All fired up!

      See this little white apple-shaped cutting board?  See the nasty ole' cooktop that killed his twin?  Well, the now-deceased apple cutting board participated in a kitchen fire recently.  I used to have two of these, but now I only have one.  However, I'm lucky to still have a kitchen!  Here's what happened:

    Before I suddenly got a social life a couple of weeks ago, I occupied my abundant free time with housewifely activities like cooking.  This was before I discovered how cheaply a person can eat in Malaysia by going to hawker stalls or eating all the retiree-sized portions the supermarkets sell.  
   
  So, my days of making up monstrous casseroles of lasagna by the dozen are now, apparently, over.   Now I just go and buy a little ready-made square of frozen lasagna the size of a cocktail napkin and turn it into a meal by adding a salad and some frozen garlic bread.  E voila--dinner!

    Anyway, back to the near-disaster that happened in my kitchen the other day.   I was making an amateur's version of that diet classic, quiche lorraine.   That involved frying bacon.  After that was finished,  the hot frying pan needed to go somewhere.  Being a new tenant, I surely didn't want to sully the stainless steel countertops!  My eye fell on the little white plastic cutting board and clearly my brain was not engaged at that particular moment.   I put the hot skillet down on the cutting board and did something else.  Needed to cook something else, so I picked up the frying pan and plopped it back onto the hot cook surface.  Big mistake!

       "Hmm . . . .what's all that white smoke curling up from under the skillet?" I asked myself.  "Must be some grease that splattered onto the cooking surface." My next thought was, "Oh, boy -- is there a fire extinguisher out there in the hallway?  I think I'm gonna need it!"  The little white apple cutting board had melted and stuck to the bottom of the frying pan unbeknownst to me.  So, I'd unwittingly transported a white plastic item onto the red-hot cooking ring.   There were actually flames coming out from underneath the skillet!   Funny, I didn't think you could have a kitchen fire where there was no open flame like from a gas burner, but I guess you can. . . . 

      Extinguishing the flame wasn't the problem.  Rather, it was the gooey mass of white plastic that had melted and glued the skillet to the burner.  I spent the following hour bathed in nervous sweat, uttering unlady-like comments as I desperately scraped the plastic off  the cook surface.  I mostly succeeded but there are still little bits of blackened plastic that you might be able to see on the big left-hand burner in the photo.  Amazingly, the burner still works, but it isn't nearly as smooth and glossy as it once was.   And I now know that burning plastic leaves a nasty chemical smell that lasts for a loooong time!

       Dunno if there's any connection, but a week or so later, our whole condo complex had a fire drill. We may not have met the fire codes because soon after that, a giant, almost-writhing mass of white, snakelike fire hoses appeared in the garage area and is still there today.  They're being replaced with new ones, one by one, at a snail's pace.   The fire extinguishers are also being replaced, but the rack for the one outside our door has been empty for a couple of weeks now.  That's a bit unnerving.   If anybody needs a fire extinguisher outside the door, it would be ME!

    I don't plan to do any more serious cookery until a new one appears outside our unit.  You might say I'm no longer fired up about cooking in Penang!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Fireflies

What fun we had Friday night!   D. and I found a very interesting operation called "Spiral Synergy".  It's run by a lady who organizes events and outings in the Penang area.  One such outing was called "Fireflies by Night."  A total of nineteen folks signed up and we all met at 5:30 the G Hotel, which was our home-away-from-home every summer for four years.  It felt odd to be at the hotel and not be staying in Room 505, but we have our own "unit" to stay in now.  Anyway, the place was teeming with nametag-wearing Chinese businessmen who were having a major convention there. 

     Once our highly multi-national group assembled, we boarded our "air-conditioned coach" and pulled away, over the bridge to the mainland Penang State, a journey that took a bit over an hour due to Friday evening "rushing-hour" traffic, according to Baxter, our friendly and professional bus guide. We were bound for a sleepy little fishing village called Nibong Tebal, which has "seen the light," (so to speak) and decided to make firefly viewing their local tourist attraction.  In fact, a few years ago, they planted thousands of the special kind of mangrove tree that fireflies prefer all along the river leading out to the sea.  

    It wasn't nearly dark enough yet, so we stopped at a famous, though decidedly undramatic, semi-outdoor eatery where the specialty of the house is crab rice porridge and boiled baby octopus. Well, actually, it wasn't QUITE as outdoor as this picture would imply--there were plenty of seats under the roof, and all of them populated with extended Malaysian families.  So, we all ate our fill and off we went to a very rural driveway that was the start of the firefly viewing adventure.  We all donned life vests and traipsed a few yards down to the pier, where we hopped into a biggish tour boat and off we went.  It was pretty dark by then, and the boat hugged the riverbanks so we could see the fireflies clustered in the mangrove trees that overhang the river.  

     Now, I remember the occasional, lazy fireflies of my youth in Illinois, flitting here and there, moving across our front yard.  Well, these fireflies were a whole different story!  They were like Japanese salarymen, all hopped up on energy drinks.  For one thing, they weren't in all the trees--only in the kind they prefer.  So, there would be several dark trees in a row and then--bam!--suddenly there would be a firefly-laden tree, with so many of them they looked like strings of Christmas tree lights, though not as bright.  I understand that these Malaysian fireflies are a small species, so small that 2-3 of them could be lined up on your thumb.  Mostly they stayed low, near the water, though occasionally there were a few up high.  In some trees, the colony had gotten its act together, so to speak, and they were almost all twinkling in unison.  That looked like a pale version of those chasing Xmas tree lights.  It looked as though they were all stationary, but when I looked them up, it said the females are actually sitting still, flashing merrily, while the males move around in front of them, looking for an invitation to. . . .well, you know.   What fun and how mysterious it was to move along that dark river at night and see those sudden clumps of sparkling lights along the way!  It was the most fun I've had in quite a while, and best of all, I didn't have to organize it, drive, park or any of the other things that make an outing more of a chore when you're in charge of it.  Many thanks to Spiral Synergy!

The Great Sofa Hunt

Bye-bye, Salmon Monstrosity! (Donated to Charity)

  Well, it's time to replace the "Salmon Sofa," which was part of the furnishings that came with our "unit."  Nobody around here lives in a home, an apartment, or a condo--we all live in "units" and these units are organized into "blocks."  Your address almost has to include the number or letter of your block. 

     But, I digress . . . .on to the exciting saga of the new sofa-bed for D.'s room.  Now there are those (including the owners of our "unit") who'd consider this salmon sofa a real find.  We think we can donate it to someone easily and that's going to happen real soon!  Next to the giant, monster TVs, this little number was something we were yearning to get rid of.  And now we are!  

     Having taken our almost-weekly bus ride out to Queensbay Mall, we wandered into a furniture store where everything is sleek, modern and not all that comfortable, truth be told.  

Hello, Sleek But Not Too Comfy

But we have found pieces we like there from time to time.  The problem is, the company policy seems to be to hire young Chinese women with the worst possible English.  However they're always eager to help and armed with their ubiquitous calculators, so as to tell you the "final price, lah."  The commission system is firmly entrenched at this outlet, I assure you!  I always feel a bit like raw meat in a lion's cage when I walk in there.  Never mind--our gal did show us a newly-arrived set of "furnitures" that were exactly what we need for holiday hosting of guests.

     After much unfolding and folding of the two-seater and a certain amount of stretching out on it, the negotiations began: " Can you deliver this next week?"  "Can, can!!"  Good!  "Can we get extra cushions for the back?"  The shrieks of "Can, can, lah!" grew even more fervent.  Great!  When can we get them?  "Sofa. . . . . two-tree day, lah!"  Lovely!  The extra cushions? "Two-tree month."  Ooooh!  Forgot this is Malaysia and the sofa cushions have to come by ship from Hong Kong.  Oh, well--the guests are coming for Christmas, so we just won't lean back until then.  

     Adding insult to injury, in "two-tree month" the cushions have to be picked up by us at that mall and transported home by bus or taxi.  They're gonna be pretty expensive extra cushions by the end of September when they finally arrive!  Wanna place a little bet as to whether they'll actually match the two we'll already have?  Or get here by Christmas?

     This episode just underscores our conviction that here in Malaysia, everything takes 2-3 tries to get it right, but they finally do.  Punctured motorbike tube?  It took two long and scary treks on an utterly flat back tire (or "tyre," as it's known around here) back to the motorbike shop to get that one right.

      The TV installer took two visits to get the TVs adjusted properly--thank you for that!  The Internet took two tries and the billing. . . . .well, that could be a three-tripper!  I set up a new bank account last Friday--that one took three return visits, all intricately planned so as to avoid lunch hour, closing time, and prayer time, but it did eventually get done.  And so it goes.  It'll probably take me "two-tree" tries to post this blog entry, so I'll start now. . . . 

Don't Worry, Be Happy!

       Nice sentiment in this picture, isn't it?  Might be more accurate with the addition of "If" and a comma, so it'd read "If You Are Happy, We Are Happy." Well, it's one step better than the local vernacular, in which it would have been rendered, "You Happy, We Happy."  Nonetheless, it makes me happy every time I see this message on the wall of the convenience store where I pick up my morning paper. Makes sense, since it's a Happy Mart!
       What makes me even happier is the fact that the fellow behind the counter may actually like me now.   We've come a long way together in these three months since I began getting my morning paper from him.  At first he wouldn't meet my eyes or say a word to me except to tell me the price of my paper.  Then he began to mellow out as I appeared almost every day.  He was "there" when I rode my motorbike the first time, wobbling out of the parking lot like a newborn lamb.  He began to smile whenever I came into the store.  I wouldn't say he exactly anticipates my arrival, but he has melted from iceberg to ice cube and recently we're at room temperature, I daresay.

    This got me thinking about whether we are, indeed, happy in this strange, but wonderful new land.  I can say definitively that we are.  It's the small things that add up to overall happiness here, just like elsewhere.  In the morning, the exotic tropical birds greet the dawn so eagerly, you'd swear you were at the aviary of some zoo.  Whistles, hoots, warbles--it's amazing!  The sound of the water treatment in the pool below our window is infinitely relaxing and soothing.
    One silly little thing that makes me smile every morning is our juice glasses.  They're fashioned in such a way that when you pour the liquid into them, it forms a heart shape.  Kinda gets the day off to a good start! 
  
 And how can anyone fail to be happy when they exit a shopping mall car park to this:

        


        

All the News that's Fit to Print

Spoiled for choice!

    Just got back from my morning outing to take David to work and pick up the newspaper.  As you can see from the photo, there are a lot of them, and in many languages, too.  There's English, of course, plus Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil.  English-speaking folks around here read either The Star (the local rag that has Penang happenings in it) or The Straits Times (a more serious one that originates in Singapore).  There's a new little upstart on the racks these days called The Sun, which Wikipedia characterizes like this:  "Malaysia's first national free daily newspaper in tabloid form"    


     Like any other town's papers, each has its own little quirks and idiosyncracies, but all three have excellent online presences, so you do have to wonder why so many people in this highly tech-savvy country even bother to buy newspapers.  But they do, even me.  There's just something about holding newsprint in your hand, leafing through it over a cup of " teh tarik"  (the local beverage here) or coffee.  I'll never give it up, although the two main Malayisan newspapers do pop up on my iPad screen every morning, begging to be read.   
   

   One thing that constantly amazes me is what these reputable Malaysian newspapers are willing to print.  They show photos of mourning relatives, mothers carrying their injured children to the hospital and worse.  They'll tell you how much a family makes, what relatives said about a lurid murder in the family, what the sentencing options are for malefactors (a fine, time in jail or number of strokes of the cane.)  The papers tell you all they know, which might be more than you want to know.  And they tell you so much more than American newspapers.  In arrest photos like this one, they normally don't "pixilate" people's faces.  Just to make my point, I was planning to insert a picture from The Star of an accident victim but it was too graphic for ME, much less my gentle readers!


    It's not fair, I know, but I can't help but compare the abundance and size of newspapers here to the  English-language newspaper I used to get back in Japan (and pay a very high price for!)  The  Japanese one there was small in size and suffering from the lack of readership that afflicts so many periodicals these days.  It seemed to shrink a page or two each month, and it was a day late by the time it reached our city, which was a bit far from Tokyo, where it was published   Adding insult to injury, there were several "newspaper holidays" per year so delivery persons could sleep in.  By the time all that happened, the "news" wasn't "new" any more.  Not so here!


    The only problem is that this newspaper abundance is hard on me, a person who borders on obsessive.  I can't get through even one of the daily newspapers completely, much less the two that I buy because they're dirt-cheap -- 40 cents (US) daily and 50 cents on Sundays.  So, they pile up and I can't bear to toss them out until I've read 'em, but I never get a chance to completely read 'em and so a vicious circle ensues.  A plethora of riches, you could say!


    Well, off I go to peruse today's paper, and yesterday's and maybe even the one from the day before. . . . 

We've Got It "Maid"!

    Well, guess who this is!  It's our new maid, or cleaning lady.  (Is there actually a difference?  I truly don't know.)  Anyway, my concern and apprehension was all for naught.  She arrived early, cleaned every inch of this place and didn't get in my way, nor I in hers.  It wasn't uncomfortable at all to have her banging around the apartment while I was present.  And she was self-directed, once we went over the basics, so I think she'll do fine during the month when I'm "off station" and hubby is fending for himself.     

   

     She's dispatched by an agency called Comfort Cleaning, which goes to Indonesia, finds and trains the maids, brings them over and sends them out.  That's reassuring, I'm told, because if something goes wrong, the agency will make it right.  Or try to, anyway. 


     We've already had a small-scale crisis when I gave this poor gal a very harsh bathroom tile cleanser to use that discolored the black marble flooring around one of the showers.  She came out cowering to confess it, and I suppose some Malaysian employers would have beaten her about the head and shoulders (or worse).  But this could have happened to me just as easily as to her, since neither of us realized that it wouldn't work on marble the way it did on sturdy mosaic tile.  So, I just handed her a black permanent marker and told her to cover it up, which she did!  Maybe the black pigment will sink in as well as wear off and it'll heal itself . . . . (she said hopefully). 

   Anyway, I was greatly pleased with what she did and amazed at all the things she was willing to do.  I'd heard that maids are often reluctant to do showers and toilets, but this little lady went to town on ours. (Which is more than I can say for myself!)  The moment she left, I was on the phone asking the agency to have her sent to our place every time, which is twice a month.  Any more often than that, and I don't know what there would be for her to do.

   In fact, I'm utterly amazed at the prevalence of maids in Malaysia, and not just hired by ex-pat wives.  The Malaysians themselves rely on them to such an extent that when the Indonesian government closed the tap and stopped sending them over a couple of years ago, the whole country panicked.  Indonesian maids are preferred because they work for lower salaries than others and because they speak more or less the same language as Malaysians, so there's not much of a language barrier.  (Tho' today our little gal and I had to use a lot of gestures and intuition!)  But some of the maids were mistreated by their employers and to such an extent that the Indonesian government stopped the supply.  There was a great deal of distress caused by this move and only recently have they begun to inch toward agreement.  Meanwhile, the newspapers have been wondering editorially whether it's possible for Malaysians to learn how to clean their own homes or raise their own children.  Evidently some  35,000 Malaysian families need maids and the wait list is seven months long. 

    As  newcomer, it's been very enlightening to get advice from the ladies in the Scrabble group who do have maids.  Their comments range from "What would I do all day if I had one?"  (which used to be me) to "Well, I have a gal who comes in on Mondays and Fridays and another who comes on Wednesdays. I never cook!"  Then there's the gal who has no pets, no kids at home and a husband who travels a lot (they're Malaysian).  Yet they have a full-time, live-in maid.  But then, they have an apartment twice the size of the house I grew up in and five times the size of the Japanese apartment I dwelled in happily for 17 years.  But you do have to wonder what the maid does all day every day, don't you?

    And from now on, you can wonder what I do all day, and I'm wondering that myself.  Guess I'd better get busy writing the Great American Novel!

Anger and Apprehension in Pulau Tikus

        Well, I never expected (but I should have known) that there would be a second round in the motorcycle tire fiasco.  It seems like everything in Malaysia takes two tries or two visits.  The TV installer came twice.  Getting the free cordless telephone took two bus trips downtown.  And so it goes. Things get done eventually, but seldom on the first try.  And so it was with the motorbike.


     Last Friday night, the punctured inner tube on the back tire caused us to have to limp about two kilometers through rain and Friday night traffic to get the hobbled motorbike to the bike shop.  Once there, we found out that they would be closed all weekend long.  No way 'round that!  So I left the bike there with the promise that they'd fix it on Monday morning by providing an expensive new "sport rim" that would make an inner tube unnecessary and prevent this kind of fiasco from happening again (at least not on the rear tire!)  They said it would cost RM430 (US $143) and that it'd be done by noon.  Well, that didn't come to pass, of course!  ("Out of stock, lah.  Maybe two-tree days after.")  Meanwhile, the gal assured me that the tire had been repaired and the bike was safe to ride.  (With the proviso that I was to get air put into the tire every day or two until the new parts come in.  I should've considered that a warning!)





     So, trusting that the motorbike was, indeed, fixed and safe, I hopped on and sailed off over hill and dale, around curves and through traffic to a REALLY fancy-dancy condominium in a development called ""The Cove"  to play Scrabble with some ex-pat ladies.  The place has only one unit per floor and they are 6,000 sq. ft. or bigger.  The hostess said airily, "This is my sewing room and these are the five bedrooms.  Each one has its own bath."  There were so many balconies at this apartment, we could choose the one we wanted to Scrabble on.  Goodness gracious, it's a whole 'nother world out there!


     To my distress and disgust, when I emerged from the Scrabble session (beaten thrice, but not bowed), I found that the darn motorbike had another rear tire flat!  Well, actually, I didn't discover it, but Cecil, one of the guardhouse staffers at The Cove did, bless his heart.  He even helped me get across the road and get the tire pumped up enough to make it home, or so we hoped.  So, just like last Friday night, but without the rain and without David on the back, I once again limped down the road, impeding traffic and praying that I'd make it back to Pulau Tikus.  But this time I was four kilometers away from home!  And it really was rush hour.  Somehow I got the bike back to the shop, but the lady I wanted to vent my spleen upon was out at the doctor's.  Lucky her!


      QUICK P.S. HERE:  The motorcycle shop just called, full of apology and offers of compensation.  They're even going to deliver the repaired bike almost to my door.  So, I'm mollified and no longer angry.


     The "apprehension" part of the title of today's post is because this afternoon our new cleaning lady will arrive for our first session.  If it all works out, she'll come twice a month on Tuesday afternoons and spend four hours cleaning for US $16 per visit, the going rate around here.  This wasn't my idea, this having a maid, when I'm home all day and can do this stuff myself.  But David seems to want it, and almost all the ex-pat ladies I've talked to have one, (or more), so I'll give it a whirl, I guess.  Maybe I'll come to love having my housework done for me.   I'd be a fool not to, right? 

The Motorbike Ride from Hell

The inlet opening to the Andaman Sea is Straits Quay

       This past Friday night rolled around and I decided that David needed a way to celebrate the two-day weekend.  (Every other weekend he and all of his colleagues have to work a half-day on Saturday, but not this weekend.)  So I picked him up on the motorbike and whisked him away to Straits Quay, a fancy-dancy shopping center. Actually, they call themselves a "retail marina", which means that they don't have anything as plebian as a supermarket or department store, but they do have lots of eateries and "drinkeries" and a few selected, high-end shops.  It's designed so those who park (dock?  berth?  anchor?) their yachts at the quay can entertain and be entertained. 'Course ordinary folk are allowed in, and the ex-pats of Penang seem to enjoy socializing there.  So, off we went on our farthest-yet outing on the motorbike as a duo, out for a night on the town! 

    Well, wasn't that ill-fated!  We got there OK and went for the "Fiesta Night" at the Kaffa Cafe.  David really liked the food, which was pseudo-Mexican, but I certainly wasn't blown away.  No margaritas because we were on the motorbike.  After eating I hustled us back to the bike because it looked like rain.  Then it did rain!  A lot.  And right on us. (And everybody else, of course!)


    We could have lived with that because everything in Penang is warm, even the rain.  Bu-u-u-t . . . . as we were pulling out for the 10-minute ride home, the bike suddenly began wobbling and being skittish, to say the least.  Uh-oh!  Our first flat tire! And there isn't anything as normal as a gas station out in the area of Straits Quay, believe me!  What to do?  We decided we couldn't just leave the bike there by the side of the road--it certainly wouldn't have been there by morning.  And walking it home would have been impossible, rain or no rain.  So, we rode.  Very slowly and very carefully.

      I rode the entire distance with my feet down, just in case we lost it.  David on the back fretted and stewed until he realized I needed every ounce of silent concentration just to keep us upright and moving forward.  We crawled along in the pouring rain at sunset and at the tail end of rush hour.   People pulled up and told us we had a puncture, as if we needed to be told!  But nobody could help until . . . . .


       Yea!  There was a Shell station on our side of the four-lane divided highway!  We crept in  and a very concerned attendant did his best to put air into the deflated tire.  (Later we learned it was actually a tube problem.)  He managed to get just enough air in that we could continue wobbling down the road toward our motorcycle shop in Pulau Tikus (our little "suburb" of the main city of George Town.  And yes, it is spelled "George Town.")


    Got to the shop a bit before 8:00 and the good news--they were still open.  The bad news--they were going to be closed both Saturday and Sunday for their "holiday."  Bummer!  So we left the bike there and on Monday morning they're going to put a new "sport rim" on the back with a tubeless tire so this won't happen again.  The damage?  RM400, which is about US $133 --exactly the cost of two tickets to the upcoming "Summer Soiree--A Day at the Races" ex-pat social event.  Hmm. . . .which would I rather have, a functioning, safe motorbike or an evening of racetrack-themed socializing over free-flow (all you can drink) wine?    Hmm. . . . .


    Anyway, I can pick up the motorbike tomorrow morning and  I surely won't forget the "ride from hell" (I mean Straits Quay) anytime soon.  Why?  Because all my abdominal muscles ache from the tension of keeping the bike upright during this little fiasco, not to mention the mental stress and strain.  But I'll get back on that bike tomorrow because how else will I make it to the Scrabble Group gathering?   

Motosikal = Motorcycle

   Today's musing will be on motorcycles, 

Malaysians and me.  In one of the first weeks we were here, I got heat prostration from walking around in the hot sun, running errands.  (Mad dogs, Englishmen and me--we all go out in the noonday sun!)  I was pretty pleased with all this walking everywhere because I could feel my long-unused muscles toning up and I thought I 'd lost a pound or two as well.  But my loving spouse decided all that benefit wasn't worth having a wife with heatstroke, so he hustled me out to get a motorbike.  We've decided (for now, anyway) not to get a car.  You can get about 2,000 taxi rides for the cost of a new, cheap Malaysian car--that's the reasoning behind that decision!  But often I need to go out and do something quickly.  I was accustomed to riding a motorbike in Japan, so that seemed to be the way to go.  This one even lets me take a passenger--hooray!


    So, we got one and then came the challenge of learning to ride in a traffic scenario that is nightmarish.  I won't go into that except to say that it was a steep learning curve--learn or die was the gist of it.  So, I learned.  You have to be extremely vigilant in traffic because the Malaysians are just nuts when it comes to traffic and driving!  

St. Nick's Protected Walkway

   Just the other day, I saw a motorcyclist become impatient at a traffic signal.  He was unwilling to break the law by turning left without having the left-turn arrow illuminated.  So, what did he do?  He drove his motorbike for quite a few meters up on the protected walkway for the visually impaired, which blind people from St. Nicholas Home use to get to the nearby shopping mall!  What if a blind person had been using the walkway and had been out of sight around the corner?   He'd have hit them and could have thrown them into one of the busiest intersections in this part of the island.
I'd have let him have it if I just could have caught him.  (Not that it would have changed his driving habits even a little bit.)

     But, back to learning motorcycle skills in Penang. . . . To my amazement, one of the hardest things was learning how and where to park one's "motosikal."  In Japan, you just stuck the thing wherever you liked.  But here, since so many people use them--not ex-pat wives, mind you, but regular people--they have whole systems set up to deal with the sheer volume.  At the shopping mall you can park in the private parking area pictured here.  They just cram those cycles in and there are hundreds.  So, it's kind of hard to find your own and even harder to get it out.  But it's cheap and it's covered parking, so I won't complain. 


    Alternatively, you can park in the mall's cycle parking area for half the cost and I did do that once.  I was so proud of myself for having arrived early and gotten a good spot in the covered parking area.  However, I didn't realize until I came out later that there would be three rows of bikes parked behind my own.  I thought, "Oh, gee--am I going to have to wait until the mall closes at 10:00 to retrieve my trapped motorbike?  But determination--no, desperation--empowered me to move three other people's locked motorbikes and extricate my own.  Lesson learned!


   Next episode -- the motorbike ride from hell! 

Oh, no-- Non-Halal!

     Malaysia is nothing if not multi-cultural, something that seems to be both a boon and a burden for the country as it struggles to keep all the different races, cultures, ethnicities and religions pulling together for the common good.  Being an ex-pat, I find myself moving in a primarily Western social circle, so it's sometimes easy to forget that we do, indeed, live in a moderate Muslim country.  But occasionally that fact rears its head and smacks me upside the head, as it were.
    The most frequent reminder is TV, where cursing, nudity and such are bleeped out as often as possible.  Some American TV shows come across as a whole string of blacked-out screens or censorship bleeps and I'm not even talking about HBO-type shows where anything goes.
    The most recent reminder that "we're not in Kansas any more" was in connection with halal and non-halal food.  I don't know as much about this as I should, but when I looked it up, the gist from about.com (a really useful website) was this:

  In Arabic, the word halal means permitted or lawful. Halal foods are foods that are allowed under Islamic dietary guidelines. According to these guidelines gathered from the Qu'ran, Muslim followers cannot consume the following: 
   pork or pork by products
   animals that were dead prior to slaughtering
   animals not slaughtered properly or not slaughtered in the name of Allah
   blood and blood by productsalcoholcarnivorous animals
   birds of prey
   land animals without external ears

    There's a supermarket favored by ex-pats  (as opposed to the local one down the street) quaintly called Cold Storage.  Inside each of the stores is a small section boldly labelled "Non-Halal."  In the store near us, it's actually a separate section where one can find all manner of "sinful" things, like ham, bacon, pork sausages and other mouth-watering meats.  It reminds me of the porn movie section of a rental video shop.  Maybe it's my imagination, but the employees working that counter seem unhappy and listless--trapped in a hell of forbidden meat.


   So yesterday I went in there and came out with two plastic packages of frozen bacon.  When I got to the check-out and put them on the counter, the clerk suddenly whipped out a plastic bag and went to pick them up.  I'd brought my own thermal bag, so I told her I didn't need a plastic bag.  She looked decidedly unhappy and said, "I don't like that one."  Then she sheathed her hand in the plastic bag so she could pick up that sinful meat without actually touching it.  I felt bad for having put her into that awkward position and vowed to go to the Indian check-out gal next time.  I surely won't stop buying pork!