Pastiche and Collage

I can sometimes tell a great deal about how my subconscious is handling a situation by the things that I dream. When I first arrived in Malaysia, I dreamed only about people and places back home in the U.S., and every morning I was confused about where I was when I woke up, but in the past few days that has shifted. Now I am dreaming about a strangely integrated world in which people from home are here with me! Last night I dreamed about being very excited to take my mom to an Indian restaurant in KT that I like. I take this as a sign that I am getting more psychologically settled in.

TCC has a small booth at the Chinese Lantern Festival on the new KT waterfront this weekend, with which I have been helping out. Snapshots of interest from the Chinese Lantern Festival so far have included: several dozen middle aged Chinese ladies performing line dances to Latin music, a man missing both hands who does beautiful Chinese calligraphy, the mysterious descent to Earth of a hot-air-balloon style lantern that had been launched near the exact same spot 24 hours before, loudspeakers blasting Lady Gaga followed immediately by Cotton-eyed Joe, and a VERY long shadow puppet show, the dialog of which was completely unintelligible to everyone in attendance (I did get to go behind the scenes and see the musicians and the puppeteer at work, though!). The ways that Western, Chinese, and Malay cultures do and do not mix here continue to catch me off guard.

The mixing of languages in particular provides endless puzzlement and hilarity. For example, yesterday Pelf, Euson (a University of Malaysia Terengganu student) and I were returning from the Lantern Festival, and Pelf and Euson were speaking in Chinese, which I don’t understand at all. But there were enough names of people and places I knew and English words like “hospital” that I could tell what they were talking about. I chimed in with some additional information in English without even thinking about the fact that they had been speaking Chinese. We were all surprised! I guess I am developing a heightened sensitivity to context clues.

I also created some confusion at McDonalds last night when I stepped up to order chicken rice porridge (probably the best thing I have ever eaten at McDonalds) and milkshakes for the three of us, and said “Helo!” to the woman behind the counter. She assumed I only spoke English and went to get someone who could take my order in English. I then proceeded to place my order in Malay, which cracked up all the ladies working the other registers. Despite my ability to order food in Malay, I still cannot remember the Malay words for Men and Women, so I was lucky that McDonald’s bathrooms had little “Man” and “Woman” pictures on their restroom doors!

A note about McDonald’s: I NEVER go to McDonald’s in the states. Ever. But here I have already been several times. They have pretty much all the same things that they do in the U.S., except it is halal, and they also have things like the amazing chicken rice porridge (which an American would probably call chicken rice soup).

Something I miss from home is cheese. I have not eaten cheese in several weeks, which is kind of unbelievable. I might have to go to the Pizza Hut downtown and remedy that situation at some point soon. However it seems a little silly to complain about the lack of cheese with such a huge variety of new foods from which to choose a substitute. I have recently tried the following: fried squid balls (that is, balls made of squid), black bean dumpling (practically a dessert), deep fried honey-dipped jackfruit (much better than fresh jackfruit), keropok lekor (fried fish sausage), dragonfruit/pineapple juice, and some very addictive plain buttery buns sold out of the back door of someone’s house in Chinatown. Durian flavored cake is one of only two things I have tried so far that I REALLY did not like. The other was a supposedly plum flavored, but somehow extremely salty drink.

I see this has devolved into another post about food. There is just so much to report on that subject! I have actually been doing some scientific things related to turtles in between meals and snacks, so I will be able to post something sciencey soon.

I am headed back to the Kampung in the next couple of days, where my broadband connection is much more dicey, but I should still be able to check my email, and I am looking forward to being by the sea and part of a family again.