Community Radio (Cure); Tagging along for the ride

Hey friends and lovers
Today Thanam (in charge of community work and training at CIJ) took Jose, Apsara and me on a trip to a Organ Asli village about 40 minutes outside of KL. She was going there to conduct a small discussion on community radio to a small group of women from the village. The three of us interns tagged along for the adventure, and I brought my new toy. We weren’t around for too too long, but I managed to snap some cool pictures along the way. We didn’t really get the chance to meet any new people, but on our wanderings through the village I passes many happy kids playing and dancing, innumerable puppies and some friendly people on mopeds. Here are some of my better snappings:

An Interesting Encounter, Part 3

Note to self: Consider not making so much eye contact on the street.

Today’s interesting encounter happened two months and a few meters away from my very first in Malaysia. Like my first, this one two had to do entirely with “luck” and involved a random person insisting that I … well… possessed some.

At around 6:15PM, I was walking out the monorail exit of Sungei Wang Plaza with the intention of making a B-line for the Maybank at the corner of Bukit Bintang and Jalan Sultan Ismail – I’d told José I’d meet him there after going on a Labyrinth-style adventure through the mall (well, Labyrinth-style if Jennifer Connely was actually looking for camera cleaning equipment instead of a baby). Now Bukit Bintang is a huge hangout on weekends, mostly for Malay highschool kids – in any case it was busy. I was walking along the ramp that would lead me past the Monorail station and down a flight of stairs to the street, when I found myself sandwiched between WWF donation-askers on the prowl. Foolish Andrew… I thought I could escape (looking like a tourist as I do) but alas in the blink of an eye, one was on me like a Minock on the Maltese Falcon (ugh… too much?). A younger man with a clip board, probably not much older that me was at my side, engaging in professional talk-and-walk. We exchanged hellos and how are yous etc, when I decided to get to brass tax.

“WWF, right?” I said, in an awkwardly conversational way.
“No no no,” he replied.

“Uh-oh,” I thought, “I’m in way over my head this time”

I would re-create the conversation that followed word for word, but to be honest, I understood very little of it. My replies went along the lines of:

“Nope I live here! …. Three months … uh… just over that way … nope I’m meeting a friend. Gotta go”

Needless to say, my escape attempt failed. He began explaining his mission. Honeslty, this is what I got out of it: he had a clipboard, inside were some photocopied sheets and some pamphlets that said “thank you,” and he would get one or two ringetts commission if something happened but that didn’t involve me buying anything. I was clearly confused – he handed me a little glued together pamphlet and told me to open it. I opened it painfully, revealing a blank circle in the middle. He exploded.

“You did it! Oh oh oh” he stammered in excitement, jumping around.

I stood emotionless, very impressed by the amount that the fellow’s heart was in this. I can’t stress enough how ecstatic he was for me for having revealed the blank grey square. He excitedly started pointing at the photocopy – at a list of consumer goods, including a car, a plasma tv, I think maybe a boat? I’d won them. Just like all those internet ads keep telling me – I’m a winner. I just have to be and I can get any number of goods for free just because. He kept pointing at a car down below.

“Ohhh, so you’re saying I can get a car?”

“Yes! Yes! Do you know where Mid-Valley is?? We’ll get into your car and go! But we have to go now!! We only have 15 minutes!”

Ahh… there it is. We only have an arbitrary 15 minutes from when I revealed the grey square to hop in my car and drive 25 minutes out to mid-valley mall, so I can get my free anything and he can get his 1 or 2 Ringett commission that he told me about. Hm.

“Ahh, sorry many! I have to go – I have tickets to James Bond!” I told him.

“Nooo! 15 minutes, we’ll get a cab! Don’t you understand?? Do you understand what I’m saying?? You’ve won! You did it!” He was practically crying.

“I’m sorry! Maybe next time?” I felt bad and gave the fellow a pat on the shoulder before heading down to Maybank. Honestly, I felt a pang of guilt at the thought of how much effort had been put into that performance.

Sigh. Why is that I’ve been de-sensitized to everyone and everything that tells me I’ve “won” something other than a Dr. Pepper?

Anyways, I knew this couldn’t be real… October was my lucky month.

Interesting Tidbit from Malaysia

People ride motorcycles a lot here.
For seriously.
Motorbikes and Mopeds rule the streets. Unlike in Toronto, where motorcyclist tend to be hardcore - i.e. matching suits, intense yet stylish helmets etc - people are very casual about it here. In fact, it is completely normal to ride around with a backwards windbreaker on. Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to ride WITHOUT one. Apologies to the poor fellow whose photo I snapped for this entry and who will henceforth be immortalized on the web.

Nine Emperor Gods

So last night was the finale of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival at the Ampang temple. The Toaist event is nine days long, and celebrates the return to earth of nine emperor spirits that are worshiped as one deity, Mazu, the "Taoist goddess of the sea and queen of heaven who represents health, wealth and prosperity" (courtesy of Wikipedia). Jose and I found our way to the temple with relative ease, thanks to Google Earth and some reassuring yellow flags along the way. It was quite the scene, and as far as I can tell, we were about the only caucasians there. Heck yes, I'm unique...ish. We arrived at around 8pm, almost at the end of the fire walking. While those performers walking across the coals are dressed uniformely in white, they are not monks -- any one can participate, though it requires a week of fasting first. The gate surrounding the main square was completely lined with spectators, and large cameras shot blindly above the heads of hundreds. Surrounding the temple were stalls, with an almost carnival-ish atmosphere (many thanks to wikipedia again for making the comparison first). There were food stalls everywhere, selling both vegetarian and meat dishes, and there was no shortage to sweet goods like rice paste in crushed peanuts.
After the performers completed the walk (some carrying large cameras, one carrying a child), the gates were removed, and people began to move in towards to fire to pray. José and I felt that "participant observation" was the best tactic, and followed suit. Needless to say, I got some burns, and my clothes from yesterday are lying, smokey in my room. All in all, the event was very cool, and I'd say José and I got more smiles than laughs (and trust me, I get a lot
of laughs here, just for being). So here are some of my pictures from the night - I took about 300 :S, so these are just a few that stand out (tsk tsk, andrew... subtly implying that many stand out. When will you learn?)

Some KL Photos

These are a few of my "fav" shots from the past few days. They're all from around KL and are really just things I've seen in my wonderings.

A toystore in Times Square

At "No Black Tie" (It turned out to be much fancier than the name implied)

Patronas Towers

Freedom Film Fest Awards

The Centre For Independent Journalism

On My Brief Stint With Fast Food

So I was wondering through Pavilion Mall yesterday. Its one of the newest malls in the Bukit Bintang area, and is fancier than any mall I've seen in Toronto. It's also the closest place to the apartment to find legitimate wireless. Well, yesterday afternoon, work at CIJ was done and I felt it would be a good idea to really start working on a report for my directed readings course. The easiest place to sit down -- lounge if you will (I want to say perch... but it really has no place. darn) -- and start typing is the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on the outside of the mall (or really any of the 5 or 6 Coffee Beans within 5 minutes of it). Unfortunately, on my way over, I realized I had already spent a significant amout of time that day marvelling out loud about the price of a coffee at Coffee Bean or Starbucks relative to other things, and it would be silly to go directly there. On a side note: it really is interesting though... the price of an ice latté is about the equivalent of what it would be in north america: 12 Ringett. However, a lavish dinner can be 15 Ringett, a movie at an upscale western-style movie theater is 11, lunch is is 6. Anyways, so I wasn't entirely feeling Coffee Bean that afternoon (though it is an excellent place to get coffee and wireless occasionally). So I wondered around Pavilion looking for somewhere to sit.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I found myself in front of Pizza Hut, looking at the sign advertising free wifi inside. I thought about it... but then figured I'd probably have to keep it a secret if I went to Pizza Hut alone in the land of amazing food. So instead I went next door to KFC. Weird decision, I know. What can I say, I was under pressure!

So there I was. Standing in line at KFC, squinting at the menu a meter or two from the middle cashier. Though I chose the shortest line, is turned out to be the slowest. My mind raced as I tried to convince myself to run away and stay at the same time. Over the sound system, the evening prayer played, singalling breaking fast for Muslims. My mind was made up -- "this is an experience" I told myself, "they're broadcasting prayer over a loudspeaker in a fast food restaurant. I'm in."

About 10 minutes later, I got to the counter and ordered a Zinger Meal. i.e. a Chicken Burger, Potato Wedges with cheese and spicy gravey and a Pepsi Max. All for 9 Ringetts. I beamed as I realized that a coffee would have costed more. So, I took my tray to the table closest to the wall seperating KFC from Pizza Hut, in hopes to connect to their online service. Sacré Bleu! foiled again -- the service required a special Pizza Hut club-only password. I put my computer back into my backpack and set to eating. I bit down into the burger, and found it unusually... juicy? I looked down and saw it to be a suspicious colour of pink/red, and realized it was a sign. "this just wasn't meant to be" I consoled myself. I played with the burger a bit to make it look like I'd eaten some of it... you know, broke it up into smaller pieces, moved them to separate corners of the box etc. Picked up my bag, and turned my back on KFC forever.

About 20 minutes later, I found myself at Old Town White Coffee at LowYat plaza, drinking some white coffee, and reading Coming of Age in Second Life for my directed readings course. They didn't have wireless, but I was glad to be drinking a cheap mysteriously tasty coffee.

Later that night, Jose bought a soccer ball and learnt a valuable lesson: If you buy a cheap knockoff soccer ball, it'll probably be thrown into traffic by a monkey wearing a sleeveless hoody and get run over by a bus.