Tag Archives: Malaysia

KL Consular Team Hard at Work

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US embassy helps out the needy

The Star, April 7, 2016

By Teoh Xiu Jong

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KUALA LUMPUR: The US Embassy here is among the busiest foreign missions in the country, yet it does not hesitate to lend a hand whenever help is needed.

This was proven yet again yesterday when 18 members of its consular section literally got their hands dirty, preparing hot meals for the less fortunate who frequent Carl’s Kitchen in Jalan Gereja.

Deputy consul-general Thad Ross said Carl’s Kitchen was chosen because it had also helped Americans who needed assistance here.

“Many people do not know that Malaysia has such a place for the unfortunate. There are many people who need a meal, so our ability to help feels wonderful,” he said.

The team raised RM1,400 and brought food items worth RM600. All 18 took turns to prepare the food.

Senior consular assistant Rachel Leow, 51, said the experience reminded her of how fortunate she was.

“I have a family who cares for me, have a roof above my head and I can enjoy meals prepared by my parents,” she said.

Consul-general Jessica Norris, who led the team, said: “We decided to step out of our comfort zone to help. We like how open Carl’s Kitchen is to everyone, serving the community on a routine schedule,” she added.

Neglected by her children, Wong, 72, was among the many who dropped by for a free meal.

“I did not take good care of myself when I was younger because I wanted to give the best to my children.

“But now that my children have grown up, they have neglected me,” she lamented, adding that her children did not even visit her these days.

Strike Two

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Road trip. The phrase conjures up mental pictures of driving long distances with the windows down, wind blowing through flowing blonde locks and a radio blaring the latest (although probably not greatest) pop music, headed off into the great unknown. Ross-family road trips were regular occurrences back in the States, but they usually had a decidedly more nerdy twist to them. Most of our road trips were in search of a new national park to visit and rather than singing along to whatever tunes the local radio station offered (not like we could agree on anything other than NPR anyway, and NPR doesn’t make for great karaoke), our trip was filled with the sounds of narration- me reading whatever book we’d chosen for that trip. Often, our book of choice ended up being one we’d pick up at the national park bookstore on our way out, stopping to get the coveted National Parks Passport stamp.

We’ve not had such great luck with road trips in Malaysia though. After two years in China, relying on cabs to get us around (or our scooters, but they had a fairly small travel radius), I was super excited to buy a car in Kuala Lumpur so that we would have freedom to get out of town on the weekends. (Said car is now for sale since we are leaving this summer…anyone interested?)  Not long after we settled into our new home and routines, we decided to take the right-hand drive X-Trail on a long weekend outing. We’ve been told Penang was wonderful, full of great food and awesome street art, plus Thad had a Kuna High classmate and his wife living/working up there, so north we headed. (How three Kuna High School graduates all ended up in Malaysia is beyond me…)

Penang should be a four hour trip. If you don’t go on a local holiday weekend.

Huge mistake.

Being new to the country, we didn’t realize that everyone clears out of the city for Hari Raya, headed home. Malaysia has a really well-developed freeway system, which I think would work well when it wasn’t carrying the entire country’s population. Between traffic jams and nightmare backups at the toll booths, what should have been a lovely four hour drive through the Malaysian countryside became an eight hour slog, listening to the one radio that would tune in, which ended up being a loop of ten pop songs over…and over…and over…

(I am leaving out the details of the huge rain storm that hit just before we crossed the bridge to Penang, flooding the low-lying roads in town and making passage in anything less than a 4WD impossible. Suffice it to say, we made it to our hotel well after midnight, hungry, tired and a bit cranky.)

Needless to say, after our less than stellar attempt at a Malaysian road trip, we were in no hurry to repeat the experience.

Fast forward eighteen months and the nightmares had finally ended. It was time to try it again.

This time, we were taking a shorter trip- just to Melaka, about two hours south of Kuala Lumpur. The plan was to just go for an overnight, so to leave Saturday morning and come home Sunday evening. That part of the plan worked, out, but not the driving part.

I really need to learn to look at a calendar around here! The weekend we decided to go turned out to be the first weekend of the local school’s holiday, so everyone with kids was headed out for the equivalent of spring break.  Once again, it was us and half the Malaysian population.

Our two hours trip south ended up taking closer to four hours. We arrived mid-afternoon, just as the current heatwave hit its high point for the day. (Over the last couple of weeks, Malaysia has been breaking high temperature records. That sun is blazing!) After finding our hotel and dropping off our overnight bags, we found chairs at a nearby café, had some great chicken satay and whiled away the afternoon people watching. It was too hot for movement beyond that!

With afternoon naps and massages covered, we once again ventured into the great outdoors, spending a crushing evening on Jonkers Street where anything and everything can be bought, if only you can wind your way through the crowd. The evening wrapped up with more roadside treats and drinks, enjoyed while watching masses of humanity go about their evening activities.

Between the scorching heat and the ridiculous traffic, once again our road trip became a bit more of an adventure than we had bargained for. We may have two strikes against us, but I’m not ready to sit on the bench quite yet.  With a little over four months left in our tour, I’d still like to spend a weekend in Ipoh, make the trip to Johor Bahru or even overnight in Port Dickson. The way I figure it, we’ve got one more strike or, better yet, we hit it out of the ballpark with the next attempt and erase those other ticks in the playbook.

Play ball!

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2016 Book Challenge- A Book that Can be Finished in a Day

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2016 Book Challenge- A Book that Can be Finished in a Day

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When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Another month has come and gone in Malaysia and with a slew of long weekends I’ve been able to add thirteen books to my “read” list for the year, even with it being the shortest month of the year. (One *huge* advantage to working for the State Department aboard is that we enjoy both US and host-country holidays.) Luckily, I had the bonus of Leap Year day this year, as the actual end of the month caught me by surprise and I really am getting this month’s challenge write-up taken care of as I put an X on the last day of the calendar page. (Yes, I still cling to actual print calendars rather than having moved everything in my life to a digital one. I have an adorable floral desk calendar at work that not only lets me easily look up appointment dates for callers, but that serves as home to my week count of scam calls/emails. I also have a spiral day planner that I use for my personal events- complete with binder clip on top for easy access to the right page. )

Once again, I read books from many of these categories, so I am just going to choose one and go with it. I am guessing by about November or December, this willy-nilly organization might bite me in the butt, but for now it is working. I decided to go with “A book you can finish in a day” and I actually had two strong contenders in for this title: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi and Washington’s Monument by John Steele Gordon. Ultimately, I decided I’m going to go with the first, as it has wider appeal, but history buffs and DC friends, be sure to check out Gordon’s new book- it just came out a few weeks ago.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi has made several “best new releases of 2016” lists, so I couldn’t wait for my library hold to come through. (As always, I have a full hold list and I swear about four come through at a time. There is never a trickle. It is drought and then deluge!) This is a beautifully written book by a man who dedicated his life to finding the intersection between our brains and our minds. A scholar of both literature and neurology, this book was a fascinating mix of references to classical literature and quite in-depth scientific processes. It has something for those of us who love literature and the empathy it brings to one’s life and the as well as those who are more hardwired for facts and figures. In what some see as a cruel twist of fate, and yet exactly what Kalanithi studied for years, he is forced to confront the mind/brain overlap when he is diagnosed with brain cancer in his mid-30s. When Breath Becomes Air is Kalanithi’s final thoughts on where his book studies and his personal experiences have left him in terms of what makes us who we are. The combination of philosophy, literature and science makes this a great read for lovers of fiction and non-fiction alike.

In Search of the End of the Sidewalk’s 2016 Reading Challenge

_____ A book published this year

_____A book you can finish in a day

_____A book you’ve been meaning to read

_____ A book recommended to you by a librarian

_____ A book you should have read in school

_____ A book chosen for you by your spouse/partner, best friend, child or sibling

_____ A book published before you were born

_____ A book that was banned at some point

_____ A book you abandoned previously

_____ A book you own but have never read

_____ A book that intimidates you

_____ A book you’ve read at least once

 

 

Heart Day Visit to the Fish Museum

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Some people consider Valentine’s Day nothing more than a Hallmark holiday, pumped up and pushed by retailers to add to their retail bottom lines each year. There is definitely money to be made on chocolates and over-sized stuffed animals and roses each February, but if one overlooks the consumer-driven parts of the holiday and focuses on the heart of the day (heart…get it? Clever!), there is good to be found.

This year for Valentine’s Day, we decided to have a little blast from the past. Just days before the holiday, I realized that the first time we ever came to Malaysia was this exact time of year- Valentine’s and Chinese New Year in 2007. We were on winter break from our Peace Corps gig in Gansu and came south in search of sunshine and non-Chinese food with good friends. (It’s funny to look back at how exotic this whole region of the world seemed at the time. Since then, it has become like a second home, with frequent trips around Southeast Asia.)

It’s funny that I often can’t remember what I worked on two days ago, but I can remember that it was Valentine’s Day nine years ago exactly that we went to the KLCC Aquarium.  Mostly I remember this random fact because KL’s aquarium was the first one I had ever been to that had the underwater tunnel and it was covered in hearts for the holiday. I remember watching the sharks swim by the cutout hearts and thinking what a strange dichotomy the rows of scary teeth were with the adorable red and pink decorations. (Some in our party who are getting older each year and maybe losing their English language abilities called the aquarium the “fish museum” when we were talking about going over the weekend. After laughing hysterically, I came to realize that I kind of like that nomenclature better. Can we all agree to call aquariums “fish museums” from now on?)

What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day 2016 than by recreating our day nine years ago? After a slow start to the morning, we headed down to KLCC for some lunch at one of the outdoor cafes that line the lower level of the mall, looking out over the plaza, water show and park. It was blazing hot out, but that is to be expected any day that the skies are blue and the sun is shining in the city. Lunch was relaxed and laid back, full of people watching (it was a people museum!) and talk of how we would be freezing in DC on Valentine’s Day 2017. That helps ease the burn of the sun. The fish museum was just a short walk away from where we had lunch and we were happy to find short lines, as it was a Sunday afternoon, which is prime fish-visiting time.

I may have loved the otters (not fish!) the most on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find other critters to stare at endlessly (a crazy active octopus and strange little rock fish ranked highly as well) and Thad is always fascinated by the jelly fish, a hypnotizing set of tanks. Of course, the highlight of the day was the underwater tunnel, as it is really the only thing I remember from our first visit, all those years ago. Disappointingly, there were no Valentine’s decorations strewn about this time around, but in a more regionally appropriate manner, many of the tanks did have Chinese New Year decorations, including golden monkeys (it is the year of the monkey!) and gold pieces of good luck (fish luck is important!)

Following our new tradition, we should visit the KLCC aquarium every nine years, on Valentine’s Day, to see the fish and other ocean critters and to have lunch/drinks on the plaza filled with fantastic people-watching specimens. The question is, if we stick with the Foreign Service lifestyle (which is the plan), where will we been nearly a decade from now? Wherever it is, we might need to look into a long weekend back to Malaysia!

Valentine’s Day 2007- Kuala Lumpur Convention Center Aquarium

Valentine’s Day 2016- Kuala Lumpur Convention Center Aquarium

Valentine’s Day 2025- ???

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