Malaybodinam

I have concluded that Semester at Sea is where electronics go to die. Luckily I have escaped the worst of the carnage (my friend Michael has lost two credit cards, his phone, ipod, and a computer) but I am still suffering a loss. The charger for my computer decided to go kaputs which means that I’m writing everything in the computer lab. The environment is less than inspiring and usually full of chatty Cams and Cathys, so let the blogging begin! If you see the ghost of my charger haunting the streets with Trick or Treaters tonight, tell it I say hi! 

Malaysia:

If you’re anything like me, “Kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia!” is all I could think about when I learned we were going to the mysterious and exotic country. It turns out that Zoolander is not the best source of information on foreign affairs. The Prime Minister is alive and well, I saw no male models, and child labor laws are still happily in place. In fact, for how little the United States talks about Malaysia, the country was surprisingly First World. A lot of the students took trips to Singapore through SAS (we weren’t allowed to go on our own) and the city sounded beautiful, but I stayed in Penang and it had a lot to offer. On the first day I went on a sightseeing frenzy and saw a giant Buddhist temple, an old Chinese family Clan house, the botanic gardens, and the top of Penang Hill. It’s called a hill but I would consider it a mountain. Coming from Colorado, I don’t take the word mountain lightly. The view from the top was a thick jungle breaking away into an expansive city covered in mist with the ocean in the distance.

Malaysia has an eclectic population. The majority of the people are Muslim, but they are closely followed by the Chinese. Temples of all sorts are found everywhere. The only thing you’d have a hard time finding would be a church. The food was a combination of Chinese, Thai, and Indian and it was REALLY good…with a few exceptions. I got a little adventurous and tried a favorite local desert called Ice Kachong. It consisted of shaved ice, beans, sweet corn, licorice flavored jello squares, some type of sweet syrup and a scoop of ice cream to top it off. I ended up eating the ice cream off the top and letting the rest melt slowly. I think most of you would have done the same. While my misguided desert choice melted, Allison and I sat in a food court and celebrated October Fest. The restaurants served German beer and we watched four performers put on a show. The following conversation may have occurred:

“Allison, why is there an old man on stage?”

“Kelly, he’s not old, he’s just blonde.”

“Oh yeah! I forgot about blonde people.”

Basically the performance consisted of two women in short shorts, one in a nurse’s outfit, and an Asian man in a white vest with bleached blonde hair. They serenaded us with Jimi Buffet and Justin Bieber songs and had choreographed dance routines to everything that made them look as if they were playing Dance Dance Revolution. That is the moment I decided I loved Malaysia.

We had another lip-sinking boy band group entertain us at a bar called Slippery Sonorities. As four boys in matching outfits danced to Journey, the television screens flashed DRUGS ARE BAD and DRUGS KILL every couple seconds. Before we’d gotten into Malaysia, a girl from Indonesia had told me that mushrooms (the hallucinogenic kind) grow naturally everywhere and that people can buy them extremely cheaply which means that everyone does them. I wonder how true this is with DRUGS ARE BAD signs everywhere and the threat of the death penalty over people’s heads. Yes, it’s possible to get the death penalty if you get caught with drugs. Any friends who want to travel to South East Asia should probably keep this in mind, not that any of you would ever do drugs I’m sure, but you know, just in case.

I experienced the largest shopping mall I have ever seen in my entire life in Penang. There were nine floors with rows and rows of shops, one after another. As I walked through it, I thought back to my middle school days and how this mall would have felt a bit like heaven. I could have spent days in there and not have gotten bored. There were also about twenty restaurants, a movie theater, an arcade, and a fully stocked grocery store; all of it was air conditioned! The air conditioning is more important than you can understand. All of you may be shivering in Colorado, but in Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam I found myself wanting to shower at least twice a day. I have learned that I am absolutely NOT a humidity person, whether it’s good for my nails or not. Allison, Eric and I found one of the many restaurants in the mall and sat down to a dinner where we ordered all of our food raw and got to cook it at the table. We had no idea what we were doing and there was a language barrier with the waiters so we threw stuff willynilly on the grill and in the water and all of us managed to cook our food enough not to get sick. It probably would have tasted better if we knew what we were doing though, I think the wait staff got a kick out of watching us struggle. Success! We also spent a dollar to see Real Steal with Hugh Jackman. The movie was…absolutely terrible, but we loved watching the giant fighting robots and it felt like a little taste of home.

Cambodia:

Cambodia was a country in healing. From 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge took control of the country and committed mass genocide. The rulers believed that everyone should return to farming and therefor sent any citizens with education or wealth to “re-education camps” which meant prisons for torturing and killing. Our guide in Phnom Pen told us that he was stolen from his family when he was six and forced to load guns for the Khmer Rouge. He was brainwashed into thinking all Americans and Vietnamese were evil and working for government agencies like the CIA. Hearing him talk firsthand about the work he went through to accept Americans and Vietnamese as people and his desire to be reunited with his family was powerful and sad.

On our first night in Phnom Pen we got to visit an orphanage. The little kids put on a dance performance for us and then grabbed our hands to show us around the house. The little girl I was talking to only spoke a little English but for the most part she said yes and giggled after anything I asked her. The children were so happy and open and all I wanted to do was smother them in attention. Even though my girl probably only understood about ten words that I’d said to her the whole night she still gave me a giant hug when I had to leave and wouldn’t let go of my hand. I think I melted.

First thing in the morning we visited the Royal Palace. The king still lives there but he was in Vietnam when we were visiting so we didn’t get a chance to see him. The palace, temples, and courtyards were gorgeous. I used to think that the squiggly lines on rooftops were supposed to symbolize fire as a display of power, but apparently they are the tails of snakes and they are wiggling up towards heaven asking for rain. After the palace, we visited an old high school that had been converted into a prison for the Khmer Rouge. We walked through and saw all the cells where they had held people, their mug shots were hanging on the wall from when they’d first been captured. They even had some of the old torturing devices they used to use in order to get confessions out of “CIA” members. Only seven out of the thousands of people who had been held there ever survived. We then left the prison to see the killing fields. In the middle of the killing fields stood a huge monument filled with the skulls of all the dead they had found in the mass graves. Each grave held hundreds of people and the graves stretched out as far as I could see. We saw the cell they used to hold people in overnight because they couldn’t kill everyone efficiently enough. There was a tree called the Magic Tree that had a megaphone that played music loud enough to cover the sounds of the people screaming so that others living nearby wouldn’t know what was going on. So many graves haven’t been uncovered yet and, looking down at the pathway, we could see teeth or small chunks of bone that had been washed up by the rain. The most difficult thing for me to see was the tree that they had used to bash babies against in order to torture their mothers. Trying to absorb everything I saw there was difficult, and I still don’t know if I’ve processed it fully. I strongly believe that humans are inherently good, so how does anything like this ever happen? The fact that all of this happened only 30 years ago is startling. I think that when enough time has passed after something terrible, we can believe that no one today would be capable of something that awful. I wasn’t allowed to believe that here because the men responsible for these crimes are still alive. How can anyone process that?

I was shocked that in school I had heard “Cambodia had a civil war” when what was happening was genocide. What was worse, our government was in support of the Khmer Rouge because they were also fighting the Vietnamese. I wonder how many other events have happened that have been left out of our history books, and that if we were taught about the worst things that people do then maybe everyone would make the conscious choice to love a little more.

On an optimistic note, Cambodia has been an independent nation for ten years now. They have a developing economy and, to quote our guide, “We chose to have peace over justice.” This means that the members of the Khmer Rouge are allowed to live within communities and are protected from job discrimination and hate crimes. The people of Cambodia are able to forgive the crimes committed against them and move forward, looking towards peace.

That night we flew from Phnom Pen to Siem Reap. Siem Reap is a beautiful city with the backdrop of over one hundred and sixteen temples. The most famous temple we visited was Angkor Wat, It was built in the 1500’s and is extraordinarily well preserved. After it had been abandoned by its original Hindu worshipers, Buddhist monks discovered it and used it as their own place of worship up until modern day. My favorite temple was the one that’s foundation was being overgrown by giant trees. The roots worked their way between the stones and wound around pillars and next to statues. Green moss grew on the rocks and all of it felt like a fairy tale land that had found the perfect balance between man and nature. It was also the temple where they filmed part of the movie Tomb Raiderso I’m definitely going to have to re-watch that movie now that I’ve been there. Among all the temples, we saw hundreds of smiling Buddhas and Sheevas and Vishnus. All of them were beautiful and it was a reminder that, after everything we’d seen the day before, humans are also capable of great beauty.

The attitude towards religion in Cambodia was refreshingly unique. Apparently, with each new king, the people were forced to follow the King’s religion. The religion of the country swapped back and forth between Buddhism and Hinduism so many times that the people decide to meet in the middle and form a type of quasi-religion. Everyone in the country identifies as Buddhist but they all respect and worship the Hindu gods as well as Buddhist philosophies. Considering how much violence religion has caused in every culture, it’s nice to see a type of flexibility that works for everyone.

Our long day of temple gazing didn’t tire us out enough to keep us from the night market. The night market is bustling and lively…and at night which means it’s actually bearable to be outside in. I drank seven bottles of water while we were touring the temples. Seven is without a doubt a new personal record. The market streets were lined with vendors and big tanks of fish. For just one dollar you can stick your feet in the fish tank and have them eat the dead skin off your feet while you enjoy a cold beer. I opted out of the fish tank but I did get a fifteen minute back massage, also for a dollar. I think that I got the better deal, though I hope the fish don’t take it personally, I know my toes would have been delicious. The night life and pubs were loud and lively as well, and actually full of tourists! Cambodia has been the first place we’ve visited where I haven’t felt completely out of place being white. I also didn’t feel like such an idiot tourist because, though I may carry around a camera, I do NOT wear a fanny pack. WINNING!

Vietnam:

Technically we visited Ho Chi Mihn City, but everyone who lives there still calls it Saigon. It wasn’t until after I stepped off the plane from Cambodia that my Global Studies teacher’s words really sunk in, “Vietnam is a country, not a war.” Saigon is bustling and lively. Everywhere you turn your head you can see sky scrapers and construction in between cute little French parks and coffee shops. I passed the occasional work out group sweating in the parks, but most of the activity was on the streets! Cars are to Los Angeles like Scooters are to Vietnam. People were good drivers and more likely to follow road laws than they were in India, but there was no concept of lanes. There is a scene in Mulan where the Grandmother thinks she is holding a lucky cricket so she closes her eyes and walks slowly across the street while all the traffic is forced to swerve and crash around her…that’s a bit like crossing a street in Vietnam. It doesn’t matter how many bikes are bombarding towards you, the safest thing to do is take a deep breath and walk slowly and steadily forward. The bikers will predict where you are going and swerve around you. The worst thing anyone can do is stop, a mistake I only had to make once.

The Vietnamese at the market are lively and fun to bargain with. The shops on the outside are government owned and have set prices, but on the inside everything is private business and the air reeks of fish and knock off brands. Every time a person gave me a price I would start out with an “OI CHOOOY YOOOOI” Which roughly translates into OH MY GOD. When I busted that phrase out with my American accent it sent all the shop keepers into hysterics and if I was lucky enough, they’d forget the price they’d first offered and give me a better deal.

Visiting the War Remnants Museum was another tough day. Though the local people have all seemed to put their biases in the past and welcomed Americans, the government has not done the same. The museum was mostly filled with disturbing pictures, many of them taken by American photographers, and captioned with descriptions of what the French, South Vietnamese, or Americans had done. Many people left feeling like it was some type of propaganda, but I thought it was just a different kind of truth. This museum was the version from the other side. Our version of the war was that we wanted to save Southern Vietnam from Communism; their version was that they wanted to be allowed to govern themselves independently. True, they didn’t talk much about what they had done to us but I already know that side of the story. What I left the museum with was the feeling of sadness and anger. War, no matter what side you’re on, does terrible things. Why are we still fighting in the Middle East and why does no one talk about what’s happening over there? It destroys lives and families, so forgive me if I sound like I’m in a beauty contest here but let’s all opt for world peace in this next generation, okay? Okay deal.

I don’t know if it’s the French influence, but the coffee in Saigon was the best coffee I’ve ever had. I was over caffeinated and jittery for my entire two days there because I loved it so much that I couldn’t stop drinking it. The food was good too. Most things were rice based so I had plenty of options, and every time you sit down for a meal you should expect to be there for a very long time. I’m beginning to think that, although Americans love food, we’re the only culture that feels the need to eat it in a hurry. Meals were events and if we wanted to leave we had to ask for the check because it would be rude for the waiters to suggest it was time to go.

Our last night was the night before Halloween so we got to walk around the streets and see all the locals out in their costumes. To celebrate, we went out to a bar called Apocalypse Now. We knew we had to stay until morning to see if we could smell the napalm (that’s a bad joke having to do with the movie Apocalypse Now just so you know. If you haven’t seen it, watch it, it’s awesome!) In most of the places we’ve visited, the night life has been relatively mellow and the only people who really get into dancing are the tourists. You could tell that in Malaysia the people were watching us on the dance floor and thinking, “Look at those crazy Australians making fools of themselves.” I say Australians because, even though there were a lot of Americans there too, the Australians are the loudest and rowdiest. At Apocalypse now that wasn’t the case though, everyone was there dancing together and having a blast. I danced with a guy in a full on clown suite and got very excited that he was from India but lived in Hong Kong because I’d just been to India and was headed to Hong Kong next. Traveling the world is pretty cool. I’ve also noticed that girls’ bathrooms are the same everywhere. I doesn’t matter what country you’re in, there will always be girls chatting in the bathroom and crowded around the mirrors fixing their hair and makeup. I’m sure there’s some sociological insight you could draw from that, but I’ll leave the work for someone else and just say that it makes me feel more connected with girls everywhere. Allison and I also made up this weird dance move with several girls in Mini Mouse costumes. All of them were a foot shorter than the two of us and we basically kept flailing our arms into the inside of a circle. I imagine it looked a bit like part of the hokey pokey being performed by zombies. Don’t worry; I will be happy to teach anyone who’s interested when I get home.

Hold tight, my China post will be up soon! Keep it real my homies.