubbed sand and river stones on our arms, and I watched the jungle for the movement of any animal.  I heard too much to fathom, and saw nothing.

*

The rain came on after I had changed back into my baju kurong outside a village mosque where we had stopped so Sali and Farida could pray.  I walked over under the awning where we had parked the car.  Several men were waiting by the car next to ours.  At least one was Farida's cousin, and they were on the way to the creek we had just left.  One of the children, a boy about 8 years old, hid in the car and ducked down smiling as I made funny faces.  The men were very nice, not rude or too curious as some men would have been, seeing me almost alone and so close.  One of them was a math teacher and we spoke about the challenges of teaching in English for the math and science teachers in Malaysia who are suddenly required to do so without any formal training in the language.  One man asked me if I like Obama, a common question.  Then he asked me if I like Bush, and I laughed and joked, "Oh, no, nobody likes Bush.  You like Obama?" I asked, because if they ask the question of me their answer is usually a shy yes.  But he shrugged it off in a neutral, then added: "I like Osama bin Ladin."  

The smile turned sour on my face; I only realized in slow stages what he had said.  When I didn't respond he asked, "You know Osama bin Ladin?"  I nodded.  After another long moment, he added, "Obama Osama."  I couldn't respond.  A weight was beginning to settle right below my heart.  This is the first time anyone has said this to me, ever.   I've heard a few "I don't like America"s but this is different.  How, if he "likes" bin Ladin, could he not be implying that it is not morally wrong to kill me right now for the sole fact that I am an American?  I felt I was being told that he wanted me dead.  And all so cordially.

I was relieved to leave but the knot kept tightening and expanding in my chest, some reaction almost akin to what I felt after 9/11 seven and a half long years ago.  I didn't tell Farida - he was her cousin and she could feel embarrassed - or worse, agree.  It built up in me till I was nearly sick.  When we saw the ocean it began to subside, but only a little.

*

We ate greasily breaded squid and fish right out of the sea by a forlorn stretch of bright beach.  The sun had returned now, and the afternoon had become sleepy and warm.  You could see several islands out in the ocean, one of them Pulau Redang, I think, but we weren't sure.  Had to eat ABC again, avoiding the creamed corn (and I think beans??) as best I could.  I thought I heard an ice cream truck later, when I got back to my apartment.  Hallucinations.  All because of that ridiculous ABC.

*

So I am ready for the jungle.  I've heard recordings of that wild song, thick and oppressive as fog, on rainforest air but to hear it in person is to be drawn to it.  As we drove into Setiu the hills gave way to mountains peaked by cloud in the distance, clear blue and mysterious to nearly every occupant of this peninsula.  The world's longest suspension bridge, built by human hands and without a single nail, stretches through the canopy of some jungle precinct not far from here.  I'm ready to go in.  Ready to be frightened.

Mama Brass and Assorted Stories

The first text message reads: "I want to invite to see malaysian wedding. This friday. About my invite to saw my factory...still can. No problem."  Next text, following directly: "So if u want this Sunday I'll picks from school. U want?"  So I'm confused.  When's the wedding?  When's the factory visit?  I text to ask.  Response: "Saturday afternoon we will come back.  Because need go 2 school."

"Class, do you know what 'confused' means?" [In unison:] "Yes!"  "What does it mean?"  [Sparsely:] "Don't know..."

Text message transcends few language barriers, turns out.  Even when spelling isn't an issue.  Even when pronunciation is no obstacle. 

So this is the story of my day of adventure broken English fun.  And brassware. 

I want to make it clear, my Bahasa Melayu is abysmal.  I haven't been studying as I should - too much lesson planning, field trip planning, "English In Camp" planning (I tried to tell them there should be no "in"; they argued that of course there should).  So anyone speaking English is doing much better than I would be if it were the other way around.  But two people who hardly share a language, trying in earnest to communicate, can produce some of the best, strangest, and most inadvertently offensive stories you've ever heard. 

The woman who was picking me up is the mother of one of my Form 5 ("Senior"), top-level students.  One day F. left a letter at the gate of the school expressing her desire for "friendship with Miss."  The daughter was too shy to hand it over herself, F. informed me later over ABC, a syrupy pile of ice shards plus ice cream and sometimes (thank god not this time) creamed corn.  The syrup, meanwhile, is often served as a drink and is absolutely sweeter than pure sugar or any sugar you could possibly imagine.  Unless you're Malaysian.

So I met F. for the first time in front of the school and hopped in the car.  We drove off and she bought me some ABC.  She told me how her daughter couldn't possibly believe that I would go out with her.  I think they placed a bet.  If so, I've got one ringgit coming my way.

Driving along the Batu Burok beach afterwards, we saw a police blockade and F. started to get nervous.  She said she'd been pulled over once because she gets this horrified expression on her face whenever she sees police, though she can't explain why.  A friend of hers got pulled over once, she said, and the cop checked her address and let her move on.  One week later she got a letter from the policeman saying, quote F., "Will you be my girlfriend?  Yes or No?"  Sometimes the innocence - not naivete? - of the people here is too charming.  Remember fifth grade?  I hope she had to circle Yes or No.  Anyways, this is when I learn the word for crazy.  Gila.

[Irrelevant, but: Crazy monster!]

Leaves and leaves of spidery floral batik are strewn around the rear of the factory, drying.  Two men use copper plates, so intricate that specially trained craftspeople make these alone, and lay down the patterns in steaming wax - deliberately, cooly, placing the block each time precisely where it fits. 

But F. and her husband are primarily responsible for the brassworks.  So F. leads me through the entire process, from how the molds are carved and dried to the used copper bullets, bought at maybe 180 ringgit a box from the army, and larger shells - from cannons, I think - that they melt down and reshape into the finest wedding platters, tiny powder dishes, decorative krisses modeled after the wooden ones worn by the groom at weddings.  Daggers curved like snakes, they're also featured on the flag of one of the associates of ruling Malaysian party UMNO.

We wait by a pit of blue flame while one man drops a few shells into a pot inside with long tongs.  F. and I peek over the lip at the pure orange coals.  The two workers chat about how they want to go back to school for English now that they've met me, but this is all F. translates for me - otherwise she just tells me over and over that they're hilarious, though she doesn't say why, so all I can do is listen for it in their voices.  Nice delivery, anyway.

On the way home F. told me about when she used to play hockey in school.  Whenever her coach let her to play a position other than goalie, she said she'd ignore the ball and come straight at the other players' legs with her stick.  Yeah, she did it, so what? she'd answer when the coach asked her if she'd whacked someone.  The coach would scream at her then and make her goalie again.  This is when I learned the word for evil.  Jahat.  What her daughter calls her.  I also learned that F. gets what she wants.  I went out with her, didn't I?  What a blast.

She also told me about a friend of hers from Sweden who moved here nine years ago with her Malaysian husband.  He said he would like to die in Malaysia.  And then he did!  Hit-on-the-head motion from F. 

The strangest moment was when she told me the word for "sale."  "You mean as in shopping?" I asked.  "Yeah!" she said.  "Today, I want to sale you."  Then she launches into Malay I can understand enough to know that she is mimicking an auction.  Of me.  I now know what it is to be utterly speechless.  I'm far from offended.  I just haven't a clue.

She thought it was hilarious.

When you really don't get the story is when they're laughing the most.  I need to catch up on my Malaysian jokes about shopping.  Or white girls.  Or something. 

So I may be going to a wedding this weekend.  I'm fairly sure F. invited me.  Half the time I just get in a car because I'm invited.  One day last week, another teacher invited me to come along while she drove her daughter to a netball camp at a school 48 kilometers away.  My presence surely contributed nothing.  I divided my time between nodding off and trying not to look too grumpy despite the torrid afternoon heat.  But they bought me food, too.  Two meals, actually, just for me - chicken rice, which I eat like it's my first day off the boat, and something that I think they said was tapioca noodles and that tasted just like tapioca noodles.  

One of the teachers that came along is going to get me in on some Tae Kwon Do lessons.  The other is very often elected my cheerful chaperone because she's single - everyone else would have to ask permission from their husbands to drive anywhere but home or work - although our conversations mostly consist of me learning to say "turn left" in Bahasa and us both laughing about it.  She's a sweet lady though.  She also invited me to a wedding this weekend.  Maybe the same wedding.  I really don't know.  I'm just going to get in the car.  

I've killed so many bugs I'm starting to feel really guilty

A whole desktop community.  An attempted dung beetle the size of my fist (Graham stopped me).  Big beetle in the hall.  Kitchen ants.  The kind that drop out of the air into your lap while you're in bed.  Entire colonies.  A cricket. 

Seriously.  Can it be worse in the kampung?