In Malaysia, the School of Hard Knocks is not a precursor of the University of Life and an essential component of any I-dragged-meself-up-by-me-bootstraps success story.  It’s actually a workshop where you can go and learn how to make things out of pewter.

I already knew that Kuala Lumpur’s fortune was founded on tin.  KL was just a small unimportant town, playing second fiddle to Malacca and Penang (or maybe that should be third fiddle?), until the late 19th Century, when Chinese prospectors found tin in the river.  Despite the fact that 69 of the 87 original prospectors died of horrible diseases in the swampy jungle, they pressed on and established tin mines and the town began to grow.

Today I learnt that tin is used to make pewter –

hence the very famous Royal Selangor Pewter factory and its workshop.

The factory museum shows the earliest Malaysian currency – tin money in the shape of animals –

– cute, but not very practical for a trip to the supermarket:

“That’ll be a crocodile, an elephant and four tortoises, please.”

“I’ve only got two crocodiles – do you have change?”

“Hang on a minute – I’ll just go to the other tills and see if anyone can change one crocodile for ten elephants.”

So they switched to the money tree, on the right in the picture.  As it’s made of tin, they could just twist off as many little Polo mints as they needed.

Then it was time for the fun –

learning to make our own funky designs out of molten pewter.

Anthony made a lovely bracelet … for me –

While Sam made himself a hipster man-band –

And despite being blessed with the manual dexterity of an earthworm, I even managed to make a few things myself –

But we didn’t have time to create replica Petronas Towers –

made of 7,062 pewter tankards

or the largest tankard in the world

which holds 4,920 pints of beer and the Guinness World Record … and is yet another example of the identity crisis which seems to be a permanent, rather than temporary, stage of development in this Islamic country.

On my travels around Myanmar, I was struck by the fact that traditions are still woven into the fabric of everyday life and not just resurrected for the tourists every night at 8 pm, with a matinee on Saturdays.

We were lucky enough to see a novitiation ceremony in a small town that we were driving through en route to Mandalay.  We had stopped for a break and spotted some very fancily dressed children –

I thought this was a girl, but it’s actually a boy – dressed as a prince for the procession through the town before he goes to the temple to become a novice monk.

Everyone in the town had turned out either to watch

or to process

The novices all process using whatever means of transport their family can afford to provide for them.

So they might be on horseback

in a horse-drawn cart

or a bullock cart

or even on an elephant

Our tour leader was chatting to a local, who told her that the father of the boy on the elephant was a street vendor selling betel nut, who had probably saved up for his whole life to hire this elephant for his son’s big day.

The sisters of novices are allowed to dress as princesses, and they parade too –

but no horses for them … just Shanks’s pony.

And bullock carts aren’t reserved for parades – it’s quite common to see them out on the roads –

And there are so many other traditional skills still being practised every day

making umbrellas by hand –

A two-hundred year old lacquerwork studio –

producing beautiful pieces –

Cheroots – made by the local women –

and smoked by the local crones –

On Inlay Lake there’s a third-generation silversmith at work in a studio on stilts in the water

making jewellery out of pure Myanmar silver –

The lake dwellers have developed the most bizarre method of rowing, where they twist their leg around the oar –

and the lake fishermen balance precariously while they drop their nets into the water –

although I have to say that I wasn’t overly impressed by the size of their catch –

But I ate his big brother for lunch, and he was absolutely delicious …

 

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Myanmar is apparently the most devoutly Buddhist country in the world.

There are temples everywhere and it’s a country where anyone who’s anyone builds their own stupa, so wherever you go there are gilded spires rising up into the sky

Sometimes there’s a thousand of them all together

Or just a few –

When I arrived in Yangon, one of the first questions I was asked was what day of the week I was born on, as I needed to know which day shrine to pay homage at in the temples.

There are 8 days in the Buddhist week, as Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon count as two separate days.  Each day is associated with a different exotic animal – tiger, elephant, lion, serpent, Garuda the mythical birdman – until you get to Friday … which is the day of the guinea pig.

So, in every temple I had to complete the ritual of pouring water first onto Buddha and then on my animal.

And after a while –

I began to notice that every guinea pig had a faintly depressed expression

I wasn’t sure whether this was due to the constant unflattering comparisons with the other more noble creatures in the temple, or simply the result of being drenched in cold water several hundred times a day.  Either way, I began to feel rather sorry for the poor bedraggled things, and mutter a brief apology before dousing them with yet another cupful of water.

Oh well, at least a dejected guinea pig is less of a threat than a seriously pissed-off lion or tiger.

I went to the ballet in Laos – the Ballet Theatre of Luang Prabang – to see a show called ‘The Return of Princess Sida’

The unhappy princess was separated from her husband due to war, and pined for years.  Her husband also claimed to be unhappy to be separated from his wife.

Finally the monkey king intervened and arranged for her to return home

Overjoyed, she embarked on the long and hazardous journey

But while she was making her way home, her husband, egged on by his sycophantic minions,

decided that she’d been away for so long that she couldn’t possibly have remained faithful to him for all that time –

so when she finally arrived, he sent her away with a flea in her ear –

Bloody typical, I thought.

 

 

Continue reading The Champagne lifestyle

Laos is a country that loves wires –

This picture was taken in Vientiane in a not particularly attractive area, but it was the same story in Luang Prabang, which is a UNESCO world heritage town, full of monks and magnificent temples, called Wats –

all gilded and carved and generally very splendid.

So I wondered who decided that the ambiance and picture-postcard quality of the town would be enhanced by massive quantities of overhead wiring –

Even Buddha thinks it’s a bit much and has resolutely turned his back and closed his eyes.

It’s hard to get a picture of some of the Wats without a crisscross of wiring around them, which spoils the effect somewhat.  And since all the monks in the thirty-plus Wats are supposed to lead a simple life, begging for food, praying and meditating, why do they need so much electricity anyway?

Then I climbed a hill to watch the sun set over the Mekong –

And I was pleased to see that they haven’t strung any wires across the river … yet.

As I walked past a temple in Vientiane I was pleased to see that the monks were out doing a bit of topiary and trimming the hedges.

There’s something very homely and unthreatening about Buddhist monks, and I’m pleased to be back in a Buddhist country again – if only for a couple of weeks, as I make the most of the school Christmas holidays to do a bit of travelling in SE Asia.

The children from the school attached to the temple were all outside lining up as I walked past –

each clutching a toothbrush, they waited for their turn at the mass tooth-brushing trough

while the teacher wielded a big stick and blew her whistle unnecessarily aggressively.

Then it was time  for communal handwashing –

The soap is in what appears to be popsox dangling down on strings, which the children squeeze and then  rinse their hands under the water.

The buckets of dirty water were then emptied onto the flower beds by the older boys … all very environmentally sound.

Everywhere you walk there are barbecues set up on the pavement, with hawkers selling –

– grilled bananas

– little fried coconut cakes, which are divine … hot, puffy and crispy

– whole fish coated in salt, and baked over the coals with leaves in their mouths

– and steaming vats of sweet potatoes and yams.

I’m also loving the French influence –

good coffee, good bread.

This is a toasted goats cheese and walnut baguette, which I got far too excited about at lunchtime.

I also loved this sign –

If we were in Malaysia, this sign would say  ‘Drive Don’t Drink’ or, more realistically ‘Sit in a Traffic Jam Don’t Drink’.

What do you do when you’re out for the evening and you bump into a chap from work and he’s clearly wearing eyeliner and lipstick?

… Go and watch him in his panto, of course!

It was my first experience of expat amateur dramatics and there were the usual cheesy jokes, songs and topical references along the way, as Dorothy from KL – wearing her ruby flippers –

tried to make her way to the wonderful land of Singapore.

At one point she found her way barred by two very camp trees –

who also told jokes whilst flaunting their codpieces

… and I’m predicting a global shortage of purple Lycra once these pictures go viral.

The show was held in the theatre of the British School, and was easily the most impressive school theatre I’ve ever been in.  It was a very un-cosmopolitan audience and an American friend remarked that she’d never before seen so many British people all together in the same place … she’s obviously never been to England, as we tend to specialise in that sort of crowd.

We even managed a groupie fan pic at the end.

It was the most English evening I’ve spent since I held a Wimbledon, Ascot, Henley Pimm’s evening in July, and at one point I found myself explaining the concept of panto to someone from KL who’d never been to one before – leading man is actually a woman, older woman is actually a man, people on stage are unable to spot a wicked witch right behind them, audience contradicting the actors loudly and repeatedly etc etc.

 

I wasn’t surprised when her eyebrows went up and up and up – it really is a bizarre form of entertainment, and if you don’t understand the rules, you’re liable to think it’s just anarchy with fancy lighting and plush seats.

Maybe that’s why we’ve never had an actual revolution in Britain – we prefer our anarchy in comfortable surroundings for a couple of hours at a time, and then we can go home for a nice cup of tea.

 

On a trip to Malacca last week I rekindled my love affair with the Peranakan culture.  The Peranakans were also known as the Straits Chinese, and were the first wave of Chinese immigrants from the 14th Century onwards; wealthy merchants who traded in Malacca and intermarried with the local Malays.

They had their own culture, traditions and food, and cendol was their dessert of choice, so in the interests of objective research, I felt compelled to try it twice.

The cendol maker begins by putting a huge block of ice into a machine and shaving off a large bowlful –

Then the sous-chef gets to work –

pouring, swirling and dribbling, just like the best mixologist –

until you get to the finished dish –

It is the most ambrosial mixture of pillow-soft, shaved ice topped with coconut milk and raw palm sugar, and it’s just like eating a billowy, sweet cloud of snow.  There’s a side serving of green jelly worms and some red beans hidden under the ice for a bit of texture and colour, and the whole thing costs just over £1.  Budget friendly bliss – what more could you want?

Peranakan women didn’t go to school; in fact they weren’t allowed to leave the house at all.  They spent their childhood learning to cook and sew, until they were considered competent and married off at the age of 14 or so.  Consequently there are a lot of very complicated recipes in their repertoire, as they had nothing else to do all day except devise fiendishly difficult dishes to impress their menfolk.

One such dish is called ‘ayam buah keluak’ and is so difficult to make that it’s practically impossible to find a restaurant that serves it – but we found one –

so we went in to try it.

The keluak nuts contain cyanide, so in order to make them edible they have to be buried in the ground for 40 days and then soaked in water for ten days.  Who on earth invented this bizarre recipe, I wondered, and was old-time Malacca full of squirrel-like women dashing out into the garden to bury their nuts every autumn?

The nuts are then cooked with chicken and a mixture of spices, to make a fragrant stew

You need a special thin knife to scrape out the softened centre of the nuts, which is pulpy and black and tasted rather musty to me, although afficionados say that it tastes like truffles

It looks like caviar, but doesn’t taste like it.

I’m glad I’ve tried keluak, but I don’t think I’ll be dashing to try it again – unlike cendol, which I will be devouring on a regular basis whenever I can find a cendol supplier.  I’ve been wondering about making my own at home, as my fridge has an ice maker, but I’m not sure whether you can make shaved ice with a Lady Shave – more research needed here, I feel.

 

 

I’m still getting to grips with Malaysian education.  This week a parent asked me to look at his son’s exam paper, to see why he hadn’t scored particularly highly.  The exam paper contained several language errors – but the boy already knew that if he didn’t repeat the error in his answer, he’d lose marks, so that wasn’t a problem –

And then there was an interesting choice of text for the comprehension passage –

Hardly the most useful language for the 21st Century:

Me: ‘Why haven’t your parents come to pick you up?’

Pupil: ‘Still they all are fleeting, Miss Louise.’

Me: ‘And what are your goals for this year?’

Pupil: ‘I’m determined for to pass my exams.’

Me: ‘Who’s that small man beside you wearing a mask?’

Pupil: ‘He’s my little crook.’

etc etc.

Not only that, but the poor child had answered the question correctly, then the teacher had made him change it and turn it into a complete nonsense.

As far as I’m aware, no sheep has ever managed to move by tail power, no matter how hard they wag them.

My second educational experience this week was the Discovery of the Body Exhibition in Malacca.

It is designed, the advertising blurb tells us, to teach us ALL about the human body.

But once we got inside, we realised that they would not be teaching us about every single part of the human body; some parts were most definitely off-limits –

Note the scarf – carefully chosen to co-ordinate with the decor.

And the modern equivalent of a figleaf –

or two –

Queen Victoria would have thoroughly approved.

Then last month, there was the story about a teacher who was conducting inappropriate relationships …

… in the student affairs office.

Best rename the room to avoid confusion, I thought.

 

 

 

I see in the UK press that Nigella is predicting that the next hip ingredient – essential for every foodie refrigerator and food-related hipster conversation – will be pandan.

Well – sorry, Nigella, but I’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt to prove it … or the photos, at least.

Here is Mr Toad relaxing at home in the shade of our very own pandan plant –

And here is the onde-onde that I made on my cookery course earlier this year

They are made from pandan flavoured paste, filled with palm sugar and rolled in coconut … yum!

This is the tour leader on a market tour, extolling the virtues of pandan –

– apparently pandan can lower blood pressure, eliminate dandruff, heal sunburn, repel mosquitoes, reduce stress, inhibit cancer and even cure impotence … so, as they say, what’s not to like?

Apparently when it comes to a new food trend, it’s essential to be able to say that you liked it first.  So just remember that you heard it here first, folks.

Meanwhile, my salted egg fetish continues, and I’m hoping that Nigella will pick up on that next, so I’ll be able to indulge when I return to the UK.

Recently I’ve tried a salted egg roll –

which is actually a straight croissant (an oxymoron, if ever I heard one) rolled around a salted egg filling, and topped with even more salted egg.  I managed to stop devouring it just long enough to take a picture.

The local bakery needs this much salted egg every day

and to make sure that you don’t miss out, you need to check the board to see when the next batch of deliciousness will be ready –

And another equally delicious discovery –

salted egg sweet potato fries … heaven in a takeaway box.

 

This week I was highly disturbed to discover that, in a long blond wig, I look just like a transvestite –

I spent the entire weekend in an itchy, sweaty wig pretending to be some sort of dodgy, senescent version of Goldilocks – and all in the name of Hallowe’en dress-up weekend.

Have you ever spent considerable amounts of time with your hand stuffed up a large bear?  That’s also a very sweaty experience, believe me.

But once I’d sorted the wig and the bear, I just needed a frock, frilly socks and a bowl of porridge and I was good to go.

Oh well, at least the children knew who I was … unlike Frodo – back row far left –

who was mistaken for Ed Sheeran.

But the whole thing was a bit much for Daddy Bear, who went AWOL on Sunday evening and was later found in the staff room –

– rather the worse for wear.

And it turns out that I didn’t need the wig anyway – the children think my own hair is golden.  Any colour lighter than black is described as blond or golden; there’s no such thing as ash, platinum, honey, caramel, auburn, mouse … we’re all blond.

Meanwhile, rehearsals continue for the end of year concert.  The younger children get together every morning to form the Choir of the Damned (their teacher’s description, not mine) and then howl and screech their way through the repertoire of songs for the show.

If you’d like a taster, just click below –

 

and if that’s whetted your appetite, the CD will be available in time for Christmas.

 

 

 

The temperature in Malaysia doesn’t seem to stray far from 32 degrees, with humidity around 70%.  It’s usually sunny in the morning, and there’s often rain later in the day – but this week has been an exception.

Last Tuesday we went to the Helilounge to celebrate Julia’s birthday.  It’s a helipad by day and a bar by night, with no shelter at all, so we were hoping for good weather to enjoy the sunset and the views in the evening.  When we  arrived  we congratuated ourselves on having chosen such a wonderful evening:

sunny to begin with –

 

then a spectacular sunset –

and finally, a perfect balmy night –

Little did we know that this was the beginning of a whole series of hot sunny days, spectacular sunsets and balmy nights … and they’ve been getting hotter and balmier every day.

I couldn’t walk to work, it was too hot – even at nine o’clock in the morning – and there was no rain at all … unheard of in KL.

Then finally on Monday, after a week of heat, messages started appearing on the Internet –

 

Heatstroke and exploding petrol tanks sounded rather alarming, so I went online to do some research, and discovered that we had all been the victim of fake news.  The Met Office vehemently denied the stories circualting on social media, and said that the temperature was merely 36 degrees, and one degree short of an offical heatwave (try telling that to the Brits – we have a heatwave at 26 degrees).

 

 

But the Met Office did concede that the weather has been, and will contine to be, unusually hot.

But far from being due to strange movements of the sun as it shimmies across the equator, it’s simply the fallout from a typhoon in Japan.  Fake news is always so much more exciting than real news.

So we’re set for a few more days of excessive heat, and for the first time since I arrived, I’ve found myself thinking wistfully of fog and frost and even a light sprinkling of snow.

Oh well, time for a swim to cool down, and then a nice chilled evening in front of the air conditioning unit.

 

 

This week one of my pupils asked how old I was when the Vikings invaded Britain.

I like to think that this is because my description of the Anglo-Saxons standing on the cliffs watching the long boats heading for the shore was so vivid that she  thought I was actually there myself – rather than because she thinks I look over a thousand years old.

And anyway, if I am ageing at an alarming rate, it’s these children who are entirely to blame for adding so much stress to my life.

This week the Vomiter returned to my class after an absence of about four months.  I’d got out of the habit of leaping out of her way as she began heaving and chundering in my direction, so it was a bit of a blow to discover that she was returning, and once again I need to make sure I am never cornered without emergency access to the bin, the book box or – as a last resort – her school bag.

Although on the plus side, the two criminal masterminds in the class, who take delight in disobeying me and crawling into the cupboard to hide, soon crawled out again when the Vomiter crawled in behind them, complaining loudly about the smell of vomit.

But I have discovered a new game which will be ideal for this class –

 

– anyone ever played hide and sick?

And whoever thought that finger painting was a suitable activity for a class of three and four year-olds, was either inexperienced, idealistic or just plain warped.  It took more time to clean up than it took for them to meticulously cover the entire table in paint –

But these kids do a great job of confounding any potential gender stereotyping.

Here is one of the boys working on his finger painting, each finger carefully dipped into a different colour, to keep all the colours separate –

And here are the girls at work –

 

Am thinking of putting this masterpiece up for sale, but can’t decide whether it should be called Frenzy in the Fonics Class, or Phrenzy in the Phonics Class.

 

 

 

There’s an intriguing sign on the wall in the swanky Royal Selangor Club in KL –

Since the club – all mock Tudor and with a waiting list as long as your average Malaysian spitting cobra –

is a bastion of male chauvinism, I assumed that the wacky-baccy boudoir would be strictly men only, so I didn’t go exploring.

But it did make me realise that everything in KL is about getting high.  You only have to look at a model of the city –

to understand that being at ground level is SO last year over here.

So, ever one to keep up with the trends, I have been concentrating on getting high.

My first attempt was frankly disastrous.  I went on a hike with my hiking buddies Pat and Frankie, and we met a retired couple who told us they were going up to a Buddhist shrine on the hill.

‘We’ll go with you,’ said Pat, rashly.

The retired couple promptly set off up a vertical incline like a couple of mountain goats, springing effortlessly from one boulder to the next.  I followed with all the grace and agility of a mountain walrus, puffing and sweating and clinging to tree roots, branches, and anything else that was going to stop me from making a rapid and undignified descent down the hill head first.

Luckily the survivors’ photo doesn’t show quite how puce and sweaty I was by the time we got there.

I got high much more successfully yesterday, when Brenda and I made it to the 86th floor of the Petronas Towers without breaking a sweat –

– and then celebrated our achievement with Prosecco on the 57th floor of an adjoining tower –

I’ve decided that I’m all for the high life … as long as there are elevators provided.

In first place of all the firsts, I have to announce that I am no longer a durian virgin.

I have almost bought durian so many times, and then lost my nerve at the last minute – but Lauren was with me and determined to try it, so this time there was no going back.  The stallholder had thoughtfully provided disposable gloves, as the smell is notoriously pervasive, and the fewer parts of your body that touch the durian, the better, it would seem.

So – I took a deep breath and tried it …

The texture is thick and custardy; it reminded me of blancmange or a patisserie cream with something pungent and rotting stirred into it.  But the outside is plastic-y and rather like biting into edible cling film … bizarre.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it, really – but decided that I don’t hate it, so that’s a step in the right direction.

I also went up the Petronas Towers for the first time and, despite reading that the design is based on several Islamic motifs, I believe that the architect was heavily influenced by the daleks.

I celebrated my Petronas visit by having a barbecued frog when I got to the bottom –

– and jolly delicious it was too.

Then, in a moment of pure serendipity, we arrived at a cocktail bar to watch the sunset, and discovered that they offer free cocktails to ladies on Wednesday nights only.  And here is Lauren enjoying her free Berry Margharita

I have also had my first visit to a luxury toilet, which I felt I had to try in the name of research.

The hostess, in a bow tie, gives you your official ticket (2 Ringgits = 40p-ish), and your welcome wet wipes –

But apart from some artificial flowers around the wash basins,

it looked pretty much like any other ladies loo –

Talking of loos, I’ve always thought that the signs you see everywhere telling you not to stand on the seat were a bit of a joke –

Surely nobody needs to be taught how to use a loo?

But at the shopping centre this week, I saw the first sign that these notices are not as redundant as I’d thought …

… definitely footprints.

And as I nervously approach my first winter in Malaysia, I’m pleased to see that the locals are taking the impending cold season very seriously.  The temperature can apparently plummet by one whole degree Celsius, so I was relieved to find that the shops are full of –

coats …

scarves …

and hats …

… just in case I need to wrap up warmly in December, which is the coldest month of the year in KL.

So that’s all right, then – one more worry ticked off the list.

 

I’ve learnt a new word … apostasy.

 

I felt the need to look it up when it featured in the headlines of all the newspapers recently.

With headlines like ‘The Punishment for Apostasy is Death‘,  I felt that I should know what it is, so that I could avoid inadvertantly apostasising in the future.

I was slightly cheered to read that they can’t actually enforce the penalty at the moment, due to Malaysia’s federal laws –

 

But in the small print we were assured that they are seeking to remove this restriction via a private member’s Bill in Parliament – and it has been suggested that atheists should also be ‘hunted down’.

In Malaysia you’re not allowed NOT to have a religion – you can be a Buddhist, a Taoist, a Catholic and so on, but you have to be something.  Everyone must publicly declare which camp they’re in, and nobody’s allowed to be Switzerland.  You can change religions and convert … unless you’re a Muslim, as being a Muslim is a bit like being a king or queen of Narnia.

There was a handy flowchart online, showing the futility of attempting to renounce your religion, complete with a picture of gallows and noose at the bottom as a stark reminder.

 

I wasn’t surprised to read that there were no records of any application to renounce Islam, and that no Malay Muslims had ever applied to change their religious status … why would you?

This week, I was pleased to see that the Sultan has waded into a discrimination row and told the owner of a launderette that he can’t display a ‘Muslim customers only’ sign.

I also like the idea of the Cabinet deciding that ‘such segregation will not wash’ – glad they’ve retained their sense of humour.

I am, however, rather bemused by the reason given for the discrimination

Reasons of cleanliness?  I thought that the whole point of a launderette was that nothing is clean when it arrives, and everything is clean when it leaves.  So why would Muslim washing be any different from anyone else’s washing?  I’m obviously missing something here.

It was student review and reflection time again this week – one of my least favourite times of the term – where pupils reflect on their progress, fill in a form, and then take it home for their parents to sign.  I don’t like it because, in my experience, young children are incapable of reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses and simply parrot what I’ve been telling them all year.  So I could just tell their parents directly, and cut out all the tedious form-filling admin.

Anyway, I was reading through the comments my pupils had written, and was rather alarmed to see this one –

The parents will think I’m running a den of vice, where I fleece the kids of their pocket money every week.  I wondered whether to add: this is an educational game suggested to me by the deputy head, but I don’t want to sound as though I’m desperately trying to justify myself, so I haven’t.

To make matters worse, the parents probably won’t know that Kahoot is an online learning game, so they’ll assume that their child and I are in cahoots to hide my kindi-casino, but the child can’t spell.

Oh, well … on a brighter note, I have a new Best Friend this week.  Phoebe, aged four, has joined my class, and I knew we’d clicked straightaway when she invited me to go home with her and have a bath.

It’s certainly one of the strangest invitations I’ve ever had, and am still considering whether or not to accept.  I’m hoping there was no hidden agenda – I did a bit of surreptitious armpit sniffing – but I don’t think four-year-olds are that subtle.

In fact, I know that four-year-olds are not that subtle, thanks to an ego-crushing conversation I had yesterday:

Child 1: Teacher, why you got hair like boy?

Me: It’s not really like a boy’s, is it?  It’s just short.

Child 2: Teacher, why you got messy hair.  Did you forget to comb it?

Me:  It’s not messy – I just don’t have Chinese hair, that’s all.

Child 1: It’s ugly hair.

Me: Oh, dear.

Child 3:  Teacher, why your neck like that?

Me: Why is my neck like what?

Child 3: It looks like it’s been mashed.

I have decided that my next job will be in the Arctic Circle, and no one will ever see my ugly hair and mashed neck again.

 

 

 

 

Names in Malaysia are an endless source of confusion and/or amusement.

Could anyone blame me for constantly confusing the two girls in the same class call Ya Jing and Ja Ying?  Or for not realising that a child with two names is usually known by both of them and not just one?  Do they have no surname?  Nobody seems to know, including the children in question.

A child with three names is usually known by the last two … unless the last of the three names is a western one in which case they’re known just by that last name … or unless they have four names and either the first or the last is a Western name, and then they’re just known by that one name.

I even have a girl whose name is @Zoe … any ideas on the pronunciation of that one?  I just call her Zoe and she answers quite happily to it.

I’m still struggling with Yue Xin (delightfully pronounced ‘you sin’), Xin Hui, Xin En, Zi En.  They’re all quiet girls in the same large class, and I still haven’t learnt which one is which.

And then the Western names they choose can be unusual too. Top of my current list of favourites is eight-year-old Winthrop.  And I often feel as though I’ve stepped back to the 1950s with a lot of the other boys – we have Kenneth, several Brians, Nigel, Leonard and Keith.

The spellings can be quite idiosyncratic too; there’s a girl called Looi and another called Noa, a boy called Lucausz, a Eunice and a Younes.

But the most confusing name has to be the one that is pronounced ‘no one’.

‘Hello, I’m Harry,’ said the new boy in the class.

‘Hello, I’m No one,’ came the reply.

Harry’s mother had to be reassured that her son’s new classmate doesn’t have profound psychological issues, which have resulted in an identity crisis, he simply has an unusual name.

I hear strange Through-The-Looking-Glass comments coming from their classroom:

‘No one stop talking!’

‘Good work No one!’

‘Does anyone know where No one’s gone?’

One morning, this class of six-year-olds all decided to insult each other with the insult du jour – ‘you’re a poo-poo’, so the teacher tried to calm the situation by saying ‘no one’s a poo-poo’.  It was an unfortunate choice of words, which made the situation worse.

Welcome to the surreal world of English teaching in Malaysia.

 

“Who did you pass on the road?” the King went on, holding out his hand to the Messenger for some more hay.
“Nobody,” said the Messenger.
“Quite right,” said the King; “this young lady saw him too. So of course Nobody walks slower than you.”
“I do my best,” the Messenger said in a sullen tone. “I’m sure nobody walks much faster than I do!”
“He can’t do that,” said the King, “or else he’d have been here first.”

 

 

The number of public holidays here is truly insane.  If you’re used to the English system of three Bank Holiday Mondays a year – and be grateful for them – then the Malaysian system is a real eye-opener.

For a start, there are three main ethnic groups, so there are holidays for Islamic, Chinese and Indian festivals, plus all the other holidays for country-wide celebrations, like Independence Day.

Not only that, but the dates of the holidays can just randomly change with very little notice.  Imagine the rioting in the Home Counties if August Bank Holiday Monday was suddenly changed to August Bank Holiday Wednesday, a couple of weeks beforehand.

This has worked in my favour next week.  There was supposed to be a holiday next Thursday, which is one of my days off, but I found out on Monday that the holiday has now been moved to Friday, which gives me the equivalent of a long weekend … three days off in a row … yay!

And that’s in addition to the public holiday we had last week, and the one we’ve got this week … oh – and not to mention the five-day weekend we had two weeks ago.

The five-day weekend was originally supposed to be a four-day weekend at the end of August, because Eid and Independence day fell on two consecutive days – Thursday and Friday.  Then, on that Thursday, the Prime Minister announced that because of Malaysia’s outstanding performance in the South East Asia Games, he was declaring the Monday a Public Holiday too … Go Malaysia!

“There are too many public holidays in Malaysia. But… due to the overwhelming support and the tremendous performances by our athletes, therefore, the government would like to announce 4 September as a public holiday,” Najib announced to a roaring crowd.

And here’s a list of Kuala Lumpur’s public holidays for 2017:

Date	Day	Holiday
1 Jan	Sun	New Year’s Day
2 Jan	Mon	New Year Holiday
28 Jan	Sat	Chinese New Year
29 Jan	Sun	Chinese New Year Holiday
30 Jan	Mon	Chinese New Year Holiday
1 Feb	Wed	Federal Territory Day
9 Feb	Thu	Thaipusam
24 Apr	Mon	Installation of YDP Agong
1 May	Mon	Labour Day
10 May	Wed	Wesak Day
12 Jun	Mon	Nuzul Al-Quran
25 Jun	Sun	Hari Raya Aidilfitri
26 Jun	Mon	Hari Raya Aidilfitri Holiday
27 Jun	Tue	Hari Raya Aidilfitri Holiday
31 Aug	Thu	Merdeka Day
1 Sep	Fri	Hari Raya Haji
4 Sep	Mon	Sep 4 Holiday (SEA Games)
9 Sep	Sat	Agong’s Birthday
16 Sep	Sat	Malaysia Day
22 Sep	Fri	Awal Muharram
18 Oct	Wed	Deepavali
1 Dec	Fri	Prophet Muhammad’s Birthday
25 Dec	Mon	Christmas Day

And now compare that to England’s somewhat meagre ration:

1 January	Monday	New Year’s Day
30 March	Friday	Good Friday
2 April	Monday	Easter Monday
7 May	Monday	Early May bank holiday
28 May	Monday	Spring bank holiday
27 August	Monday	Summer bank holiday
25 December	Tuesday	Christmas Day
26 December	Wednesday	Boxing Day

As I said … truly insane.