Speaking Frankly...

Well... reading about the 'gempa bumi' in Indonesia makes me very sad indeed. That country has been through SO much, if it's not one thing, it's another. I really can't imagine. Truly a testament to the strength of humanity to adapt to their circumstances, no matter how dire. People recover, move on. That old saying is true I guess; that which doesn't kill me willmake me stronger. (I'm paraphrasing, I don't remember the exact words.)

Friday morning in KL, and actually quite pleasant out. Coolish, and not too sunny, though not rainy either. Unfortunately my throat is nearly swollen shut, I think from allergies, though I can't say for sure. At any rate, no class for me today. I can write, but talking is difficult. If it's not better by tomorrow, I will go to the doctor.

Had my first exam on Wednesday. Oral exams. First I had a 15 minute conversation with my teacher about political issues in the U.S and here. I was attempting to explain some of the more devisive issues in American politics today, without getting very political myself. I was telling her about the many different factions that make up the democratic party and how, in my humble opinion, they sometimes hinder their own success with separate agendas, but how difficult it is to unite so many different types of people and ideas under one candidate. Then she asked the burning question: Bush or Kerry? I just smiled and said that in my country a persons vote is a kind of private matter. Then we talked about issues here and she told me that here too people are divided on many issues. I suppose it is a pretty common theme the world over these days with the age of globalization upon us. Certainly here they also struggle with the growing gap between the rich and poor.

Anyway... after we finished talking, we then had to do another part of the exam where she put two of us together and gave us a topic to discuss. Annina and I were to discuss where we wanted to have dinner that night. Makanan (food) Malaysia or makanan Barat (western food). Inthe end we decided she would cook dinner and I would bring a bottle of wine. This touched off another discussion with our teacher about alcohol consumption among westerners. Remember, in Malaysia a significant portion of the population does not drink. All of my teachers included. She wanted to know what we liked to drink, how much, was it considered acceptable in our home countries and what was considered moderate and what excessive. We had also talked about standards of dress for Westerners living here, and how she felt about it as a muslim. The answer seemed to be that there are many different sets of rules here in Malaysia. In terms of the different ethnicities here, the Malaysian women are predominantly muslim, and usually well covered, though in the city you see varying degrees of this. Some women will wear traditional dress, but no headscarf, some will wear jeans and tee shirts, but with a headscarf. The Indian population still sees a lot of women in traditional sari's. Personally my favorite of the local style of dress.'They're so colorful and vibrant, plus, they look quite comfortable to me. The Hindu women do not wear headscarves. And then there is the Chinese population. The Chinese women dress anywhere from somewhat conservative to wearing less clothes than Britney Spears would be comfortable in. At any rate, it seems acceptable manner of dress is determined largely by your religion here, and if not that, the color of your skin. Basically, as a westerner, no one expects much of me at all in terms of how I choose to dress. They see it all here, from the backpacker wearing ripped shirts and pants, on up to the converted western muslim in
traditional dress. I generally dress for where I'm going to be. School and more conservative areas of the country I wear long skirts, shirts, etc. Downtown KL, I can afford to be somewhat more liberal.

After all of that was said and done, we then each had to give a presentation to the class on the subject of our choice. I chose to talk about running a half marathon. I talked for about 10 minutes, and gave a powerpoint presentation with it. Though I stumbled over a few of my words, it was in general quite good, and to me, a fairly good indicator that I have indeed learned quite a lot in the past five weeks. It felt very good to speak so easily. The night before I'd run into my neighbor in the gym and was talking with he and a friend of his, and realized that I was actually having a discussion in Bahasa Melayu without really having to think too hard about it. THAT too was a breakthrough. Next week we will take our written exams, finish up with a small ceremony on Thursday and then have a couple days off before launching into our second session.

Funny thing about learning another lang auage, is when you find that a word or terminology in the new language sounds like a bad word in your own language. For example, 'Bahasa Melayu', the young people especially refer to it as 'BM.' I have a bit of a difficult time with using that terminology, since, back home it tends to denote something altogether different! My German friends have trouble using the 'fikir', which means to think, and is a word we use almost constantly, because in German it is apparently dangerously close in sound to the english equivalent F-word. In other words, the mother of all bad words. So they are noticably uncomfortable using it, and have found a list of synonyms to use instead. ;-)

Anyway, time to get on with the day...