i have been in asia for 4 years. four years is enough time to graduate high school, it is enough time to graduate college, its more than enough time to graduate a masters program. but, i am not sure if four years is long enough to watch a culture and try to figure it out. it’s never really the big things, but the little ones that make me wonder like this. i am not saying i have not learned to read a situation, but sometimes i wonder if i will ever really understand.
last week i was reading a contract and discussing modifications. most of the language was completely boilerplate, and could have been written by anyone who had globally been educated to write the boringly board language of legalese. some of the language was definitely not standard, it was identifying. it had clearly been written by a dry member of one asian group. i made a comment, and with a telling smile the nicely mixed vendor told me i had read it correctly. reading between the lines has become simple.
seeing in line is also simple. this afternoon i was driving to a drink and took a side road to avoid jalan bangsar rush hour jam. a little left, right, left move that can avoid 15 minutes of creeping. as i approached the last turn i saw a small car ready to make the same left move. i took my foot off the accelerator, expecting to simply slow and swing around the corner. but the car in front came to a complete stop, and then hesitantly waited, and waited, and waited for a wide open opportunity to continue.
other than guessing gender by pony tail, i could not see the driver. but i did not need that to know that she was brought up in another malaysian group. there was no sense of absent-minded privilege or needless drive to prove direction, there was only the ability to sit and wait for the safe next move. i considered swinging around at the first and second option to move, but i waited until my predecessor crept out so i could quickly move forward and past.
these situations happen all the time. i am able to anticipate and accept situations as they come up. but this past weekend i was in a situation that i could not come to terms with. as i quietly sat and considered it, i bubbled with a need for explanation. finally i burst all self control and stood up demanding, “why are you people so quiet. don’t you understand this is supposed to be fun?”
i was in the office on a saturday night, finishing months of work which i had not been involved in. we were releasing to the internet and had staff globally ensuring we were stable. this is a bi-monthly exercise in tension, it’s the time you need to move the fastest, but it started with bags of food and snacks; something to keep the energy up. but the asians (from malaysia, india, iran and egypt (not asian but on the border)) sitting with me did not seem to be enjoying it, they were sitting as quietly as any other day showing no visible sign of enjoyment.
my solution was simple, i found music on my portable drive, copied to my sadly tunes absent laptop and began to play it as loud as possible. the weak dell speakers were adding to my sadness when i realized a set of speakers passed down through three moves back to the US were sitting in an empty office. i went to hunt them down and plugged them in. garbage, offspring, lenny kravitz and radiohead were my bass pulse for the next few hours, it helped my spirits and made me feel like i was sitting in a US development group, where people enjoy success and loudly wait for opportunities to work, something i don’t experience here.
most of them appeared to ignore the night’s soundtrack; i saw one guy open up a little and smile, but no one swayed to the music, sang or even discussed the bands. one near-westerner did say “cool” on an IM, a suppressed support for the chance to find enjoyment in life; quietly hidden in the need to be proper.
maybe i should have found a way to understand this by now, but i just can’t do it. life needs a soundtrack, death is quiet. i still don’t understand how this can be confused.
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at least i would have thought someone picked up on the fact that each person who owns these speakers ends up getting moved to the US to work... now let's see who is next. but, then again none of those people were ever quiet.
the only workplace i can think of that has the beat of life i miss from us development communities is the borneo ink shop of my recent scaring. no wonder i keep thinking about going back, they have the life i am missing.
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