Differences.

I think that the time has finally come to sum up the last few weeks. And I think that the best word to link all my adventures is ‘a difference’. When somebody asks me ‘Monika, so how do you find Malaysia?’ I usually answer ‘I like it; everything is different than in Europe, totally everything!’. And now I will try to describe few areas in which the differences are the most visible/annoying/funny/etc…

1. Cats.

Malaysians love cats. They feed them, but usually do not let them enter the house. When it comes to a shop – it’s treated as a totally different case. Last time in Seven Eleven (something like Żabka in Poland) I saw one cat being stroked at the counter. Later on the little catty was just walking around the shop and I almost stepped on it (well, shit happens :p). Moreover, amount of cats here is really amazing: one day when I was on my way back home from the nearest supermarket (around 15min of walking) I decided to count all the cats I met. Imagine that there was 10 of them sitting/standing/laying/walking around the pavement I was walking on. The 11^th one was carried by the landlords wife. CRAZY.

2. Rats

When you have a cat at home he will chase away all the rats – isn’t it obvious? Well, surprisingly not. I think that amount of rats here, in Malaysia, is even bigger than cats. They are everywhere. And they are totally not afraid of human.

Once I saw a rat, which entered the area of a restaurant (it’s outdoors but still!), run under few empty tables and hided in the cooks area (kind of an outdoor kitchen), under one of the cupboards. I think that the cooks didn’t even care about it, but still for me it was extremely brave! And since this day I’ve been a big fan of this rat and all his fellows :D

3. Gentlemen first

A woman always follows her man. The man always opens the door, but also enters the room first. The man stays always in front. And the woman is always behind. But when it comes to money: the woman is the one managing domestic finance. Totally different than in Europe, right?

I think that it might be caused by influence of the Islamic culture: division between man and woman – each of them has his/her place in the world, specific rights and duties. Woman is supposed to be a housewife, man is the one who brings in the money.

4. Islam

As I wrote before Islam is the official religion of Malaysia. And believe me or not in some of the Malaysian states Friday is the first day of the weekend and Sunday is treated as a Monday in Western cultures. And it’s all because of Friday prayers, which for Muslims are even more important than Sunday Mass for Christians. And what is quite interesting: in KL Friday is a normal working day. But Muslims have special breaks to be able to attend the prayers. And if you want to go somewhere by your car – please take into consideration fact, that it will take twice much time as normally. Remember not to park nearby the mosque, because somebody might block you (double park) and then you will have to wait e.g. for 1h till prayer finish and your favorite Muslim driver pulls out his car. Well, this particular shit happened.

5. Cars and side of the road

I think that I’ve already written that there is a lot of cars here. On the one hand petrol is cheap, cars (Protons and cars of the other local brand starting with P) are cheap as well. Everything, what is connected with cars, is cheap. But on the other hand there is usually no parking place and a traffic jam (for me in KL there is always a traffic jam) almost everywhere. And Friday prayers make the case even worst.

And they drive on the wrong side of the road ;)

6. Rain

The rain here very seldom cools the air (not like in Poland). And when it’s raining – the rain fall is very heavy, but it lasts 0,5-1h. And sometimes it’s still raining (like a little shower at the end of the rain fall) but pavements are already dry. It can happen only here ;)

7. Health care

I got a burn on my leg, so after one week, when I realized that it’s not healing, I decided to see a doctor. I suppose that it was a private clinic. I went there, filled in an application (I had neither my passport number nor Malaysian address, but nobody cared ;)) and waited for my turn. The doctor was very nice, had a look on my wound, asked few questions and warned, that next time I should visit a doctor straight after getting that kind of burn. Then he told something to the nurse and asked me to leave. I left and had to wait at a counter for the nurse, who gave me pills and the receipt (30RM). What is the most interesting: the 30RM covered both: visit at the doctor’s and pills. And the pills were in a little, white bags, on which she wrote how many and how often should I take them. No medical prescription, no huge leaflet attached to the pills. Can? Can lah!

8. Higher education and English

Imagine, that your lecture is in Polish, a book you are learning from in English and an exam you need to pass in Polish again. And everything around you is in English again, but not all people speak it. Does it happen somewhere else, or only here? :)

* * *

Btw: I’ve been here already for 2 months. 4 months left to Christmas! :)

Singapore, we’re coming!

The bus.

The trip begun on Sunday morning. I woke up at 5am, at 6 I left home and at 7 I was supposed to meet Marta at Masjid Jamek station, near Puduraya bus station. Marta’s train was late, so she reached at 7:20. We had only 10mins to bus departure, so we were almost running. And, when reached the station, exhausted and sweaty, we realized that our bus is not there YET. And after few messy conversations with random guys (but those bus-station-guys, who talk all the time using the shortwave transmitters) we decided not to wait on the platform but in the bus station building – there were at least few fans. When we were called to go to the bus around 8am – it was still waiting for I-don’t-know-what, so finally it left around 9am. Surprising? No, not at all :p

In the Middle of the trip the bus driver decided to make a break (I suppose a lunch break for him). So he asked all the passengers to leave the bus - for me it was quite weird, I was quite sleepy and wanted to continue my nap. He said that the break will last 20min, but obviously it was prolonged to 40min. Of course the driver’s lunch is more important than our day in Singapore, right?

The customs.

I was shocked. Marta was shocked. The customs building, so the place where you cross the border between Malaysia and Singapore is HUGE. Generally Malaysian and Singaporean customs are separated and there is a bridge in between. But both of them are HUGE. I would compare it to Terminal 1 on Okecie airport in Warsaw. Or even bigger. And you know what since Sunday I’ve been wondering why those building are so big. What for? And till now I have no idea.

Singapore.

Clean, tidy, green. Good communication – thanks to MRT and regular buses. A lot of skyscrapers. A building which looks like two separated halves of a huge, silver durian. And a sculpture of Merlion. Chinese temples, Indian temples, mosques. Pictures have been already uploaded on picassa.

Marta book a cheap room, where we stayed for one night. Small room with 5 double-decked beds, I suppose that around 8 people stayed there during this night. And we met 2 of them: originally from Ireland, who teach English in Japan and currently are having their holidays in South-East Asia. Can you imagine that still there are people who have never crossed a border of their country?

Btw: pics from Singapore are uploaded already on Picassa.

Trip back from Singapore – LC visit in UTM

It took me a while to come back from the Singapore to UTM. UTM is one of the public unis in Msia, where we have an AIESEC local committee. Itinerary: customs – Johor Baru Larkin bus station – customs – UTM. And why the last part was the most memorable for me? Because of a bus. A bus which I took to travel to UTM. It was so old and scary that while going by it I was expecting that it will break down in the middle of the way (because of the sounds it uttered). Inside the bus it was very dark, because the light was turned on by the driver only for a while before the bus stops. And actually the driver was arguing with some people from time to time, sometimes he didn’t even want to pull out the bus. O M G.

And there was also a woman who was supposed to tell me when the bus will reach my stop. This old Indian woman looked very suspiciously, I dare to say that she looked as a witch :P Simply: I didn’t trust here. So fortunately I asked another woman, who was sitting next to me, about the bus stop. And after a while, ‘the witch’ told me to get off the bus, because it’s my bus stop. And it wasn’t! The sitting-next-to-me-lady started to argue with the old one, then the bus driver joined the discussion so for a while all the passengers were confused. But finally I reached the right bus stop. And I had my first ride on the motor bike. I was scared at the beginning (because my last time on the motor bike wasn’t nice at all), but then it was cool to feel the wind.. on your face (I wanted to write about ‘wind your hair’, but I had the helmet on so it’s kind of impossible to feel it that way :p).

The Muslim lecturer.

I was a panelist of an exchange participant review board today. So there were 2 people who want to go for an exchange through AIESEC and I, together with an English teacher from the university here, was asking them questions concerning their personality, exchange preferences and others. But I want to focus on the teacher. Her accent wasn’t British at all, even though she spent few years in England. During the review board itself I didn’t talk much with her about things not related to candidates. But afterwards she took me for lunch, paid for it (!). Generally it’s only the second Muslim woman I have met here and he treated me very well. After a short conversation with Isaac, an AIESEC member here, I found out that she treated me probably better than she would treat local students here. And the main reason is not because I am a nice girl, but because my skin is fair and I am from Europe. I have to admit that I like this special privilege, but it doesn’t help me to know people here just how they are.

So in the previous panel I had few weeks ago there was another Muslim lecturer who was the co-panelist. Actually it was my first time to speak to a Muslim woman so I was kind of scared. They wear all those headscarves and obtain all those ‘weird rules’…I didn’t know what to expect. But after a while I realized that she was a very funny person, we talked a lot. And after the review boards finished I wanted to shake her hand and say goodbye, but she hugged wishing all the best. I was confused, but it was very nice.

Campus’ rules.

There are a lot of rules which have to be obtained by students staying on a campus. And I was being educated on them during whole evening.

But before I will describe the campus’ rules it’s quite important to write that there are few rules to be obtained in Malaysia, since it’s a Muslim country. The first one: it’s not allowed to hug or kiss in public. What is very fortunate for me because I don’t see here those happy pairs in love who are touching each other all the time :p Malaysian couples in public touch only their hands, but it’s also very seldom.

Furthermore, male are not allowed to enter to the female dorm and vice versa.

It’s not allowed to wear shorts (at least knee length) in the university and sleeveless shirts.

It’s not allowed also to wear that kind of short wear in the Mosque. But in the church also, right?

And the last and not least (at least for today)! The rule which caused me stay overnight in the interns flat without towel, pyjama, and all my stuff. So: UTM’s students are not allowed to enter the campus later than at 12 pm and earlier than 5-6 am. So this is why they were checking who is going in when we were going back after a Chinese evening organized by interns. It was already midnight, so they asked about my student ID. And since I didn’t have it – they didn’t let me go in the campus. Well.. shit happens. At least I have a sleeping bag and I am staying in a house, not in McDonald, which was the first option to solve the problem.

Hope to have a good night here, tomorrow going back to KL.