My Orientation in KT

Hi everyone! I decided not to write during my first two weeks here in Malaysia because I wanted to gain a bit of perspective on Malaysian society instead of writing a rather superficial assessment. Granted two weeks in a country will still make me have superficial opinion. Oh well, you can't win them all...

So, after a few days in Kuala Lumpur, we headed over to Kuala Terengganu (KT), the capital of the state of Terengganu, which is in northeast penisular Malaysia. One of the few things that we have been constantly told is that Terengganu (along with its northern neighbor Kelantan) are the most underdeveloped parts of Malaysia. This includes the usage of the English language. In fact, this particular Fulbright program is the pet project of the Economic Minister of Terengganu to try and dramatically improve English language skills (learning English is coupled with development process here). Bearing these facts in mind, the big shock for me when wandering around Kuala Terengganu is that all the shopkeepers speak basic English! Indeed, I have not found anyone yet that didn't understand basic English! Granted, the basic English here can be sometimes rather... basic. My favorite example is when me and my roommate unplugged the TV and couldn't plug it back it (the plug wouldn't go into the outlet at all!). I called up the front desk of our hotel and asked during the conversation, "Is someone from maintance coming to my room or are you transfering me to maintance?" The response? "Yes." Perhaps I shouldn't equate shopkeeper-english with the english ability for the rest of this state...

This orientation involves having a lot of class. Our schedule starts at 8:30am and starts with 4 hours of language class... everyday. With a rotating group of language teachers, the lessons have a tendency to be, well I'll use the euphenism of "repetitive" (there was one teacher, Sauri, that happily broke the mold). After lunch, we have a rather fun 3 hour class on teaching english as a second language (ESL). Around 7-8pm we usually all meet up for some dinner and socializing. That gives us precious little time to do other activities, as class eats up so much of our time. And half the group have gotten badly sick with one thing or another (including me), which can be good in that you can miss some Bahasa Melayu class and some of the "repetitive" teachers. (In case you wanted to know, I had horrible allergies to mosquito bites when I first arrived and now, recently, I'm suffering from an iron definiceny, which makes you extremely fatigued and lethargic all the time - not fun.)

After a lot of nervousness in our whole group, yesterday we were finally told which schools we will be stationed at and where we will be placed (finally!). I'm being placed in Chukai, which is down south in Terengganu and is a large town/small city. Wikipedia is telling me that Chukai means "taxes" in Malay because taxes were imposed on the river traffic, especially during the British colonial period. You learn something new everyday! I'm actually pretty excited about my placement, and not just because of what I learned on Wikipedia. :)

Despite me living in an American bubble, as I'm around the other ETAs (English Teaching Assistants) the whole day, I'm definitely coming into contact with some interesting cultural and social practices of the people that live here (90% of the people here are native Malays). For instance, there is a strong separation between the sexes. We have been told by a number of people that, when meeting someone, you shouldn't place your hand out first to shake the person's hand. The reason? Several people are uncomfortable with shaking hands with people of the opposite sex. That's very different from the US, where it would be rude not to shake hands will all that you meet.

One thing that is very different here in Malaysia is the concept of time. Our morning class is supposed to start at 8:30am, but it has been delayed to 9am. Malaysian culture seems to be rather relationship-oriented, and therefore the social interation is more valued than the inconvience of waiting for a late party. It is not considered unusual to start up a conversation with a stranger in the street and then give them your phone number while you are departing. Indeed, that happened to me while I was waiting for my pizza at Pizza Hut...

Another interesting cultural aspect of KT is the way people stare at the "mat salleh", the white people. I'm in an interesting position in that I'm the only non-white person within the group and my brown skin color allows me to blend into the crowd. When I go out with the rest of the ETAs, man, do people stare! People will lean out of their cars in utter fascination, dumbfounded to say the least. I've been told that the people in Terengganu do not realize that 1/3 of the people in the US look like me and not like my white friends. That's one of the uphill battles that I alone here will have to face here, because I need people to accept my American identity and not label me as an Indian, a culture that I only have contact with through ancestry and my own hard-earned knowledge. So, you can bet that this blog will contain the unusual perspective of a non-white American travelling abroad in Malaysia! (I say "unusual" here because you see more white Americans abroad than you see non-white Americans, unfortunately... that's food for thought.)

Today our Bahasa Malayu language teacher told us (more like browbeated us) on not wearing mini skirts to formal functions. Since when does anyone around the world wear a mini skirt to a formal function? I have a strange feeling that I am going to have to break a lot of stereotypes about American here. Polite and decent behavior for a woman is more restrictive and conservative here. The last thing that you want is for village gossip to infamously label you a "loose woman".

I actually really like all the other ETAs in my group, so it will hard when I have to say goodbye to them in a week, and when we all get carted away to different parts of Terengganu. Thank God for the internet and cell phones! Check out some pictures below...

I love this shot!