January 2005 Archives

One evening Serene took me to Petaling Street. I only took one picture before I actually got there. I was concerned for the wholistic well-being of my camera.

Petaling Street is a street market. The side streets are closed off to cars and set up with stalls for foot-traffic. There you can buy all the crappy shiney stuff you can carry. Watches, sunglasses, T-Shirts and Pirated DVD's seem to be the biggest sellers. I was astounded at how many different stalls were filled with watches. How can they sell so many watches?

It was quite an experience, though, just walking through the street. Since I'm a white boy with a nice shiney head, I am a hawker magnet. Everywhere I went they all started yelling at me, "Sir! Sir! Hello! Hello! Sir!" They basically ignored Serene. (Rather the opposite of what I'm used to. Heh.) At first all that direct attention was kinda fun, like a carnival or something, but it got very old very fast. Grrr.

A few had more original lines. They said stuff like, "A watch for you sir! Hello!" Or, "Best watches! Best Value! Sir! Hello!" And one guy even ventured an, "Hello! Sir! You are so handom! Sir!" I replied with, "Oh! So are you!" which sent all the hawkers in that stall laughing. Heh heh.

Selling pirated DVD's is illegal. So there aren't any DVD's at stalls. Instead, the DVD hawkers walk around with booklets of DVD's in their hands (no jewel cases -- they are pirated, after all). What's interesting is that they hawk the DVD's right in front of the police patrols. Apparently they have "an arrangement." (winkyface)

Selling porn DVD's is also illegal. But apparently, that's more illegal than selling pirated DVD's. While the hawkers would yell out the that they were selling DVD's and some of their top titles, they would wisper in my ear as I was passing, "Porn, Sir?" and "Do you take porn, Sir?" Serene, who was right next to me the entire time, only heard 2 of the 6 porn hawkers who approached me.

At one point as I was walking past a food stall with some seating, the stall hawker stepped in front of me and placed a menu in front of my face so that I couldn't move without walking into him and the menu. I almost punched him, but managed to refrain from that. Instead I did a rising block to get the menu out of my face and then shouldered into him and past.

I sampled my first stall food that eve. It was "apam malek," which is this bread stuff filled with a sweet peanut sauce. It was tasty.

All in all, quite a memorable experience.

. Topher

When I read on the Malaysian advisory website that you had to boil all your water before you could drink it, I had a nightmarish vision of laboring to lug around these big huge unwieldy pots of water, waiting for them to boil, wondering how long was long enough, boiling them for 30 minutes just to be sure, trying to pour little glass size portions out of this beast of a pot and dribbling water all over the place in the process... Oh the pain! The pain!

Yeah, it turns out they have these cool little pitchers that you plug in and fill up with water and push the little button on top -- and they do it all for you. I should have known.

Heh heh. Silly me.

. Topher

My first trip to a bathroom in Malaysia was a bit of an education for me. It was a public stall. It was an enclosed room (not like our flimsy "cubical" stalls in the States). There was water all over the floor and toilet seat. And I discovered a hose hooked next to the toilet.

I had to wipe down the seat with a wad of TP before I could even start. It's a sensitive operation, you know. When I finished my business curiousity got the better of me. I grabbed the hose, pointed it at the toilet and turned the valve. It sprayed and splattered water all over the stall. I was glad I hadn't tried to "go native" right off the bat. I'd be wearing a soaked pair of pants and a blush up to the top of my bald head.

I'm sure this must be a solution to the Beauty and the Stink problem, but I haven't yet figured out how to make effective use of this hose without taking a towel into the stall with you and stripping down. And nobody does that. So I must be missing something.

Got any ideas?

. Topher

One of the first things I noticed about Malaysia when I got here was that the drivers here seem to have a very different understanding of what a lane is.

In the US, a lane is a rule; you stay in your lane. Not only that, but you stay within it enough that you have a buffer on either side of you. If you drift too close to one side or the other of your lane, you're liable to get honked at, or maybe even pulled over for chaotic driving (if a bored cop happens to be behind you).

In Malaysia, the lane lines are really only a slight suggestion. A car might be driving down the middle of a lane, or it might be straddling the lane line. Other cars will go around it as needed, squeezing if neccessary.

In the US, I ride a motorcycle. When traffic is tight, I often drive between the lanes, between the cars. In Malaysia, cars do that too.

In Malaysia there are scooters all over the place. Small 90-150cc bikes. They ride anywhere they can: on the shoulder, between cars, on the sidewalks, anywhere. And there are swarms of them. They're everywhere.

The drivers have a totally different etiquette than in the US as well. If there's room for a car, there's room and it's ok to move. That's not limited to changing lanes. Pulling out from a driveway or side-street can also be done if there's room. The oncoming cars just have to slow down. There's no "cutting off" people here. It's just part of driving.

At first I thought this was very dangerous. I mean, what if the oncoming cars can't stop in time? But then I realized that on the surface streets the speed limit is never more than about 50 KPH. That's only about 30 MPH. Suddenly it seems much less dangerous.

Add into all of that the whole driving on the wrong side of the road and it seems rather chaotic to a honkey white boy fresh off the plane. But I'm getting used to it.

. Topher

"Do you like the broccoli?"

"Yeah. It's yummy! This creamy sauce is really good."

"Do you know what those red dots are?"

"No, what?"

"Fish roe."

I get very anxious on planes. I don't like flying. It stresses me out, then it makes my stomach flip-flop all over the place, then it makes me feel queesy. It's not fun for me.

The flight time from San Francisco to Kuala Lumpur was 20 hours and 35 minutes. That included a 45 minute stop in Hong Kong and a hopper flight from Singapore to KL. So you can imagine that I might be a little concerned about such a trip. Yeah.

But it was actually rather nice. I think I chose the right airline. Everybody I talked to said to take Singapore Airlines. That was the right thing! They have 60 channels of movies and shows for you to watch on a little personal screen right in front of you. You can pause, fast-forward and rewind. The food was decent (very good for airline food). And all the girls serving you are candy for the eye.

Actually, in retrospect, the stewerdesses were a little creepy. They all looked so much alike. Their makeup was identical, their hair was identical, their uniforms were identical. "I am Stewerdess Unit #417. Would you like an ice cold beverage?"

I have this vision in my head of a line of ladies, all different shapes and sizes and faces. One by one they each step into the Magical Singapore Airlines Stewerdess Makeover Booth. And one by one they each step out suddenly transformed into a Singapore Airlines Super Stewerdess (triumphant chord). Of course, inside the booth, at least one of the services performed would have to be a blast from Homer Simpson's makeup shotgun.

Right. So. I watched a movie. I ate. I slept. Sometime during the night I pressed the stewerdess call button with my butt (an impressive feat of cheek dexterity, to be sure). I read. I ate again. I watched another movie. And suddenly I was there!

. Topher

Yeap! I'm in Malaysia! Woohoo!

I've been trying to find time to post about it, but I'm way too busy working and playing.

So, here's just a quick blurb of my plans (some past, some present, some future; which is which depends on when you read this):

Base camp is in Kuala Lumpur. The company I work for has an office there. I'm working during the week and taking weekend trips for the 1st 3 weeks, and taking the last 2 weeks as vacation for more trips.

• 2 days in Ipoh. Caves, food and Pamelo girls.


• 2 days in Melaka. Temples and other wonders.


• 2 days in Penang. West coast beach and maybe some tsunami prints.


• 3 days in Kuantan. East coast beach. What more do you need?!


• 4 days in Singapore. Night safari and Yet Another Chinatown.


• 4 days in Bahau. Small town and Chinese New Year (w00t)!

Yes, I'm taking a few pictures. Not as many as I would like, and I'm still a lousy photographer, but it is what it is. I'll set up an album when I get a chance.

More another time!

. Topher

I posted this on the MySpace blog a long time ago. And it still makes me laugh my ass off. So now I'm propagating it here!

---

She commanded my attention as soon as she walked into the room. How could she not with those voluptuous hips under that floor-length jean skirt, that long hair flowing down her back, and those lovely lips quirked up at the corners? She new I was riveted by her and she made the most of it, using that wicked hair-toss that just makes long hair look like it's a flowing river. I think she was enjoying the obvious effect she was having on me. She tossed some envelope or something equally mundane in my lap, turned around with a flip of her hair that left the scent of flowers wafting over me, and walked back out again.

I was still watching that skirt walk away from me when the stench hit me. I didn't realize at first what it was. The stink, I mean. It was disorienting. It was wrong. It didn't belong there. It was from some other world, some other plane of existence, not the one where that beautiful thing had just teased me into a stupor, but one of public porta-potty's on the side of the road in the middle of August. It took me another few moments to associate that stench with its source. Her ass. Yes, that sexy butt I had just watched dumb-founded as it walked away from me stank to high heaven. Did she take a crap right there in the skirt?

I was marred. I was scarred. I was distraught. What did this mean? How could this be? It haunted my dreams at night. First the fresh flowers of her hair teasing, then the stench of smeared shit smacking me in the face. I would wake up holding sweat covered sheets over my nose. I could never watch her strut her stuff again, as much as I loved her voluptous form, without a phantom whiff of that scent tickling my nostrils.

But it made me think: Boys and Girls, how do you keep the shit off your fine collective asses? Paper doesn't always do it. What's your trick?

. Topher

The thing is, there's a lot of truth out there. It's everywhere. It's at the grocery store and the gas station, it's out in the redwood forests and mountain prairies, it's in the music in your car and the shows on your TV. The problem is there are also a whole lot of lies. And they're all in the same places.

So how do you tell them apart? How can you discern that this is truth and that's a lie? How can you know whether or not you are right?

It take diligence. It takes seeking. It takes hunting. It takes work. And even with all that, you still may not be able to tell.

There's been a lot of hype recently about trans-fats and how evil they are. Satan incarnate, as far as your body is concerned. I try not to eat trans-fats. Learning how to spot trans-fats was a project, but once I knew what to look for, it was easy. Actually taking the time when I'm shopping to check the ingredients on the packages, that takes constant vigilance, too; it's work, I say! But now that I've cut trans-fats out of my diet, I can actually taste it when something has them in it.

So lemme summarize all that. To stop eating trans-fats I did this:

• I read reports on trans-fats and learned how to recognize it (ie, what ingredients indicate trans-fats).


• Everytime I bought something, I looked through the ingredient list for trans-fats ingredients. When I found them, I did not get that item.


• Over time, I learned to taste trans-fats.

Right. So now lemme generalize all that. To stop accepting a lie I did this:

• I learned the characteristics of the lie.


• I watched for those characteristics, spotted the lie and rejected it.


• Over time I learned how to spot the lie using other senses as well.

Ok, I think I've taken this to a bit of an extreme now. How about I try to reign it back in to the actual point I was after.

There is truth in the world, in all things. It's mixed in with everything else, and sometimes can be hard to spot, but if you learn to look for it, you can find it. There is truth to religions, too. Every religion, I think, has truth. Perhaps some more than others. Learning about other religions can be very valuable to any persons personal religion.

The trick is to learn to recognize truth.

Modern Christianity does a great job of teaching that anything that is not exactly the same as itself is evil. I strongly believe that that teaching is evil. That teaching promotes xenophobia and intolerance. It incubates fear and leads to irrational hatred.

There is much that Christians can learn from other religions. But many of them are often too afraid that they might accidentally worship the devil if they even pass too close to somebody who is not of exactly the same denomination as themselves.

Fools.

. Topher

You know something I really hate? When I'm standing in a public restroom, doing business with a urinal, mid-transaction, and my pants start falling down.

Grrrr.

. Topher

I was getting set up and I din't even know it. Or at least, they were planning to set me up. It didn't quite work out the way they had planned though. I met the girl they were trying to set me up with all by myself, started hanging out with her all by myself, and asked her out all by myself.

Her laugh captivated me. It was delightful, musical, a sound that joy should make. And it seemed she was always laughing. Or smiling profusely. I think I knew her a whole week, going to lunch and dinner with a group of people almost every night, before I saw her without a smile on her face.

So when I finally asked her out on a date, I knew it had to be something with lots of laughter. A play, I thought. That would be perfect. A comedy of some sort. With cleverness and laughter. But that particular weekend there was a strange vacuum of plays in the greater San Jose area.

Funniness! I thought to myself frantically, I need funniness! Where can I find funniness? I looked for other live shows, maybe the Blue Men or something. I looked for musical acts that might be funny. I even considered going to a (shudder) movie.

Then I found it. The Improv. Yes, The Improv. The one on Comedy Central. Turns out there's a one of those just a few blocks from my house. No kidding! What's more? Sinbad was playing there that weekend and that weekend only. It was exactly what I was looking for!

It was a wonderful evening, pretty much the most perfect First Date I've ever had. I took the afternoon off work and made dinner, then went to fetch her from work. We dined and chit-chatted, then headed over to the Improv for a smattering of Sinbad. We held hands and laughed so hard our faces hurt. Had some fruit and chocolate, then I took her home hoping all the while for a chance to see her the next day.

And that was my first date with Serene.

. Topher