I had a jolly spiffing birthday yesterday – Although there was one rather strange moment at work where we all sang Happy Birthday and had cake. What’s so strange about that? Well, it wasn’t for me, it was for some other people at work … whose birthdays were four weeks ago – So I found…
Showers of Owls
Yesterday was an extraordinary day in Malaysia; the ruling party was finally toppled after running the country for 61 years, ever since it became an independent country. The corrupt Prime Minister, who recently rejigged all the electoral boundaries to try to ensure another victory, has been ousted. I woke to a text from our head…
Cakes and Holidays
Elections in Malaysia are positively biblical – you have to return to your home town to vote; you can’t vote in the town where you currently live. I don’t think you actually have to travel there on the back of a donkey, but it’s still a pretty archaic system for the 21st Century. The General…
Hooray for another public holiday … off to Phuket!
One of the best things about being based in KL – apart from the ridiculous number of public holidays – is the huge number of places you can get to very cheaply, because it’s the hub for Air Asia: cheap, cheerful and very rarely on time. So, for £72 return and an hour and a…
The perils of mispronunication
This week I learned that the words for ‘late’ and ‘sodomy’ in Bahasa are practically indistinguishable to the non-native speaker. So, it’s a good idea for all foreigners to be extremely punctual, thus avoiding the danger of accidentally confessing to a crime and ending up with a twenty-year prison sentence. And then I had an…
Popping up to Penang
I’ve learnt that when chums visit you have to stop lolling around on the sofa and go off and do a bit of sightseeing. So when Caroline came to stay, once we’d exhausted the possibilities KL has to offer, we popped up to Penang for a couple of days. We found the most wonderful cake…
We are not amused …
Malaysians are outraged. Why? You might ask – they’re pretty placid people on the whole. Well, there’s a general election coming up, and the ruling party has been busy changing the electoral boundaries to ensure that there’s a majority of Muslims in every catchment area, so that the National Party gets back into power. The…
Releasing my inner Miss Trunchbull
I do love being unkind to children … I think that must be why I decided to go into teaching in the first place. This was my April Fools’ Day prank – I stuck this notice on the door and then hid, along with the first three children who’d arrived to class. They hid under…
Do not wail against the flow
As I was reading the regulations on the escalators which link the hilly districts of Hong Kong Island – I realised that this is where I’ve been going wrong all my life … too much wailing against the flow. Taking this advice to heart, I declined a trip on a junk at dusk – –…
You’d be bonkers not to go via Honkers …
… as the old Aussie advertisement for Cathay Pacific used to go. So, to confirm my sanity, I decided to spend the spring break in Hong Kong, which is only a hop and a skip and £150 return from KL. The harbour views are fantastic and the crew on the Star Ferry have the…
You know you’re in Singapore when …
… the water features at the airport – look more like the installations you’d find in a five star hotel anywhere else. … you can get a glass of perfectly chilled Piper Heidsieck – at the theatre – rather than a can of tepid 7-Up, which tends to be the classy beverage of choice…
Teacher, how do you spell ‘turd’?
I was surprised when a child asked me this the other day. What on earth is she writing about, I wondered, given that the title of the story was supposed to be ‘My First Day at Pirate School’. I obviously looked puzzled, so she elaborated, ‘I can spell first and second but I don’t know…
Chatting up a monk
When I saw the sign, I couldn’t resist – I’ve always wanted to chat a monk up, so I dashed over to the monk assignation area. My monk was called Claim, and he told me all about his life in the monastery and at the university attached to the monastery, where he studies Pali, which…
First, coat your elephant liberally with mud …
Have just returned from a few days in Chiang Mai, where I learnt two very useful new skills – firstly, how to give an elephant a mud bath, and secondly, how to wash the mud off again. The elephants at the rescue centre have been rescued from performance venues in Thailand – all except the…
What do Donald Trump, the Prince of Wales and three ugly-looking ladies have in common?
The answer could well be that they all have names that I find easy to remember – which is a definite bonus these days. The new school year has brought with it a whole set of new name problems for me … and I used to think I was good with names. Having finally got…
You can wear any colour you like … as long as it’s red
Things are hotting up for Chinese New Year next week. Interestingly, it’s always called Chinese New Year, or CNY, even by the Chinese. In our usual imperialist way, the West seems to have commandeered the term ‘New Year’ for 1 January – so perhaps we should embrace diversity, acknowledge that other New Years exist and…
There’s something about Tuesday …
I was in the midddle of explaining an activity in my phonics class yesterday when a five-year-old boy looked up, pointed to my head and asked, ‘Is that a wig?’ I was astonished. Does he really think that I’d pay for a wig that looked like this? If I buy a wig it’ll be long,…
I think I’ve found my ideal home
When I saw this place, I knew I had to move in immediately – Anyone else care to join me? Rant for today … When you land in KL all you see around the airport are miles and miles of palm oil plantations According to a report online, Malaysia and Indonesia produce 85% of the…
Malaysia … home of witchcraft and wizardry
According to a newspaper report, in Malacca alone last year there were 2,492 cases of spells, jinxes and other forms of witchcraft reported to the police. They usually involve bomohs, who are a type of witch doctor/shaman. Now, I’m no medical expert but … … I’m pretty sure there’s a medical term for this which…
The School of Hard Knocks
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…