public enemy

i started the day with a drive to breakfast. i was meeting someone, and had let them choose the location. the place is one i like very much, but which has also been bothering me lately that it is semi-halal. this means they do not server pork, but are happy to serve alcohol. i parked the car next to my favorite pork place, and considered trying to change locations. instead i decided on changing the equation.

as i was driving over i was surfing my music collection. i heard a song a week ago and listened to it over and over, but for days i have not been able to remember the song or the artist. i have an aching desire to hear a song i cannot identify. i feel the song, i have emotional clues, but i cannot put my finger on the button. as i surfed i came to a group i know did not sing the song, but i could not resist selecting them anyway.

public enemy is a sound that is clearly not malaysian. they were the original black-power hip hop group, now known as one of the top 50 influential groups of all time. pe brought us chuck d and flavor flav who broke onto the white american cultural scene when featured in spike lee’s “do the right thing”. “fight the power”, “bring the noise” and “don’t believe the hype” were the perfect mood enhancer as i drove. it was a mood to flex my amercian nature, and lyrics like:

“turn up the radio
they claim that i'm a criminal
by now i wonder how
some people never know
the enemy could be their friend”

were just what i needed.

so i dropped into my pork restaurant, i got a takeaway and carried it to my semi-halal breakfast location. as i walked in i stopped and talked to the waiter who calls me “brother. i told him i was bringing in my own sausage to see if it would be an issue. he just smiled and said “okay”. i walked to the table and sat with my treasure in a bag on the table.

we ordered and were served, pancakes and coffee, which for the first time in 4 years now had the correct meat to accompany them. bacon provided the salty taste needed to cut the bitter of the espresso and the sweet of the pancakes. i felt satisfied and happy with my ability to solve the nagging issue of merging american standards into malaysian expat breakfast locations. i had gone the extra step to allow my morning to satisfy. the world was a happy place.

until i noticed that my partner was not eating the sausage i have seen her enjoy in the past. i asked why and got an evasive answer. i asked more directly, “are you not eating because you think it’s wrong to bring pork to a semi-halal place?”. this time i got the truthful, “yes, i guess so”.

some details that might help paint this picture:

• the bacon was in a container, and wrapped in a bag, no one could see the meat without standing over the table
• i was eating with my fingers, directly from the container to not contaminate the dishes or silverware.
• i had told the staff, and if they had told me not to bring it in, i would not have because i consider them friends.
• i believe the food restriction is generically dumb , and specifically does not cover a challenged catholic
• the place is only semi-halal, if malays can drink here then i should be able to eat pork

the next hour of debate over my openly flaunting the rules was what most political debates are, unsatisfying. i openly confessed to breaking the rules, and although i tried to equate myself to mahatma ghandi, i came off feeling more self-centered than the political reformer i was attempting to imitate.

the breakfast ended with us going our own ways. the day would be one of reflection. somehow was i transported back to the early 1980s, in church and being told why things i knew were right were not and that i should know better. i was not breaking a law, i was trying to be respectful, but i simply wanted to eat what i wanted to eat. i was again told that my issue is that i want to do things i want to do, again with the clear implication that i should not.

i had become my own version of a public enemy. i was considered dangerous and controversial; for trying to have a meal that i considered complete. no one around us complained, the staff did not object, but acting in a manner to demand freedom was very unsettling for someone who does not get upset about most things.

in malaysia, political corruption is tolerated, pirate dvds are openly sold, human trafficking is hardly noticed; but smuggling pork into a semi-halal breakfast spot is the breaking point. not criminal, but something i should be embarrassed about. how does this conditioning happen? how can this country be fixed if no one demands freedom? how can corruption be eliminated if we don’t stop walking on egg shells, and say when things are unfair.

fight the power.

/***********************************************

the song i could not remember is “i can’t get no, satisfaction” the version by the spin doctors.

its a bonus track on “you’ve got to believe in something” both album and song title could clearly be used in a blog of the future.

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missing scotty

i have been spending a lot of time in china. this is not time that i am particularly enjoying, or that i want to spend, but work is work and off i go. the role is managing a group of people, who i cannot have a direct conversation with. i have an interpreter to help, but have started to figure out that there is more than language in the way. this is one more step in the process of becoming an expat manager, realizing that all people are the same, but that there are differences which cannot be forgotten.

the office i am visiting is different than the others in the company. it was acquired and has not been brought into the cultural fold of the larger entity. we have locations all over the world, others in asia, but this one is the most foreign. there is a level of isolation that is driven by more than language. the feeling of distance, or possibly highly indirect style, is everywhere in china. as conversations are taking place i find myself questioning what the person on the other side is really saying. the words convey a message, but i sense i am missing the actual meaning.

this is larger than the team i am meeting with, it has come up in almost every interaction. i have noticed selective communication in taxis, restaurants and the hotel. after years of living in malaysia and becoming accustomed to a less than western approach, i am truly shocked at just how indirect an entire city of people can apparently be. i began to wonder how deeply seeded this was. what could be fundamentally different to explain what i was seeing?

the obvious answers were living under communism, religious or language differences or the impact of historical feudalism and dynastic emperors. there were plenty of socio-ecomomic, political and historical areas to consider. i felt as though i might never really get an answer that would provide the clarity i wanted. but then it happened, during a conversation i tried to use a cultural example to explain a point and i realized that chinese engineers lack a key element of knowledge that all the other engineers i have ever worked with have had.

i have been in situations where language was an issue. i have worked in former communist countries and interacted with people still living under communist regimes. i have traveled in historically feudal societies, and have never felt the way i do in china. all software engineers i have worked with have had one item of similarity no matter where they came from. all had been introduced to engineering by montgomery scott, aka scotty.

while talking to someone in china i wanted to use the recurring theme of kirk calling down to the engine room during a crisis and asking how long a critical reconfiguration would take. scotty would reply with something like, “it will take 8 hours captain”. kirk would command, “you have one mr. scott” and hang up without listening to further argument. scotty of course is the classic technical person professional, competent and a bit conservative. kirk is the classic business manager, dealing with stressful situations which the technology guys do not fully understand.

scotty is one of the reasons technical people run head long into hero mode. they were brought up on years of scotty proving that he could do 8 hours of work in one hour when the chips were down. he could perform under the highest pressure and quietly save the ship from destruction. technology guys eat this up, they want to play with their engines and do the impossible. with age and experience this might get washed away, but more likely technical managers just get better at anticipating dangers and managing up.

what does this have to do with china? when i said, “remember on star trek, when kirk would call down to scotty?” i was saw a confused stare and was told by the interpreter that the government does not allow chinese to watch star trek. my head was spinning with the concept of a part of the world, or worse a group of software engineers, who have not watched generations of enterprise crews accomplish the impossible. how can any software shop that does not expect a captain to leave the bridge and lose his life while patching the deflector array stay motivated to follow into crisis.

i asked if this upsets the chinese people. the reply was “we have become accustomed to the pain”, which is exactly what i mean about being told one thing that clearly means another. americans might reply “yell yes, and i am not going to take it any more”. malaysian’s might reply, “yes, but there is nothing we can do to change it”. the answer in china does not even admit the anger, it shades the truth.

as i reflect on this, i remember spock in “the wrath of khan” when he tells kirk that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. i also remember the federation has done away with private property and capitalism, while it understands self-sacrifice for the greater good. these are clearly ideas closer to communism than the decadent western ideals of enlightenment.

this all leaves me wondering what the leadership in china is so afraid of. why do they want to keep the federation away from the people?

let your engineers be scotty.

smooth journey

all relationships have bumps along the way. people have issues over all kinds of things: sex, money, children, religion are the big four. sometimes, it seems relationships are vehicles for issues more than solutions. you end up disagreeing about the most inane points of rhetoric, without really knowing why you would care as much as the conversation makes it seem. but, what if none of the items above are an issue? what can you find to disagree about if there is nothing else?

i was driving home from work recently and watched the high-end luxury sedan in front me do what i saw as a very strange thing. as we approached a speed bump, it slowed to a crawl and turned it’s wheels to traverse the bump on an angle. the road up the hill is two lanes, and to an american in a rush to attend a conference call, the maneuver appeared to be nothing more than attempting the block the road so as not to be passed. i barely notice this bump as i pass it every day, it is just not enough to slow me down.

i have seen other malaysian drivers do this slow diagonal approach to speed bumps, and made a note to ask someone about it when i got a chance. as the other car moved to the left and i cleared the very small obstruction, i moved right and accelerated. i bumped over the next two speed bumps and pulled into my complex without another thought. leaving cautiously crawling vehicles in my wake a normal event.

a week or so later i was driving with someone. the mood in the car was strained for no good reason, and i was attempting to navigate the emotional obstacles while allowing the navigational obstacles to pass quickly beneath the car. in the uncomfortable silence i noticed the car ahead approach another speed bump in the slow diagonal move. i decided to ask the forgotten question about this; and found that bumps can be constructed out of almost nothing.

my companion told me that the maneuver was taught as a way to protect the vehicle from damage. i understood that large speed bumps can do damage if taken to aggresively, but decided to use the discussion as a metaphor for social differences. my basic premise was that americans are taught to access the danger of obstacles and surmount them as quickly and directly as possible. i provocatively questioned if asians were conditioned to see all obstacles as requiring a slow and indirect approach.

as the conversation unfolded, i again used a passing acceleration to leave the car in front of me far behind. new bumps approached and were taken quickly and directly, a not to subtle reinforcement of my point. we quickly climbed over jalan bukit pantai, the decent faster than the initial climb. as the car bumped over the next yellow striped lump my answer to the social differences came with a simple answer, “we are more interested in a smooth journey”.

the generically western, or is it my personal, focus of ignoring the latent danger of others need for a smooth journey was brought into immediate focus. the benefit of approaching obstacles with caution, and being willing to take them less than straight on was ringing in my ears as we raced forward. i appreciated the dual meaning of the answer, impressed with the use of metaphor.

i probably should have taken the warning and slowed the car. i could have admitted that a smooth journey had merit. i could have tried a new approach to see if it would bring less damage. instead i watched the next bump coming, i said, “sometimes getting to your destination quickly is more important”.

the car hasn’t stopped working, but do you hear that rattle? those bumps might have shaken something lose.