stainedhead: thoughts on traveling the world

good life

2011-12-26T18:07:00.010+08:00

i woke up this morning to the quiet sound of falling rain. i love rainy days, but while on vacation in paradise, rain is a mixed blessing. today it would be a good thing, because my skin is crispy, painful, red and itchy from too much sun. rather than giving up on the beach, i decided to ride over to have breakfast. kopi bali and jaffle pisang was the thought, but just spending the time on the sand was what i was hungry for.

the day has been slipping by, and it's lunch time now. i just finished a wonderfully simple burger. it was served dutch style with mayonnaise, to which I added soya. empire meets local; or east meets west on the crossroads of trade. enjoying is all about finding the fusion. after this long in asia, i have given up on the idea that american burgers are the best way to eat. it's impossible to find them consistently, and using the local ingredients just make it taste better. i did skip the sambal sauce, there needs to be limits in life.

while sitting on the beach this morning, the third squall of the day passed. most of the other early beach-goers had abandoned hope during the second squall. it had lasted more than an hour, and prolonged tropical storms while sitting on the beach are just too much for most people. i waited it out because i had a feeling it was going to clear. at the first short break, i hopefully moved down to the chairs. minutes later the third gentle squall came through with another extended rain that brought visibility below VFR. i sat under an umbrella not made to protect anything from more than sun, and listened to the rain and surf. water dripped down my back, as i laid comfortably within the white noise cocoon.

as i walked back towards the cafe, i was coaxed into a visit to the beach-side massage hut. i amused myself by playing with a local kid whose mother was telling him to take a nap, while getting massaged by the aunties. it's hard to remember that they are my age. after 20+ years on the beach they look as though they have a generations head start on me. the beach community is a village of families who watch each other, we are just visitors to their lives.

it's when i experience others lives up close that i think about how blessed i am. i get to travel, but have people i love to keep in touch with while on the road. i never feel as though i am alone. my major fear 7 years ago. but while than learning to enjoy being solitary, i also learned that out of sight does not need to be out of mind. distance does not limit connection if you work on it. technology helps; sms, email, youtube and voice have all been used in the past few days to allow holidays around the world to be shared.

these are good days. the sun is out and the rain is losing its 60% chance of impacting beach time. i am drinking storm and i can feel the energy levels rising. it reminds me that i have been playing doom with a red light flashing; warning me to take cover. the trip feels like i have slipped into a quiet room, steel door protecting me from attacks, and i have found an energy pack to bring me back to health. just in time, because one more blast and i could have lost this level.

when ash was here this summer she told me that I was living large. she meant that expat housing, jockey parking, friends who own restaurants and the ability to slip away to the beach should be appreciated. sometimes i forget that, and i should apologize for my semi-occasional tantrums. i am not one of these 9 year olds, working on a beach selling bracelets and hoping for good luck to make a sale today. but sometimes, i do feel like the distracted kid being told to take a nap.

i get to have connected travel. i get to relax with my storm. i get to talk to the aunties, or strike up random conversations with nice strangers. i can go back to my hotel and take a hot shower, send my wet clothes to laundry, order a car for tomorrow's angel, and think about what i want for dinner. if i add in apple store purchases, and coming christmas presents, i know my bug is right. i am living large.

all I needed was a few days under a wet umbrella to realize:

this is the good life.

wishing you

2011-12-25T20:53:00.008+08:00

i am at dinner in a local restaurant with a sign board that promises mexican food. it also has indonesian, italian, chinese and seafood listed, so i am not sure what to expect. the staff appears to speak english and russian equally well, not sure if this is a hint that mexican should not be the feast of choice, but then again, that is what this whole trip is all about, exploring.

i spent the day at the beach. hiding under the umbrella, reconsidering the need to add sunblock to my packing list for the beach. i wrapped myself in a sarong-tudong and wondered how I had gotten so far without SPF enhancement. the days of sunblock magically appearing are gone, time to take responsibility for my own skin.

as the day wound down a large crack of thunder in the distance got me headed back. already late, i took a few intentionally misguided turns and ended up in a small back-road village. the sales-kids on the beach had told me about a barong tonight. there was an old gentlemen in a crisp white outfit I have seen at temple festivals. i slowed and asked him if the barong was here. he shook his head no, and pointed around the corner.

there was a crowd of men loitering next to the temple. one was holding a rooster dripping blood from its legs. money was being passed back and forth between the men; somehow i had found the islands christmas night cockfight. i guessed this was a different form of cultural event, just not one in the guide books. given the theme of the week, i parked my motorcycle and tried to merge into the crowd.

that merge was not simple, my presence was clearly unexpected. it caused more than several looks, and a few whispered comments. this is where common sense kicks in for most. in a village that the 5-star hotel crowd never sees, my peers would neither get here nor intentionally stay. i tapped into my inner gonzo journalist and started talking to locals in a rough english-indonesian mix and did the polite thing by placing a bet.

the next contestants were both scrappy looking. liking it dark, i bet on the black cock with psychedelic green coloring on his sides. as they brought the birds together to snap at each other, i noticed the size of the white cocks claws, and knew i had made my first cock-fight mistake. there is some saying about big feet and winning cocks, but the action was ready to start and i needed to focus. i decided to let the contest play out; my bet more of like an entrance fee than a wager.

the "fight" lasted about three minutes. the white bird kicked my colored bird's ass. my guy left with a chunk of his neck missing, but alive and able to lose another day. i had visions of being deep in mexico while watching the combatants, they seemed more beach-asian, with a laid back surfer approach to fighting, than the gangsters they and the homies could be mistaken for. back on the road i knew there was a lesson to be learned, i still haven't figured it out. it will come to me.

it rained while i napped and showered. it was dry by the time i was ready for my christmas feast. i rode over to the place i had seen the day before and found it mostly empty; with a local guy playing christmas songs on his guitar. music to go along with my natal enchilada.

"feliz navidad" was interesting because he sang the english parts with a thick accent and the spanish memorized without accent. i was singing along so it was the second verse before I actually listened to him and heard:

i want to miss you a merry christmas. i want to miss you a merry christmas. i want to miss you a merry christmas, from the bottom of my hot.

i was sure he was doing it that way on purpose. it's the perfect end to this day. semi-yoga, cafe, beach, cockfight, motorcycle, sunburn, nasi goreng, madi-kutu in the afternoon and acceptable mexican food with bintang besar and a guitarist that mistranslates to improvement.

this is the best release ever; wish you were here.

happy holiday

2011-12-25T10:29:00.011+08:00

i just paid USD 2.45 to drive my motorcycle onto one of my favorite beaches in the world and for an umbrella with two chairs to hide my burnt skin from the sun. i was met by smiles, "selamat pagi" and high fives as i walked to my chairs. i know the kids will swarm be again today, because i proved to be a good mark with the bracelet purchases yesterday. but i don't mind, it's part of the process of being remembered the next time i come to geger.

i woke up this morning and called family in the US. one call covered the kids, their cousins and my christmas purchase partner. I was able to send hugs to others opening presents in grandma's living room. my gift was hearing the fading sounds of christmas past. it was good to connect with a bit of holiday cheer. it's also important to remember where you came from.

i then called my mom and had a long conversation about moving forward when you just want to stop. she is missing my dad, but she got her rose today and has friends and family around her. we discussed afterlife on multiple levels, reminding me why i always loved the way she thinks; and how lucky i was for the conversations of my youth.

as I got to my umbrella I noticed clouds on the horizon. less than five minutes later it started to rain. big drops of tropical rain, shimmering against the blue sky just off the beach. the clouds look like they will pass off to the north, so i made a move to the sand-side cafe just before the rest of the beach caught on that the clouds behind them had malicious intent.

the tables around me are filled with other non-traditional christmas revelers. in front of me are the aussies with tattoo-surfer dad and happy mom who talked to me accidentally and then told me a joke about a wankers miscommunication in the men's room. to the side, a bit behind me actually, is a local transvestite who smiled at me shyly. she is with a P90X addict who seems to think no one has caught onto their ruse. the younger daughter from down under waited until they passed before asking mom if she was a he. more new friends on my favorite beach.

as i sit enjoying my morning storm, i am thinking about jk rowlings. i watched a profile on her this morning. not being particularly harry-fanatic i was not sure why i watched. the day was passing, and with it precious beach time. but the profile ended with a quote she delivered to a harvard graduating class.

the knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. you will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won...

the entire speech is titled "the fringe benefits of failure and the importance of imagination". when i read it, i found the paragraph immediately before this qoute was the real reason i was not able to leave the cafe on time this morning. some how, one of the jk out there was sending me a message. it was a message that i knew, but clearly i needed to hear:

failure gave me an inner security that i had never attained by passing examinations. failure taught me things about myself that i could have learned no other way. i discovered that i had a strong will, and more discipline than i had suspected; i also found out that i had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

the sun has come out and it's time to move back onto the sand. my storm is gone, and i have ignored the water for to long. i know that i now have the skills needed to see the rain before others and to get under cover before the crowds make a move. but i also know i can make friends in the strangest of places or moments.

even the happiest holidays can be in places you don't expect.

indonesian scrooge

2011-12-24T18:55:00.007+08:00

what do you do when you realize for the second time in 4 months you need to break with convention and escape your responsibilities? the past few months have been difficult. i have been hanging in more or less one week at at time. but weeks ago i knew i needed to escape. i looked at flights to asia/oceania locations with the hope of mexican food and good beer. it took me three days to decide on my second choice, a process of whittling hope and fear down to action.

as an american in asia, i am constantly asked if i am going home for christmas. it's a strange question because i am not really sure where home is anymore. if home is where the heart is, my heart is spread over the world. i do not have a singular location to go where all the people i love will be sitting together as a unit of holiday joy. there are my american and european families, both of which i feel joining would be intrusion.

i have two groups who i love in KL. one is a mixed bag of non-christmas people; atheists, communists, muslims, sort-of-muslims, hindus and buddhists. there are a few christians mixed into this group, but walls limit the sharing of holidays. there is also a fully formed family group who will be celebrating praise and worship without me. this is an interesting ensemble that i enjoy being a member of; but i did what i have always done during holidays, pushed myself away from the table.

my parents allowed this to become a tradition of mine. i am not really sure why i am this way, but i am. when the holidays loom, i feel the need to back away. i love the christmas spirit, the trappings of the holiday, the food and buying presents for kids, but i feel very uncomfortable in the family setting. thinking about it, it's not being together that bothers me but the thought that i might not get to be with the family at the next holiday. echoes of divorce bounce in my head as i am visited by the ghost of holidays past. i love the memories, i cherish them, but i will never be invited to join in again.

if the ghosts of christmas past are haunting me, the ghost of christmas present has been a warm and loving soul. she and i discussed my separation, and agreed that i needed to get away. there is mass missed, dinner and singing to follow. there will be no tree to wake up to, there will be no stockings to stuff. my ghost of christmas present is allowing me to get away, to sit in a cafe serving bad coffee and pseudo-parisian pastries, to listen to spa-christmas fusion muzak and to write alone. having gained enlightenment about being holiday-solo, i am not upset by christmas present. but then ebenezer wasn't either until he realized family missed him; or was it their pity.

this leaves me with the ghost of christmas future. with birth parents gone, siblings 25 years separated and acquired family lost in agreement, i can not honestly imagine a future christmas like any of the past. i can imagine a time-share christmas, the exact thing that i have been avoiding for 4 years. having a tiny tree at home sounds good, but being away on the beach has become a bit of a tradition now also.

i realize that i am dangerously close to bringing my ghosts with me on my impaired holiday. in some ways, this year is a dry run, a phased approach of escape followed by reconnection. i honestly wish i were able to enjoy the holidays without the angst, but as i said i know this is who i am, and i appreciate that my parents, living and dead, my ghosts and my children understand that being here is not a way to say that i don't want to be there. i want to be there more than anything in the world.

the scared kid who cried the christmas eve he found out santa was a evil hoax, the young man who closed the door thinking of a camera, the husband horribly allergic to christmas cheer and the sun burned pirate are all looking forward to many happy holidays to come.

haunted duck will be served, god bless us all, every one.

ugly malaysians

2011-10-14T21:08:00.013+08:00

while sitting in a cafe having a drink the incessant bleat of a horn began to waft in from from the street. this is a common sound here, it means, "dude you double parked your car and i a can't get by you, i need to go and you are nowhere to be seen, i am getting frustrated so wake up and move your car before i have an aneurism". this was taking away attention from my reading of an opinion piece, "less form, more substance", about malaysia needing a clear plan to move the country forward economically. the author's point was that there is more than enough infrastructure here, but that people's mindsets needed to change.

as the bleating increased in tempo, the woman sitting next to me looked out the window absently. as she continued her conversation she craned her neck to see where the horning was centered. i followed her gaze and saw three cars double parked down the street. this is when she dug out her keys and slowly got up to move outside. had the people who had been sitting there for 40 minutes having a leisurely lunch really parked a car in a way that obstructed others from getting by, and simply ignored the sound of horn for the past 5 minutes?

the woman walked toward the horning, but when she saw that it was not her illegally parked car that was the obstruction, she turned and happily walked back to the air-conditioned cafe with its happily kiwi coffee culture. she came into the cafe and re-took her seat, prepared to pick the conversation up where she had left it. unfortunately western culture comes with the concept of social peer pressure, something that does not normally happen here -- other than the anonymous reporting of suspect morality lapes to JAIS.

i turned to her and said, "hi, do you have your car double parked"?
she replied, "yes, we do".
i said, "can i ask why"?
she took a beat and looked at me, but said, "we are just stopping quickly".

i have been sitting here since they came in and watched them linger over a drink before ordering, see friends come in and have a quick catch up conversation, order lunch, wait for it to be delivered, eat lunch while talking and then order another drink to lepak over.

"really, you have been here at least 40 minutes and your car has been blocking other people the whole time? does that seem fair to you?"
she looked at me with open shock on her face, "well, there is nowhere to park".

this is friday, there are prayers going on and the area is busy, but there is plenty of parking for anyone willing to use it. there is an expanded version of her short-form sentence for those who know that it is just malaysian for: "there is no free parking available, and the parking that is available would require me to walk more than 50 feet. it's hot out, i am lazy and the police are all at prayers. no one is going to give me a ticket so i can do what i want without anyone saying anything about it".

with the local lack of social peer pressure, she is right, people will get back to their car 10 minutes or more after someone starts horning, and will just wave as though they had been in the car the whole time and was moving it immediately; the standard response is to say something in an unshared vernacular language and drive by.

i said, "there is jockey parking, BV2, jollygreen and BV. plenty of parking, off street and not blocking anyone. do you think it could be better to park there or to block the streets so that no one can get by. malaysian's talk about how bad the traffic is, but it could be that it's not too few roads or too many cars, but that people block streets so no one can get by. do you think this needs to be fixed so the country can get better?"

this is a complete stranger, and maybe i have no reason to get involved or take it on myself to question her on why she is so self-important that courtesy should not be followed. except that i use these roads, and are constantly blocked by illegally parked cars; or people driving against traffic on jammed oneway streets to avoid doing a longer loop, but that is another rant. the whole country is in perpetual grid lock because some clearly have an inability to line up in an orderly way; or to follow simple rules. if you live here, you know it's not everyone, but the ones that do this do tend to drive expensive cars and have the time and money to sit is kiwi cafes.

this is when she really got mad at me. i can tell she was mad because she took the standard malaysian approach of thanking me. this of course is either learned behavior from political groups, or a deeper cultural reaction to any questions from someone you feel is not in a position to question you.

she said, "thank you for your comments". this was delivered dismissively but with a quiver of outrage.
rather than push the point, i replied "you're welcome" and smiled with my best smart-ass exclamation point.

i am far from a saint, i am willing and able to break a rule. the last time i was in the US, i was driving above the speed limit and passed a truck. in the corner of my eye i saw the driver wave to me, which i thought was interesting. i looked over and saw that he was telling me to put my cell phone down. he wanted me stop talking, and probably slow down, to make the roads safer for others. i waved back, smiled the same smile i had just given this woman and accelerated down the pike.

asian culture reinforces a shame based society. the people who are double parking have no shame for doing it. "i am just running in" is a common excuse, even if they are clearly sitting and having a meal. it's also friday afternoon, when attendees are allowed to turn major roads into parking lots if they are close to the mosque. this is used as an other-cultural excuse to park illegally, along with the desire to take 3 hour lunches. this falls into the childish category of i get to do it because he does. i was sitting there having lunch, i am not throwing rocks at the lepak, but my being there had nothing to do with anyone else.

western culture is the guilt based system. guilt is inwardly imposed controls based on the conditioning to follow the rules. it is a self-control, rather than "what would people think", we live in a "i can't, it's wrong" culture. but to keep the system honest, you occasionally need negative reinforcement in the guise of informal social control. this is where the guy in the truck came in, telling me to hang-up and stop relying on unconscious driving skills to keep me alive.

but this is what is lacking here. or so i thought. as i turned back to the paper, the next article i saw was another opinion piece, the rise of educated 'ugly malaysians', by s. sundareson a retiree who appears to be leading the charge on fixing malaysian bad habits. his examples are illegally parking, running red lights, littering, wasting things they are not paying for and not attending meetings they have RSVPed. his piece has run in both of the major english newspapers here, but i wonder if any of the ugly malaysians are listening.

i wanted to show the couple with the car illegally parked, who where still lingering over drinks 30 minutes later, the article. but i thought that would be piling on, and clearly a breach. besides, i had lost all desire try to get through. it wasn't the dismissive thank you that did it. it was a few minutes later when:

the woman's companion said, "don't be upset. do you understand mandarin? ta [something] hundan".

dude, i already know i am an asshole.

sometimes, you need to be if you are going to be honest with people who don't want honesty. the real ugliness here is that people won't say it to your face, they switch languages and assume they are covered by language. this is why there are vernacular schools, to teach people how to talk behind others back. but let's be clear...

you don't need to listen to me, but i know what you are saying.

boy blue

2011-09-28T12:44:00.020+08:00

i am ignoring the world and passing the time until mass. i have been trying to get in touch with how i feel all week. emotions have been flowing since the phone rang in the middle of the night to tell me my father had died. when i asked when the funeral was, my sister said they were waiting to know when i would be back. but i had decided two years ago that when the time came, i would not fly home. i should have warned my family, but when does that conversation come up. no one understands, and i have been asked to consider what i am doing; no one wants me to live with regrets.

my father had a heart attack and stroke two years ago. my mom has been nursing him towards recovery ever since. as i watched from far away, i could not remind her that they sent him home to die, not to recover. there was no recovery, he was bedridden, had lost most of his mobility and communication skills. earlier this year, persistant open wounds forced them amputate his legs. when i called home she would tell me how he had gotten up and moved around a bit, or that he was having a good day, but i have known the days were limited.

when i was in college, we would blow off campus during exam season and drive over to the ocean. classmates were in the library or studying in the dorms, but once i had studied i knew that what i needed was to get away from the enforced quiet time that others required. it was best for me to sit in the back seat of the car and drink a beer, listen to music and talk to my closest friends. i don't remember a single conversation, but i can still feel the closeness of the group driving through the night; far from the acceptable behavior of studying or sleeping.

at the end of my sophomore year we were driving to the beach in the middle of the night. i was thinking about the coming summer, i would go home for a few weeks and then off to parris island for my marine corp summer camp. i would not be spending the summer with my family, but i was already spending my school year away, so this seemed like the next step.

i had called home every week the first year of college; sunday at 7:30 on the dot. it was the time between sunday mass and the return to my studies. i would call home and let them know how i was doing, what was going on in my life. but early in my sophomore year i had made the call, and after talking for a few minutes a frustrated voice on the other end asked me, "why don't you call and tell us good news. it seems like there is always something wrong. can you not call until you have good news to tell us?" i got angry, and tried to debate the point, but they hung up. i stood in the phone box, staring at the receiver which i then slammed down, twice. the following week at 7:30 i wanted to call, but still angry i refused to edit my conversation. i wanted to share, but the sharing had stopped. i never called regularly again, and 27 years of drift has happened in between.

later that year, when i told my father i was joining the marine corp to fly helicopters, he asked me, "are you sure about this? you don't like anyone telling you what to do." when i think back on the tractor accident, and premature end of my military career, i realize in some ways he might have been right. i have learned to take and execute orders, but i have always needed to make my own choices.

on that drive to the beach we had ROCK 101 was playing. i was in a quiet mood and for the first time actually listened to harry chapin's "cats in the cradle". i knew the chorus, but the lyrics had always blurred by unnoticed. this time i listened to the story of a father and son's relationship over the years. it begins with the son asking for the fathers time, and ends with roles reversed. it was in this moment that i understood my childhood, but i also saw my future and realized how i was moving away.

when we got to the beach, i zipped into a sleeping bag on the sand. as i laid listening to the waves with my girlfriend i started to cry. she had no idea what had set me off, she might have thought it was exam stress, but i was sobbing over a broken childhood that i had no ability to fix. i might have gone into software because i like to build systems, or to fix those that are broken, but this one was out of my hands. my childhood may also drive my need to be in control, but in those moments i had no control. i didn't explain the emotions that night, but i have gone back to them over the years.

i cried two years ago when i thought my father was going to die, i haven't cried this week. i want to, but i can't seem to push the button. it feels wrong, i am not going to stand over the casket so why do i get to shed the tears from the safe emotional distance that i am keeping.

the words that have always haunted me are from the end of the song, when the father calls and asks to see the son who says he is too busy... i have never believed he was busy, work is not an issue, just a convenient excuse. the father ends the call and says:

as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
he'd grown up just like me
my boy was just like me

i am divorced, i live away from my kids, i do enjoy work. but i am not my father. my father would have gone to the funeral, even if he didn't want to. i am not perfect, and i never needed him to be. i am sad that he is gone, and that we never found enough time to spend together. but i loved my dad, and i know he loved me. we just never really understood each other, and that is how i want to be different, i want my kids to know the person i am inside.

this is not the end of the song, because i am the father now and my kids need me to call and make time to be there; so they can know me. i live half a world away, and have been home for e's birthday 5 years running; i wonder if he has noticed that. either way, i know i am no longer the son, i am now the father.

the song ends with:

and the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
little boy blue and the man on the moon
when you comin' home son?
i don't know when, but we'll get together then son
you know we'll have a good time then

goodbye dad, i love you.

i am sorry we didn't get together then.

fundamental laws

2011-09-26T19:23:00.009+08:00

i am sitting in a cafe and watching two boys enjoying the confines of a playroom. their mothers are sitting outside and chatting over coffee. the blond boy continues to scream at the top of his lungs each time the possibly-asian playmate moves towards his toys. his american soccer mom continues to tell her son to shhhhhhhh and to move into the room to quiet his emotional outbursts. the semi-asian mom sits quietly in her headband and sweats as she and her son both politely ignore the noisy playmate. i am taking this in while watching "finding nemo" on the playroom dvd and reading a local paper to disguise my real focus.

the dominant story in the paper is over the proposed imposition of hudud laws in two of the more conservative states in malaysia. when this story first broke i assumed it was the majority party creating issues within the opposition as the general elections come closer. but if it started that way, the opposition has not been smart enough to side step the issue. PAS and DAP are now demanding the other side clarify it's position, and threats of leaving the opposition union are flaring.

the fact that hudud was passed by the states 10 years ago, and was shutdown as unconstitutional doesn't seem to matter. the advocates for this are fundamentally demanding that thieves have their hands cut off and that adulters be stoned to death. these are the mandatory punishments for these crimes in islamic law, but you can see how most of UNMO would be against their imposition. a week after the internationally positive press that ISA is being reformed, there is now a discussion of stoning people in public. you can sense the expat community, and many of the locals, cringe at the thought of universal sharia bedroom checks.

this story was placed next to the discussion of a church suicide-bombing in indonesia. the religious violence in the most populous muslim-dominant country continues to raise. the local paper stressed that the majority of the indonesian's are moderates. the international papers stressed that the country sliding down the slippery slope and again pointed out the 202 people killed 10 years ago in bali, and the muslims stoned to death by a crowd early this year. the leaders of that crowd were convicted based on the youtube video, they received 3 - 5 months in jail for murders committed with a policeman watching.

the members of the murderous crowd may have been directed by their leaders to protect their faith from less than orthodox beliefs. this could be similar to the statements made by pope benedict this weekend, saying the church could not accept gay marriage and urged young people root out evil in society and shun a "lukewarm" faith that damages the church. this is definitely a message to the non-orthodox majority of catholics, as well as those more fundamentally believing. you can imagine similar words being used to send the crowds out to stone less than acceptable muslims in indonesia.

there were other stories, bombings all over the world, conflict in nigeria, UN votes over palestine. the world economy is a complete mess, and people seem to find any reason they can to be at odds. all of this came into focus as i listened to the little boy wail with indignent pain because the other boy took the green truck and left him with only the red one. nemo was in the fish tank plotting an escape, but the boys were focused on the differences rather than coming to a common ground. the semi-asian mom sat serenely while the american mom fussed over the boys trying to solve the disruption.

this is when i came across the article, san francisco protesters: no nudes is bad news. it is a discussion of the nudist movement in the city by the bay, where they "generally allow public nudity". the malaysian newspaper did not have photos and was heavily edited from the original AP story. but did get the point across that people would like nudists in cafes to be polite and "put a cloth under their bottoms if they take a seat in public". the online version made it clear that is already the common practice.

this is a story which might only come out of san francisco, but it gives me hope. if i choose to focus on this story, i get to believe that the entire world is not degrading into conflict. the bay area has always been an early adopter and leader in cross-cultural acceptance; and cross-dressing. if soccer mom's taking their 7 year old to see the little mermaid could see the protest and simply say "i think you should cover up a little", then at least one part of the world can see something they disagree with and not need to kill the non-breeding nudist for the insult.

san francisco is a truly multi-cultural place. when malaysian leaders ask the people to modernize and become a high income nation they may not want to become san francisco, but they might want to consider it. to be truly successful we need stop the tension and allow the focus to be on success. debating lifestyles is not productivity, accepting that others are different is the progress this world needs.

when the taliban imposed fundamentalist islamic law in afghanistan they demanded women wear burqas and be escorted by male relatives outside the house. they completely shut down the economy, health care and education systems in kabul. san francisco on the other hand is one of the most successful cities in the world, it has cable cars, a great museum out on alcatraz and wonderful wine in foodie havens on the embarcadero. it also has naked guys walking around the street and moms who do not ask for anyone to be stoned to death, appendages cut off or even beaten with a stick.

the kids have stopped playing, the caucasian mom ended the playtime by taking her son into her lap and rocking him to sleep. the possibly-asian kid waited for this mom to get him, which she did when it was time to leave. i am here thinking about the US, but glad that i didn't need to worry if the last person who had this table was naked and refused to put down a cloth when they sat.

i am fighting an emotional outburst of my own right now, it's not over the newspaper or that someone took my toy. maybe i should just let go and scream, but i can't seem to break through. in the mean time, i suggest we allow others to live on the bell curve wherever they want, burqa to bare, halal to haram, let them be and don't get emotional. if you get upset, find a mom and ask her for a hug. watching that kid fall asleep was oddly soothing...

i wonder if there's a law against that.

schweddy balls

2011-09-22T15:39:00.010+08:00

people don't really understand why i miss the US. it's not all the time, i like malaysia, in fact that might be why i am still here. there is incredible room for growth here, it is just stagnated under a culturally imposed corruption and social constriction. other than the promised to be repealed, or was that replaced, ISA and EO most of the fear in this country is self imposed. what we need here is a sense of humor, and the ability to say/do stupid things. because, sadly, that is what drives the economy.

if you don't believe me, i have an example. i was sitting in a cafe, and reading NPR when i came across the example. national public radio is a news organization in the US which is funded by the US government and it's listeners. they are tasked with being high quality and free of government interference with content. that doesn't really have impact on this story, but if MY locals are reading imagine news that lacks censorship, is not biased by any government overseers and has the freedom to report as they see the truth.

for example, try these articles:

you might notice differences between those and articles that run in the NST or Star, beyond the quality of the writing.

as i read i came to an article titled: Stop 'Schweddy Balls' Effort Begins

the article is about an organization that says:

"Are you tired of all the negative influences our children are forced to contend with?"

and

"Our goal is to stop the exploitation of our children, especially by the entertainment media (TV, music, movies, etc.)"

to further these goals they have taken a stand against ben & jerry's ice cream for its limited edition product, 'schweddy balls'. beyond the fact that its a dumb name that no child under 15 could pronounce, it's not even targeted towards children. ben & jerry's is a premium ice cream and shelved well above kids view. the press release actually points out the companies last limited edition product that the less-than million moms had an issue with:

"a special edition of Chubby Hubby called Hubby Hubby last year which celebrated gay marriage"

and there we are. the mom's aren't seem pissed at the balls, they are still pissed at the company for failing to support "family values" and celebrating loving families that happen to have 4 balls, rather than the assumed mom accepted standard of two.

i might have taken a while to get to the point here, but here it is. all of this is happening without the national leadership condemning the impact to "social harmony".

a conservative religious group is looking to boycott a liberal-hippie company for a product that spun out a skit on saturday night live. SNL was making fun of NPR for being news of the liberal intelligentsia, which just happens to be the target market of the B&J's products. SNL is owned by GE, one of the largest companies in the world, NPR is largely government and private donation funded and no one is making a police report that tina fey told a baldwin brother she wanted to taste his balls on television.

the only coverage is about a product, and a fringe group that is calling for a boycott no one is going to engage in. a news outlet is then publishing that as news, which gives added coverage to itself and the product. the real result will be for people who haven't watched SNL at midnight on saturday since belushi left will now go out and buy a product they would never have noticed. exposure drives the economy, and humor helps drive that exposure. having semi-stars make fun of a radio network my daughter gets a headache from listening to is not news until someone without a sense of humor makes an issue of it for them.

what is it that i miss about the US? it could be the lack of censorship, definitely the lack of ISA and RELA, but really what i miss is a sense of humor. in the US they get to laugh at the skit, at the ice cream, at the repressed moms for the press release and at the NPR for picking up the story. i asked a few malaysians around me to try to pronounce the title, they looked shyly away and said "i don't know". come on, you need to try say it, its all about the

schweddy balls.

small world

2011-09-17T15:37:00.012+08:00

after breakfast today i went for a walk on the beach. the waves here crest quickly and break close to the shore. there are strong tides and the beach is marked with the red flag that warns that it is closed for swimming. as i looked down the beach there were a few people bobbing in the waves on the miles long beach, but it was otherwise nearly deserted. i thought about the european sailors who would have seen this beach for the first time from their boats. how could they have seen this and not swam ashore to stay and frolic in the waves? maybe because they had seen so many other beautiful beaches ... okay, but why would they ever go back to england?

i have used the word paradise a few times in this blog, and there really are places in the world that are as close to paradise and one could get. but if you needed to go out and find a place to live, where would it be? as i sit under palm trees and listen to the waves coming ashore, washed in warm tropical sun, i wonder why anyone would select a location that involves the harshness of my childhood winters. i remember making angels in the snow, but i also remember falling on my aching ass because i did not break the ice on the stairs when my father asked. we are not really made to live in those conditions, being iced is not a good thing.

the selection process had to be easier when the bounty sailors looked ashore to tahiti. an open culture, an established trading system for necessities, chiefs who welcomed the ferengi ashore and offered them land and status to stay. but the modern world is more difficult. travel is fast, and information travels faster. we can watch the events of a far off situation unfold from nearly anywhere in the world. the world is smaller, with more options.

as you look over the world, where would you pick to live? bali is nice, but has no economy beyond tourism; with crazy traffic on anything including a motorcycle. amsterdam is nice, love bicycles, but needing to speak anymore dutch than i do would hurt. goa sounds nice, european influence and a desire to not be called indian, but i would spend all my time searching for the bridge that marie died on.

i don't have an issue working on my spanish, but don't really want to learn portuguese, i have had my fill of fringe languages. finding somewhere with english as a common language would be great in fact.

i prefer it socially relaxed, there has to be no issue with alcohol and pork; in fact a strong beer culture with tasty IPAs would be great. a cosmopolitan environment, that looks beyond color and orientation is a must in fact. it must have a newport-quality arts culture, so i can walk into galleries to poke around between the beach and coffee in a cafe. the closest i can come up with is bondi beach. the beach is nice, i would love to join that lifeguard club on the west point (the first official live saving club in the world), book, record and surf shops and great food all around; relaxed people playing between the flags.

there is also something i like about living in a place that was established as a penal colony, and that was a favorite destination for troubled irish to be deported by our engles overseers. the downside is cost of living, it feels like the overseas alternative to moving to venice beach. but venice has native burrito shops and quality medical care easily available, while NSW is still sadly behind the times in modern beach side comforts.

i was thinking about a house somewhere in baha california. buy a piece of beach, put up a doublewide and have a boat to take tourists out during the season. i have never been a fisherman, but i used to row so the other guys could catch off the "ship of fools", this would be the late-adult version of that. good weather, spanish and english, slow paced. it all sounds good, but how do i get back here and see the andaman sea again? how do i get back to bali and visit my ubud auntie friend who sells me batiks. she smiles as soon as i walk up, and gives me a hug. can i decide to leave that behind?

it's too early to come up with a retirement plan. i should just go back to the villa and read my book on born liars. the book talks about how lying helped drive the explosive evolution of humans over our cousin primates. it argues that we needed to learn to lie to compete in ever larger social groups. humans are known to have evolved to live in groups of 150, and later into villages of 1,500, this is significantly larger than the other higher apes groupings. lying helped us do it, driving our need for larger brains and the ability to project ahead.

but our world is much larger now. we have so many options, to travel, to meet and know others, to experience cultures. i am watching the sun drop towards the horizon, and i am so glad i am here. this trip was taken because i missed the US and needed a break, but if i said i was ready for a change and knew how to make it with a perfect choice... i would be lying.

if asked right now, i would think of cousin avi and say, "yeah, don't go to england"

slow train

2011-09-17T13:39:00.010+08:00

i am so relaxed. i am away, and i have absolutely nothing to complain about. i am laying on a rounded couch, under a roof. there is music playing, i can hear the waves from the andaman sea coming ashore. the day is slow and easy. i am at sala resort phuket, quietly tucked onto the near deserted beach; and far-far removed from the patong craziness further down the island.

the draw of this resort is three fold, pool suites with a literal wall of privacy, beautifully quiet surroundings and an american chef who serves begniets and sublime american pancakes for breakfast. add to this quesadillas lacking the metallic anti-taste of malaysian beef, or the heaven sent chorizo version which was not on the menu but was easily made on request, and you will understand that this is a get away that helps me go home. it has none of the KL tightness, the price is what you would pay in the west for a comprable resort -- and the staff and service reflects it.

three weeks ago was the "malaya day" holiday, it happens to fall dangerously close to my birthday, and the desire to balik antarabangsa felt like the sweaty cravings of an addict. but i had just come back for a tranquil family retreat in bali and thought another trip would be indulgent. i chose to follow the lead of saint augustine and deny the urge for pleasure. i remain within the counter-pleasure city, reminded of the the settlers who stayed next to the muddy river. KL once again taught me that it's lack of quality and style are not a mistake, it's cultural and by design. it must be, why else would it be so sadly consistent.

my birthday gift, a compromise, like giving methadone to dull the craving, was to check into sunway villas, which promised villa suites with pools and private walls, there is the KL version of a beach near by and there was the promise of "american" pancakes to wake up to. along with this was the addition of a steak dinner at the cities highest rated beef kitchen. i loved the presents, because they were given with love, but they were also like a toy that breaks the first time you use it. the disappointment is not with the giver, but with the lack of value in the producer.

the sunway villas were jammed between other buildings, stacked onto a hill, where vans were needed to crawl up the hill but were too large for the tracks built for buggies later proved to underpowered for guests and baggage. the sunway resort beach was close enough to see, which also meant the sound of waterpark entertainment was constant. but the most lacking element was the "pool" which was ten foot square and only three feet deep. too small for a proper plunge, and completely impossible to enjoy a swim for two. add to this under-trained staff and the theft of the credit card account, later used to purchase internet video games, and the overall experience was more one of guilt for lacking cost benefit. we will not even go into the USD 200++ steak that was good, but far from what i thought i was ordering; or the pancakes that were as american as the honey they tied to pass off as maple syrup -- twice.

so, here we are. we decided on the trip at the last minute, because i was told i needed to get out of town. it was somewhat of a ... take a break and reset after a couple of stressful weeks. this is a place that we knew we would enjoy, and was the compromise to my "i need to be in the US, i need a taco, let's go to LA next week... okay too far, what about hawaii?". the food, the alcohol, the waves, the walls, the pool, the irish coffees before bed and the massage hut for 400 baht (USD 13) all sounded so right.

the upside is that it has been better than expected. i was having steak and eggs for breakfast this morning. the coffee and beignets before had been wonderful, and the special request to replace the fried egg with a small portion of the chorizo scrambled eggs and a side of the black pudding was met with a "thank you ka". they delivered the smoothies which were the suggested drinks for the day, and a flood of memory came over me. the banana-strawberry lassie tasted exactly like my first favorite alcohol drink, brick alley pub's slow train to mazatlan, i just needed to get them to add peach brandy and light and dark tum. could it be true, could i take this comfort weekend to the next level by getting back on the train to home?

it was a very fast negotiation, jame the bartender and i worked out the mix, found a pitcher, struck a price for my ticket and within 10 minutes i was transported back with a properly tasting drink to go with my yummy breakfast steak (built into the room rate no less). this weekend might have been indulgent, but it was also exactly what i needed. being in KL can be beyond frustrating, with very limited exceptions you see things half done with no recognition or embarrassment for the lack of success. you live with an eye to the day when the quality that you need to remain and be happy will be replaced with a crappy substitue jammed next to a noisy waterpark.

if this is a drug, and i am an addict, i am okay with it. because it feels good, and the majority of the peninsular pleasures are not able to strike the chords of pleasure. this is why people work, why i stay, because i get to feel the quality that comes with it. it's the wonderful things that standout and shine, those that you get to enjoy just being around that make the difference.

happy hour is not for two more hours, but i am already there. i am on a slow train and i am feeling good.

missing options

2011-09-01T13:37:00.006+08:00

a month ago i was on an island paradise, walking in the jungle, trying to work my way down the terraced hillside to see the river at the bottom of the valley. the manager of the resort had told us that the two local rivers came together a bit down stream and the male and female flows come together as one. he said this was a sacred place, because of the combined energy. i didn't know if the river below was male or female, and i wondered if i would be able tell when i saw it.

as i walked through the trees, there was an erie calm. this was real jungle, and i really had no reason to be out here. but i was in paradise, staying in a resort with all the amenities expected to accompany private villas, and here i was tromping along in running shoes and cargo shorts. walking through the jungle is not as easy as it looks. vines reach for your feet with each step, and the idea that a snake is underfoot never really goes away. focus needs to be kept down and forward, not natural for someone conditioned to looking up and scanning the horizon for coming issues.

i wondered how much harder this would be in a truly dangerous environment. i had gotten here by walking down a flight of stairs and past some tiki poles. i imaged other americans taking flights to jungles in asia, and being sent out to walk in the jungle near rice padis. in their case punji sticks were the wood carvings along the way. i took a beat and looked around, a beautiful valley with gender-ambiguous river below and smoke in the air.

the smoke was coming from a small hut in the woods ahead. the hut had a fire burning, and when i got closer i saw a woman sitting over the flames burning a pile of branches. rather than just passing, i went over to take a picture, we had a conversation in broken-bahasa and i learned she was there to keep the jungle clear. she burned some of what she cut, and feed the rest to pigs back in her village. as we spoke, i realized there were few guests at this zen resort who ever met this hidden member of the staff.

a month later, i keep flashing back to this encounter. as i go through my day, i wonder if she is there cutting and burning the jungle into submission. talk about a job that never ends, the jungle never stops growing. i wonder about her years before, making choices on career day. did she sit down and think, i want to work in the jungle and almost never talk to anyone? are there annual reviews with this role? does she have KPI that are measured with smart criteria?

this is clearly a career that comes from narrow options. i have been to this paradise before, there is work out there for someone who is mobile, has language skills and is willing to interact with visitors. this is probably true almost anywhere. if you are willing to move, can communicate and are willing to work, you have options. not having options... maybe that comes from inside. do we take options off the table because we do not want the choice?

my boss reminded me yesterday that i have a pretty good life. i was standing on my expat-balcony overlooking the swimming pool, the sun was shining and i was headed into work so i could run on the treadmill i have inside my office. things are pretty good, even with cobras next to my car, the literal rats-nest in the air-con over my desk and the strange costs of living here. i have to admit that most of the time i am very happy, even if i am missing opportunities.

i would like to be back in the US. i would like to drive down to venice beach, have a burrito and watch the performers. i would love to go to newport beach and eat dinner at flo's; maybe pj would show up and we could have a beer over clams. but what really makes me happy is that i have options. i look forward to finding a loft and being part of the gentrification of a less than perfect part of town; it will still be nicer than KL. i can do these things, or almost anything else i want. some options would take a visa, others i could just go and do. but not today, today i am just happy being busy and watching the growth around me.

some days might feel like i am cutting back a jungle, or avoiding punji sticks, but then i remember that a quick walk up the hill and i get to kick off those shorts and hop into the pool. taking a swim in the middle of the day is an option that most people do not have, but i have learned that if i focus i can. the best part is that there are people who i can swim with, or who will pass me a towel when i climb out.

having the pool is good, but sharing the swim is the real fun.

calling celibacy

2011-09-01T11:26:00.007+08:00

people talk about the one that got away. that person that could have made them whole, could have brought happiness to their lives and given them the contentment they so deeply crave. i understand this, because we are our choices. what we experience in life is a direct result of the decisions we make the the directions we take. life is good if you allow it, but some people continue to carry regrets. someone just said, "we do what we are", and that made me think about a career choice i didn't make.

i went to college in a catholic school. a major part of the initial curriculum, were the religion/philosophy class requirements. the overall core was comprised of three philosophy, three theology, four humanities (code for religion-philosophy); with added english, foreign language and art credits. these are clearly all the skills needed for a teacher to coach american football, to helo-cast US marines into combat or to manage a software-engineering team. reading homer, cervantes and machiavelli were good, but not directly applicable to what i do now; machiavelli does have its lessons.

i remember a night during my freshman year, reading in the dorm, when i was presented with a choice. i was reading about saint augustine and the situations of desire that were presented to highlight his begotten youth were familiar. anyone who had been in the van from the beach to the fenway, with the side trip to boston's combat-zone, could envision what the father of celibacy had experienced. being brought up catholic was just enough to feel the guilt and want to escape the pleasures.

this was the moment when it happened. for the first time i considered joining the priesthood. this was the moment of "calling" that i had been warned of, a gift that i was expected to embrace. i was being given a vocation, i was being invited into the fold. it felt as though i being called up from double-A ball and was being given a shot at the show; a very long shot with my arm. a chance was presenting itself that i had never considered, that i never thought i would be allowed. i had avoided all the predecessor conditioning steps, while my best friends were ringing the bells at mass, i was still on the beach and here i was, getting the nod.

i took a breath and considered it; rather than be overcome with the chance, i did the math. i was at a benedictine school, i didn't see myself as a parrish priest, but i felt more like a dominican (a hound of god), than living the "ordered life" of a benedictine. would i need to live the monastic life? what if the abbot role was filled, would i need to travel to move up? celibacy, was that complete or was there a hall-pass available? could i still have children? maybe the eastern orthodox church had more flexibility, but those robes and hats....

the entire process took no more than a minute or two, and i passed. augustine made his case, but i had always thought it went a little to far. a few days later while talking to the future abbot of the local order, i told him i had received an offer but had passed. i asked what he thought, he was unable to stifle the laugh that escaped. brother was a sensible man, and is trusted by the order to lead now, so i am sure i made the right choice. but since there have been times, when i wonder.

i look good in black, i have the ability to enforce rules that i do not agree with and i feel the best when helping someone through a situation. the fact that i get bored and go out and find projects to keep myself occupied, especially ones that don't focus on the party line, could be an issue. my libertarian hedonism and agnosticism could be another. but times are tough, maybe there is room for us both to reconsider this. i am too old to join the military, and i heard someone in his 60s became a priest. so there is time, but some of the rules will need to be bent; i come with a personal angel.

if you are really serious, you can call me again and we can discuss the specifics.

avoiding balik

2011-08-29T13:42:00.008+08:00

it is hari raya weekend. this is time is equivalent to the thanksgiving of the malaysian community. a time when seemingly everyone exits the city and goes home to kampong. it is time to celebrate the end of fasting and beginning of the month of feast. years ago, my first raya was an experience of KL emptiness, as though a dystopian event had descended and driven the population into the hillside. it was actually the cultural bias to return and spend time with the family who had not transitioned into the emerging-modern world of KL. so why is it different this time, the city is full, the cafe is loud. where is the desire to go home?

the downside to having the city full the coming week is not severe; it's just not what was hoped for. KL is a place that ebbs and flows with the holiday calendar. this weekend is the combined holidays of medeka and hari raya. merdeka is a semi-secular holiday of independence from british colonial rule. hari raya is the two day festival that marks the end of the fasting month of ramadan. they are overlapping this year, making for a holiday week, because of the islamic lunar calendar which moves ramadan forward a month each year. given the length and importance of the break, it has been expected to provide space for those of us who are without kampong.

in prior years, balik kampong would empty the city. the streets would be clear, the restaurants would be empty. i should have seen the signs of this not happening this year, over the past few weeks i have asked if places would be closed, and each said they would be open. the person saying they would be open normally said it with a tone of disapproval. they appeared to want to be closed, but some owner was forcing them to be open. they are not yet comfortable to openly condem the decision, this stage of maturity only gives them the teenager angst and glare.

these were fully expat locations, coffee shops owned by kiwis and weak-copies of US hamburger or pizza places. the latter owned by mysterious malays who happily sell beer while restricting pork, but who also recognize that the economic opportunity of selling pizza to a chinese family out weighs the need of their staff to go home to mom's house and enjoy the feast of thanksgiving. actually as i think of this, this does seen like progress. economy over imaginary friends and time with mom.

on the demand side of this, there are more people who appear to have nowhere to balik. i have overheard conversations about this by locals, those who never returned on these breaks have been wondering why so many people are making the choice not to go. the common thread seems to be that family back in the hills have either died off, or have moved to KL to be cared for by the younger generations. there is no reason to go back if mom is already here.

maybe this is the right time to stipulate a few points. i have not been home is almost a year. the two homes i have in the US are both sitting unvisited, long flights away. emotionally i do not feel the need to go home for this holiday, i probably would not have gone to my isolated island family this weekend if i were there. there was a drop-off that needed to be done in the mountains, driving hours through a depressively overrated tropical storm. but i just spent the summer with 2/3 of the people i needed to celebrate, and the flights are literally a pain in my ass.

as i sit with my espresso roma, i am thinking of jodie foster's movie "home for the holidays". it is a celebration towards the sadly-average american family. through the haze of turkey, you feel the dysfunctional loving embrace of people who drive each other completely crazy, and from whom they cannot escape. in this clip you will see a strong resemblance of my father saying a thanksgiving blessing. for a more painful image, watch the infamous turkey scene; carving much to close to the bone. there are painful images, but they represent the peril of spending time with people who know the complete truth, even as the truth comes out; or returns from days long past.

this is what spending time with close family is all about. being able to remember the good old days, embracing your childhood, and dropping the pretension of adulthood. but it can come with a painfulness that you hoped you left behind. the awkwardness of youth can creep back to the surface and if you are not careful you might get hosed down on the front lawn. i don't see the local family being as honest, or is it brutal, with themselves as is jodie's purely american story.

KL is normally a crowded, but empty, city. this week we hoped for a simply empty city, but it's not happening. the crowds remain, which could be indicative of the weight that the city continues to gain on the population. if there is no other place to go, it could be that the villages are no longer holding a rural attraction, or it could be that people just want to stay home and be out of the rush. either way its another sign of change here. the people of KL are less kampong-centric, the emptiness is not what it used to be.

i need to watch for the next ebb, and may need to balik with the flow.

wanting air

2011-08-27T13:45:00.008+08:00

i am sitting in a cafe, trying to waste time while work i could have done is being done by someone who didn't want to do it. i need to stay out of the way, so i am taking up space in a crowded cafe. a friend of mine walked in about an hour ago, when he sat down he said, "i thought i would find you here." he didn't expect me to be out on my bike, or showering after a run, he thought i would be here with my laptop, book and a coffee in front of me.

i am a creature of habit, i find routines that allow me to control the quality of my day. my basic wardrobe of jeans, polo and running shoes has been comfortably mine ever since i walked into the preppie haven of potter & co as a teen. i have replaced the alligator with a polo player, and i no longer feel the need to cut the branding away. the teenaged false-rebellion of creating holes to highlight my "conspicuous consumption" has faded away into enjoyment of simple and consistent quality.

i also have a strong drive to search for new and shiny toys to play with. the friend sitting next to me asked if i could be any more apple-branded. macbook pro, iphone and ipad splayed across the table, i smiled and turned the computer so he could see that i was shopping for a replacement air to fill the gap of the one going off to college this weekend. a purchase that i definitely do not "need", but that i might want; it's an ongoing debate. i am using the weight of 17 inches to justify the want of air. the extra-ness of the pro makes it less than portable, but is that enough to excuse the cost of going light.

i have been exercising every day this month. this is in stark contrast to the many months before when exercise was an afterthought of missed regret. for over a year, i have tried to get into the groove needed to sustain this effort, but was not emotionally tied to the benefits. i didn't want it enough to invest in making it happen. this was a purchase that just missed the cut of desire. i would have needed to pull away from the desk, or spin away at home, and that was too much for the perceived gain; gain through loss is a hard sell.

what tipped the logical analysis into the negative was the lower near-term benefit. many people are driven by fear-induced choices that go along the lines of -- if you don't do "x", bad things will happen, so hurry up and do "y". the y here for purchasing the lesser weight and lowering the drag of age and size could have won. being lighter is a good thing, i was never debating that, but having the biggest screen is a good thing too. the weight reinforces the existential substance, like driving the swedish engineered sports-wagon, rather than the italian designed sports-coupe. i have always been more wagon than coupe guy, i love the sound of the heavy doors closing around me.

this still leaves me with a decision, do i go to see my chinese apple guy and walk away with the light as air toy, or do i carry the full-sized wagon that i love; considering the weight every time i heft my messager bag onto my shoulder. the newly jobless apple has recently upgraded the line, there is a new processor and a new lion inside the box. but it feels like a waste to have another box to play with, my repressed catholic-protestant guilt is shining through and questioning the "need" to go light.

what if i wait another month or two? there are rumors that a larger air is on the way. i should be considering if another two inches will be sexy enough to cause regret after the smaller purchase i can make now. but bigger is not always better. thin can be a goal of its own, for myself and for the shiny curved cases i crave. i am going to go for a run, and think about the unbearable lightness of being attracted to air.

the act of burning loss may help me decide if losing my air is reason enough to invest in lightness.

sexy heavy

2011-08-14T15:37:00.004+08:00

i was talking to my daughter a few years ago and she was telling me about winning a race and how good it made her feel. we were discussing her successes in life and how good she felt about it. which was when she brought up how others might look at her and see her as heavier than a star swimmer and captain of the tennis team is expected to be. she laughed at it and said she was happy with how she looked and felt, society might expect thin as the norm, but her body let her feel strong while she was kicking some skinny girls ass in the pool. i had to smile, because attitude goes a long way.

i have been on a roller coaster of weight for most of my life. i have fallen into a 7 to 10 year cycle of loss, maintenance and long-slow gain. to be fit, i need to exercise. i don't mean go to yoga, or take a walk, i mean hard work to burn the weight off. the last time i did this, i took a break from work and got control of both diet and exercise. i kicked my own ass as often as i could muster. i was taking my bike out into the mountains, and dragging my fat ass up hills that i didn't think i could make it to the top of. when i did find the crest, gravity added to spinning hard in the highest gear would provide an endorphine rush of speed that balanced the pain of the climb.

i dropped so much weight so quickly that summer, rumors started that i had cancer. i was actually very healthy, but even at the most dedicated, deep inside i knew i could not sustain the effort and denial it took to be 195 lbs (88.5 kg). i looked great, i felt great, i was able to take my multi-sport varsity athlete out on the bike and crack him open like a walnut as he struggled to climb with me. but it was not enough. i like to sit in front of a computer, fly on an airplane, or lay on a couch more than i like riding up those hills. i put my need to tri below my groups chance to win.

the difficult part of forcing myself to stay in shape is that i don't see myself falling out of shape. yes, i have noticed that i have gone through two sets of clothes since moving to KL. the shirts i was wearing when i first got here are now dress-down friday options for my girlfriend. i have written about being offered business cards by attractive chinese women who want me... as a client for their weight-loss program. i am not beyond understanding that people no longer see the high-school athlete, the college lifeguard, the twenty-something runner, the thirty-something cyclist or the 40 year-old triathlete. they do see the out-of-shape workaholic, who always seems to have bronchitis but who is surprisingly still happy with how he feels.

i know people who get upset by putting on 5 or 10 lbs. i am not sure if this is the norm, but i don't feel it. i have the ability to gain 5 lbs in a single week, and tend to do so when i am flying on business. the issue is that it takes me 50 lbs to really get motivated to do something about it. less than that, its just not enough of a challenge, or enough of an issue to worry about. i feel more guilt from having someone walk into my office while i am running than i do at the thought that someone sees me as fat. i would rather be a slacker for not exercising than to be accused of doing something for myself when i could be working.

besides, i am not unhappy with the way i look. i don't love the shape, but my personal impression of myself isn't something i dislike. i am not perfect, but overall i am far from worried about how i look. i can still exercise, last year i climbed one of the highest areas of the great wall, faster and stronger than the younger people around me. in many ways i have never been more at ease with who i am.

but, i have reached a tipping point. i have known it was coming, it really is getting harder to run. i feel less comfortable moving around. it's time to feel the burn, to drive the demons of my inner-slacker away. i am 46 years old, i have gotten my allergies back under-control after a week in beijing that tipped me over into two months of asthma induced coughing. work, at least this week, does not appear to be in crazy-mode so i am going to recover from the past 5 years of not taking the time to ensure there was less of me.

i ran 4 times this week, i cycled twice and all of it felt great. i weigh in at 285 lbs (129 kg), 50 lbs more than i could be. i like myself as sexy-heavy and as beaten into shape. it might be unfortunate that i do like both, if i disliked the over-achieving-weight of myself more it could be easier for me to start the burn earlier.

but happiness comes from within, and inside i am good and happy. that being said, the inner athlete needs to dig his way out. i am older, but i also know i enjoy the pain more today than i ever have. let the pain begin then, because we are now on the down hill, and that is when the speed picks up and the endorphines flow.

when i get there, just remember, i am still that sexy-heavy guy. he is inside no matter how hard i try to burn him off. and, i am always happy the ash is there.

prosecuting gandhi

2011-08-14T15:00:00.003+08:00

when i was younger i considered a career as a lawyer. my liberal family would have hoped that i would become a defense attorney, maybe not a public defender, but someone who would stand up for the accused and provide them with the best defense possible. the problem i had with this was the collection of friends i had as an early teen. they had provided me with the insight that most of those accused were guilty. rather than getting guilty people off, i wanted to help put them away, protecting society from the mayhem.

growing up with near-hippy parents, and wanting to be the protector of the conservative social order could sound strange. but having lived in a chaotic situation, you begin to understand why rules are put in place. as one of my college professors said, "there are lions and there are lambs, you need to decide which you want your children to be". i somehow grew up with the shaggy hair, and protective demeanor of a shepard dog. sitting on the hill, watching the flock and ready to intervene to keep the lambs from the lion.

but when i came time to go to college, i did not find a pre-law track, i went education. i believed it would be better to intervene earlier, to teach the lambs to think for themselves rather than needing to be led through life through fear of the shepards crook. none of this turned out as planned, i never taught, i found a path that allowed me to design and build automation rather than social systems. but as the years have passed my desire to tightly control has been replaced with the original freedoms of the liberal environment i developed within.

spending 4 years watching the cloistered monastic communities of my university years struggle against the modern realities of the post-enlightenment years, trying to reconcile a conservative framework with the the entitlements and opportunities of the educated futures they were building, convinced me that closed was not the way for me. the portraits of human greatness ended with mahatma gandhi, the father of modern india and creator of non-violent civil disobedience called ahimsa. reading the material, brought into sharp contrast how a conservative regime can be overcome by allowing them to attempt to strangle freedoms from their people.

the intervening years have allowed me to learn much more about myself and the the world than i ever could have known during college. i have resisted change myself and felt the irrationality of trying to hold back the tide. i am currently witnessing change similar to the 1960s collapse of the conservative order of post-WW2 america. a country pushing itself in two directions at once, and feeling the tension of straining against itself.

i am very glad i didn't become the protector of conservative order i thought i wanted to be in my youth. embracing the liberalism of modern-life has given me the opportunities i have so throughly enjoyed. i once said i was not a role model. at the time i was quoting charles barkley without thinking about the new role i was taking on. a life and a half later, i recognize that i am a role model, but maybe not the one my early conservative self would have expected.

there was a story in the journal a few months ago that discussed a new book on gandhi. the title of the book is great soul, the message is that gandhi was a complex man who lived in a time when the modern world was evolving. he is also a man who embraced a celibacy while married to a woman, wrote letters to a man describing him as the love of his life, and who lost close associates from his inner circle based on his "experiments" of sleeping naked with young girls. the book only focused on these points by publishing gandhi's own words, and never drew conclusions. the book, of course, caused strong reactions from those who have put the man on a pedestal and refuse to accept him as a man with personal demons.

the issue with taking a conservative view, and attempting to defend it, is that new details come to light, and you are forced to square them with an out of date set of believes; this can cause intense pain. conservatism comes from the latin conservare "to preserve", while liberalism comes from the latin liberalis "of freedom". as the world opens up, and conservative threads continue to unwind, those who give themselves the freedom to learn and experience life are in a better, less painful, position. they are not trying to hold back the tide that is coming no matter how hard they resist.

gandhi more than the symbol, he was a man and lived a much more complex life than we were led to believe. that does not diminish what he accomplished or change the freedom he brought to his country. there is no reason to prosecute him today for the life he lived then, but there is also no reason to shy away from understanding what that life was. understanding is always better than ignoring, it gives you the freedom to adjust to the new realities.

why preserve an out of date view? its like last weeks fish, the smell isn't going away no matter how much you try to cover it up and if you continue to feed on it, sooner or later you are going to wish you were a vegetarian.

top matters

2011-08-14T12:23:00.003+08:00

it's interesting how a small idea can begin, be sidelined and then continue to resurface, bobbing up into view at the most random of times. i picked up a book a few weeks ago, and read it with a gusto of enjoyment. since then i have formulated an exercise of discovery and ruminated on how easy it is to live life if you believe the results of the exercise. the hard part of this is understanding that pleasure is fundamental to life, but what gives someone pleasure is not what you expect.

the book i read was "the compass of pleasure: how our brains make fatty foods, orgasm, exercise, marijuana, generosity, vodka, learning, and gambling feel so good". first of all, look at that title. do you really think i could have passed that book by and not bought and read it immediately? could you have passed it by? if you could, then learning must not be one of the things you gain pleasure from, or is it that pleasure itself does not interest you. the point here is many people do not have a strong handle on what gives them, or those around them, pleasure and why.

the major discovery for me from the text was, what gives us pleasure is both learned and genetically pre-disposed. this is fundamental to a person's addictions, at the root of experience is the ability for our brains to reward and drive us towards certain behaviors. what i did not grasp was that behaviors that light up my pleasure centers do nothing for someone else. but when you feel a craving, it is the same addiction centers of the mammal brain that evolution has built to motivate us to get up seek out pleasure, regardless of what the specific pleasure is that drives you.

as i write this, i have am eating a burmese beef kabob and sharing a fruit salad with bananas, yogurt, and honey. i also have a orange and lime soda and an espresso romana (iced-espresso with lemon and sugar added). i am listening to the alternative soundtrack for catch and release, wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt and sitting outside so i can feel the heat of the tropical weather. i am also typing away on my 17 inch macbook, which is too heavy to carry but i gave my air to my daughter and are waiting to replace it. i am waiting to raise the desire levels of making the purchase to the point that i get even more pleasure than i would get if i did it today.

every single one of the above items are based on decisions i made to bring myself pleasure. we all make these decisions all day, every day. the theory of desire at the end of the 19th century was that we made choices to avoid pain. we ate because we were hungry; and wanted to avoid the pangs of hunger. this aligns well with the late-victorian sense of morality that shied from the focus on pleasure across cultural realms. today's consumer driven capitalist society is focused on the economy, built on the acceptance of driving pleasurable "needs". i eat for pleasure, and i love doing it.

what intrigued me by the title of the book was how they equated gambling or generosity to fatty-foods. i don't gamble, i don't smoke... cigarettes, i rarely drop into temple and would never be driven to a multi-day connection with a friend; imagined or not. but, i ate a piece of lime cake last week, it was sweet and sour at the same time, each and every bite caused an explosion of pleasure for me. i am waiting to have another piece, i have thought about it all week and have only stopped myself to give it to myself as a reward for exercising this week. is this what a gambler feels when he puts money down on red and watches the roulette spin? i can't understand how that can be, i just can't understand it... and that is the point.

i was discussing this with someone i know and understand very well, she told me i am one of the top 3 people in the world who understand who she is and what gives her pleasure. in wanting to illustrate the relative pleasure of things i took a piece of paper, and on one side drew a vertical line. the top was labelled "complete pleasure" and the bottom was "almost no pleasure". i then listed the standard pleasures discussed in the book, "food, sex, alcohol, drugs, prayer, generosity, exercise, learning and gambling". i was going to force rank these, but decided there were gaps in the list.

these are the general items, and i had items i would add as my specific pleasures. i listed them out, "writing, travel, photography, reading, cooking, music". what i realized immediately was that this list would be different for each person, but that it would fall somewhere into the same force rank as the standard list. how interesting it would be to understand what gives people around you pleasure, but what about what gives yourself pleasure. make your own list, draw the line and then start ranking items against one another. you are allowed one tie on the entire list, otherwise you need to put the items above or below another item, making a decision of how much you honestly enjoy things.

i was talking to a newlywed this week. she admitted that her shopping was something her husband wanted her to do less of, and then said that she wanted him to stop smoking. i quickly explained the force-ranking exercise, and asked if shopping was at the top of her list. she smiled and shyly said, "almost at the top". not being allowed to dig into this more, i asked what was at the top for her husband. she smiled again and told me smoking was his favorite pleasure. she admitted she knew this before they lived together, and then agreed that asking someone to give up their most intense pleasure was not something you would do to someone you loved. this was always the root of the "pick your addictions" advice.

being a software engineer, i immediately jumped to the idea of using collective intelligence to match people based on their pleasures, and displeasures but that might be another blog to consider, not only that they like something, but how much they like it, and how it ranks against other items. until i build the system, you can do it yourself, rank your items, and have those around you do it too. i suggest the rule of thumb is that the items in the top third of someones ranking have to be accepted, or ignored. everyone doing this exercise needs to be honest and then you need to share the list, because if they don't match you will be a newlywed who is upset your husband does something you dislike and that he wants you to stop your pleasures.

for me, this means i need someone who loves to eat, enjoys reading and exploring language, doesn't mind my excessive use of wikipedia/imdb/dictionary.com to look up details and definitions. they must also love to waste hours in a cafe, accept an addiction to apple products and custom messenger bags, embrace an always on handphone and the effects of cyclical stress. an ability to watch shows on dvd, with heavy repetition on house, the closer, justified and dexter is a major plus, if not a deal breaker for someone who can't understand the comfort this repetition brings me.

i was explaining this last night, focused on the top third and how people may not understand how forceful the feelings of pleasure, or the drive to enjoy these things can be. i discussed the need to draw the line and allow things towards the top to be accepted, even if they are what some might not understand. my companion said angelically, " i get it..."

"it's important to be on top."

permitted skills

2011-07-17T11:45:00.008+08:00

there are times when i go out looking for something to play with. when i first got here, i spent a year exiting the country every 3 months to keep my tourist visa status in place. the fact that this "work-around" had been suggested by a pseudo-governmental person seemed odd to me. the US is a cut and dry place, where having a work permit is a requirement to be working, and having the government suggest "work-arounds" is not expected. but getting my IC card was one the first experiences of waiting within the system, and has been fodder for complaint until recently.

the orginal process was stated to take a "few weeks", the reality was that it took 6 months from the beginning to end. this translated to two cycles of flights, while malaysia went through the procedural rigamarole of passing my application, often with no ability to get status other than "it is underway". the last 6 weeks of that process were spent waiting for two ministers to be available to stamp the visa. i remember not being sure which was more shocking, that ministers were only available every month and a half, that it took over a week for them to actually do the stamping, or that it took two of them to stamp in the first place. (there has to be a joke in there about how many X it takes to... but i would never go there)

the time and effort of employment pass processing is a common complaint in the expat community. one that the government argues they are addressing. this is related to the issues of malaysians who allegedly want to come back to the country, but can not because spouses are not able to get working permits. in standard form, the government announced early this year that a new organization, talentcorp, would be set up to streamline and expedite the processing of a new pass called the residence pass. three of the selling points on this program were:

it is specifically designed for highly-skilled people
the requirements were clearly defined
processing would be done in 21 days if submitted on-line

in many ways the added benefits of this program would not help me. i do not have a foreign spouse who needs an associated work-permit, my children are either to young or to old to qualify for their work permits and in the event my current role ends a malaysian work permit will not be a requirement for me. this might cause you to question why i am applying for this permit rather than simply extending my current permit that soon expires. the main reason is for the pure fun of it.

late last year i was reading an expat magazine and came across a summary of the coming program. the selling points above were outlined and i asked my companion if she thought i was highly-skilled. she smiled at me and asked why i was asking. i explained and said, "i have more than 18 years experience, i ran a consulting company for 10 years, i have managed teams on three continents, i specialize in e-commerce and mobile software development, i am a GM and i still do software engineering -- something that separates me from every other GM in the country, but i wonder if malaysia would consider me highly skilled."

so here is the update. we have been working on this for 3 months, MDeC now suggests that we apply for an extension to the existing employment pass in the event this drags on beyond the expiration date. the documentation that was submitted has now been declared incorrect, because it followed the directions. allegedly, the requirements have changed without being documented and we are in a holding pattern while someone figures out what is needed and which language it needs to be in. once the first semi-governmental organization does it's work, it will pass the application to a second semi-governmental organization, but the first told us this week they have no experience working with the second and are not sure what the overall process will be like.

as i am sitting on the side and smiling at this, its hard not to remember that this was an improvement put in place to streamline the previous process. the 21 day promised timeline has long past, the requirements are up in the air and there is apparently no way to make this go any faster. but i am still smiling, because i knew when i read the article that it would go this way. i told people that, and they looked at me like i was being unfair and was not giving malaysia a chance to prove that it could improve itself. how could they not be doing something better, the old process was a mess and three ministers, including the PM came out and spoke about the improvements they were going to make and how by cooperating they could change the impression of the ministries.

it feels good to give the country a chance to prove itself. it will also feel good to know that at the end of the process i will be told if the country considers me talented enough to be included in this program. i found not so desperate housewife's blog who has been approved, so i know it's possible for this program to work. it's good to know that housewives are being approved and executives in global companies are not sure if they will need to start exiting the country every three months and pretend they are tourists when they return.

but in the mean time, i will wait to see if i am "highly-skilled"

having reservations

2011-07-03T17:05:00.017+08:00

i have been noticing more and more tables with reserved signs on them. it seems that all restaurants here were given their reserved signs by visa, because they use the same ones all over town. i walked into a popular dinner place last night and saw half the tables in the place with these signs, this morning it was the same for our coffee place. what is going on here, do we have a new trend going on in KL? this has always been a reserved town, but now more and more of the town has been set aside.

one of the things i have also noticed is that the expat-anglo community eats earlier than the local community. but the strange thing is that tables here are reserved from the start of a shift until the party comes. this translates to early eaters not being given a table because later eaters have called ahead. reservations are not completely unknown here the higher end places have always required them, and with the puasa season coming we will all be seeing more tables that are exclusive.

tables being reserved all night are based on two cultural elements. the first is the malaysian standard of all night lepak, once a group has a table they stay. even if they are not ordering food, they are comfortable to relax, using the table as a public meeting place. the second is that malaysians have trouble getting to meetings on time. this means if they agree to meet for dinner at 7, they might show up at 8 or even later. having restaurants run on western reservations would required people to both get there on time, and leave the table so the next guest can be seated.

when i first got to malaysia, i loved the linger at the table culture. it was nice to not be rushed, but it's not something i need every night. most nights, i would give up the ability to hangout at a table for the chance to be seated in the first place. in the west, you can ask for a table and agree to give it up later. they might tell you, "we need the table in 90 mins, if you can be done by 9, we can give you the table". if this works they squeeze you in.

but with the simple structures here, you are out of luck. the restaurants only have elementary scheduling, and much of the staff would not be able to negotiate or communicate a more flexible set of rules. there are other places to go, but if you really wanted that pesto-chicken sandwich and don't want to tau pow, you are simply out of luck.

why do more people seem to be making reservations? i think it's three-fold:

more people are eating beyond the hawker/mamak stalls
fewer people are willing to be told they have to wait
malaysia has yet to outgrown it's legacy of lepak

the first two points indicate a growing middle class, with the related bourgeoisie expectations. the third point does not mean people just want to hang out, it means restaurant owners are not yet willing to require tables to be turned multiple times a night. this will be coming when staff costs are raised by minimum wage. other changes that are on the way are socially-required tipping, and requiring guests to show up on time for a reservation. all of this is part of the exit from the third world, and the entry into the competitive environment of the first.

this morning, i walked into our favorite coffee place to see all the tables either taken or reserved. we looked at each other and started to discuss other places to go. we had been talking about the grilled blueberry muffins since we woke up but there was always formerly-favorite pancakes if we needed to go there.

the waiter was listening to us discuss options, he had a strange look on his face as he said, "do you want a table?". i said, "sure, if you can find us one". he took us to our favorite table and removed the reserved sign. we sat down and smiled as the owner came over to say hello.

i asked him how far ahead you need to call for reservations, he said, "a day ahead, but you can just come in." i smiled at him and said thanks. it's good to know you are a valued guest. this treatment will not be available everywhere. it was not expected, we saw the signs and prepared to leave. but it is good to make friends, and if they are willing to help you, then enjoy.

how did it happen? it might be related to already working under western rules; while others are acting like the world around them is not changing. moving economically westward puts the more western in a good place. if you treat staff well, leave when you are done and always leave a tip ... it pays off.

sometimes not having reservations about the first world is the best way to go.

rubbing buddha

2011-07-03T15:25:00.006+08:00

people really don't believe that i do not see myself as too big. i live in a size-obsessed culture where small is expected. it's like the anti-texas here, the PR line would be "everything is smaller in asia". expected is not really a fair way to say this, but husbands can emotionally abuse their beautiful wives if they add a few pounds, while they are keeping thinly strange on the side. like many things in asia, there is a dualism that makes "big" a pejorative as well as an ideal that drives many people to rub the buddha.

yesterday i was getting out of my car to go to an appointment with non-standard malaysians, i was going to spend the next 4 hours semi-publicly exposed and taking multiple forms of abuse. as i was collecting my things a tattooed guy in a hat walked up to me and asked if we were going to the same place. we had a short conversation, and as he walked away he touched my stomach. this used to seem strange, but now i know its just asians way of making a connection. a strange and unsettling one that breaks multiple social taboos.

last year i was walking in beijing, semi-lost in the hutongs of the old city. as i passed a storefront a chinese guy standing in the doorway looked at me and smiled. i hesitatingly smiled back, sensing he was saying something without using words, but not sure i was following the chinese-to-english conversion. as i passed, he must of understood i had missed his point so he used the limited english he appeared to have and said, "ooohhhhhhhhh budddddhhhhaaaaaa". i decided to take it as a complement and kept moving, i glanced back as he smiled and waved. too strange.

but not as strange as the physical contact i have grudgingly become used to. i learned early that in asian culture commenting on someone's weight is acceptable. to be honest i have been called fat in the US, like years ago when a guy selling me running shoes told me, "these are great for the heavy runner". but here in asia, not only am i now used to people passing me a business card for their weight-loss company, i am now used to having my belly rubbed by complete strangers.

this has happened in vietnam, china, malaysia and indonesia. i am not sure if there is a strong buddhist connection, because it has happened in hindu and muslim countries. i don't think its religion, it appears to be pan-asian. men come up to me and touch my stomach. i would be more confortable if they were women, but that would most likely only happen in thailand, and that might be another version of rubbing the buddha entirely.

if i were in the US i would be more concerned, here it feels more like a greeting of respect. its still unsettling every time it happens, but it feels like the other person is bowing to royalty or kissing the godfather's ring. okay both of those sound strange too. it's odd, but then it hit me when i am standing in a store and some guy walks up to me says "oh buddha" and touches my belly, they are tapping into some cultural roots.

from wiki we learn:

budai (布袋; meaning cloth-sack) is traditionally depicted as a fat bald man wearing a robe and wearing/carrying prayer beads. he carries his few possessions in a cloth sack, being poor but content. he is often depicted entertaining children. in folklore he is admired for his happiness, plenitude, and wisdom of contentment and it is believed that rubbing his belly brings wealth, good luck, and prosperity.

happy, shaved, overachieving waist-wise, carrying a bag and smiling; i can see the resemblance. and the new realization that they are not making a move on me in public is reassuring. it's now clear they are simply re-enacting a deeply meaningful cultural belief. it feels good to be identified so strongly with a positive cultural icon. but that brings the question into focus, why are so many people here committed to the less is more camp of life.

happy buddha is a sign of living a good life and is good luck to those who get close. if he is so positive is so many ways, why is the "small is beautiful" camp the only one with support here. you would think the bigger side would have supporters. there are times when less is more, but come on big is beautiful. where is the cultural support for this? why is the thin conformity of the culture so unquestioned?

embrace the plenitude and the wisdom of contentment. stop worrying that you are reaching for someone else's rice bowl, life is better with desert. be asian, keep some of your boundaries and don't think can just reach out and touch any rounded belly you see, but if you find yourself needing some good luck go ahead...

rub the buddha and see if you get lucky.

open door

2011-06-26T12:04:00.003+08:00

there are times when you have no other option than to sit with someone you have few other chances to sit with and make small talk. these times are the moments of adulthood that you realize you are an adult. they are the moments that as children you sat on the side and watched adults accomplish seemingly without effort. small talk is about little subjects, but sometimes real interactions happen during these conversations. if you are careful, you might hear something that matters.

i was sitting in an airport with two staff members. we had finished the agenda of the trip and just needed to get on a plane and get home. most of the senior managers in KL would not sit with staff members in this setting. not only would it most likely have been acceptable for me to sit away from the staff and do my own thing, it's highly possible they would have wanted me sit on the other side of the room. being american, deeply believing in egalitarism, pushed me to sit with them and engage in small-talk. i might have wanted to continue reading the book on "relentless capitalism", but instead i talked about micro-sociology.

we came to a point on the open-door policy i have in the office. as each new employee joins our company, they are brought to my office on their first day so i accomplish three tasks, i:

welcome them to the company
give them a team shirt (we do a new design/color each year)
explain my open door policy, and ask them to come back to see me if they need something

one of the staff on the trip with me is a senior contributor who is just moving into a manager role. i have known him for years now, and have watched him grow from a very junior staff member to a emerging leader. he is a standard quiet and respectful asian kid. it was a bit scary when he said, "can i be honest and tell you something?". honesty, rather than distanced politeness, is less than common here than in the US, so my interest was piqued.

he said, "sometimes people might be afraid to come to your office. they are not sure if you are busy, or in a bad mood, so they do not go." there was a pained look on his face while he said it. i could sense he was outside his comfort-zone by telling me this. the asian training to never upset an elder or someone in a position of authority was challenging his new found american group ethic. i sensed this conversation was only happening because of the week he had just spent immersed with a large team of vocal and decidedly less than shy amercians.

i took a beat trying to decide how to respond to this. i have heard it before, a sizable group of the staff do not feel comfortable coming into my office for any reason. they feel as though those who do come in are being treated as favorites and are given special consideration because they get to talk to me one on one. i have been told this on the side, by those who do come to talk to me. usually they say it with a pained look of someone who has experienced peer pressure or abuse.

i asked the young manager i was sitting next to, trying to count the number of times he had come into my office in the 3 years of service and ending with a very low number, why is it my fault that people don't feel comfortable coming in to see me? i meet every single new hire, and tell them the same thing. "come talk to me anytime, i am here to help if you have an issue, or to talk if you want to." some do, most don't. i have asked people to wait while i am finishing something, but i meet with everyone who comes in. if they are not sure if i am busy or in the wrong state of mind, they can ask my assistant, she seems to read me pretty well.

for the ones that do come in and talk, i end up knowing them and having a better idea of what is happening in their lives, both work and away. i recently thanked two staff members who came in together. i remember saying, "thanks for talking to me about this, i am having a tough day and helping you with this will end up being the best part of my day". i am busy most days, i have a tendency to show frustrations; but being here to help is what i consider about half of my job.

everyone is told the same thing, but some hear it and and others don't. i started to think about those who do come in. there is a trend, non-malaysians come more frequently than those born here. those who have gone to school off-shore come more frequently than those who have not. working on a team that i directly manage helps, so does being younger, and being from one of the local ethnic groups seems to lower your likelihood of coming in, while being on another seems to raise it. all of these have been true for years, and all of them are equally true for our attrition rates. or maybe its that people who do come in tend to leave less than those who do not.

so here it is. i have an open door policy, but i can not force them to walk through it. either you trust what i am telling you and come in, or you don't. that is not on me, that is on you. i know you are not used to authority figures doing what they promise you, but hey this could be your chance to see that it can happen. i have an idea:

come in and see if it's true. if it is, go back out that open door and tell others. forget about trust, try some actual proof.

teaching frustation

2011-06-25T15:38:00.008+08:00

what is is about a quiet day on the beach that makes me want to rant about lack of fairness? never-mind, that is rhetorical. it's just one man expressing his freedom of speech to talk about things that frustrate him. that is the sign of a good life isn't it? the ability to tell people you are frustrated. the ability to release the stress and relax.

a few weeks ago i was on a week long trip to a city that i hate. the trip was planned, cancelled, re-planned and finally re-set to a different week. the build up to the trip was one of pending frustration. but the reality was that the frustration never actually came. there were moments that teetered on the edge of a tipping point, but gravity was on my side and we came out unscathed. i spent the final night of the trip nursing a growing head cold while sitting in a hot bathtub. i thought i would make it out of the country without issue.

it wasn't a major issue, but i did learn something about china. all was good until checking-in at the airport. we were there early and i got a chance to sit next to a group of malays returning home after a family trip. sitting on the floor in the airport we talked about life in KL and why they would want to travel to china. they kept apologizing for not having better english, after 5 years in their country i was the one that should be apologizing.

as i checked in and watched my bag go through the scanner, i saw the alarm lights flash rejecting my bags and forcing me to step over the barrier to open my bag. the airline crew suggested they were looking for lighters or aerosol cans that could explode, being a no smoker with no need for hair spray i thought i was in the clear. thats when we found the baton i had in my bag.

the baton is something i have based on age. as i have gotten older, and considering some of the places i allow myself to go, i thought it might be a good idea to have a way to even the odds. i have been questioned about this in the past, but honestly it is purely an insurance policy and not something i really have any need to reach for on a regular basis. to keep the story short, china disagreed with my having it in my bag, i countered that i was leaving the country and was someone else's issue but as we all know, rules are rules in china and they have no ability to see beyond them.

as i walked from ticketing, through passport and security control, into starbucks, past the information booth and finally into the lounge i asked every chinese person i saw, "what is the chinese word for frustration". not a single one of them could tell me the word. they looked at me blankly and had a odd face on. i first thought they simply had been trained to not say or experience the word frustration, one more of the regime's blacklisted terms of censorship gone amok. but it seems that its worse than that, they really did not know the word.

when i got into the lounge, i asked for the word, three women standing there did not know. they asked me to spell it, and used a local translation site to convert the english to mandarin. still they did not know the word. they talked among themselves and finally shook their heads. they asked me to explain the word, which i tried to do. i was frustrated in my attempt, they did not understand the concept.

using wikipedia as a source, we find the definition:

frustration is a common emotional response to opposition. related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. the greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be. causes of frustration may be internal or external. in people, internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals and desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations.

using google translate to get the chinese you get 挫折 or 挫败 both of which when brought back to english translate as "defeat". so here is the question, do they not teach these words, or do they not have the culturally emotional framework to feel anger and disappointment from resistance to individual will?

yes, i am frustrated that a badly dressed, sadly under bathed, low-level bureaucrat was able to take what i considered a personal possession. i do not see logic of taking something from a checked bag, enforcing a rule as i exit the country (i would have understood on entry), and dislike that there were no options or discussion on the matter. following a stupid rule quietly has never been natural for me, it's frustrating and i would expect others to see that.

it's okay. i know at least one other person there felt frustration. as i continued to try to debate it, the security manager took the baton and threw it in the trash. he started to turn to walk away, but i did not like the way he believed it was the end of the conversation. i also did not want to get maced and taken to a room where i would need to request a visit by the embassy or maybe human rights watch, so i was careful to keep my arms at my side and not move. i did what any parent would tell their kid to do, "use your words".

so as he turned away i said, "you know it's behavior like this that makes someone want a stick to hit someone else in the head with".

he stopped, turned and glared at me. i smiled and started to pack my bag back up. i think i may have taught him a new emotion, he was in that moment frustrated that he could not take my baton and smack me over the head.

it feels good to help others learn.

patik botak

2011-06-25T14:01:00.009+08:00

a few days ago, i heard someone declare the ruling class was nearing the end of it's 50+ years of dominance. they believed the time had come for the rakat to over throw the scoundrels and replace them with a new generation of actual leaders. as i was driving yesterday, i ruminated on the possibility. but, how does this country find leadership when anyone coming up the ranks has been born and raised to believe the current environment is the only reality this country can ever hope for. the levels of apathy and acceptance that i see here is the single most frustrating thing about living in the country. it's enough for me to consider throwing my hat into the ring.

first of all, i am at a disadvantage to be elected. but i do have qualifications, i have degrees in political science and finance. i have been a successful entrepreneur and run multi-national corporations. i have travelled and have worked with public and private sector organizations, building and growing organizations. but best of all, i am the ultimate outsider. i was not raised in the shadow of corruption, i do not have a father or uncles who are part of the old guard. i am doing this because i want to see things get better, and i am shocked no one else is willing to stand up.

beyond needing to polish up the story of growing up grandson of immigrants, under-privileged but motivated to succeed, product of mixed religion and believing in fairness over privilege, what i really need is a platform. the list of things i will focus my administration on correcting when we come to into office. they need to be simple and attainable, but they need to make an impact. yet another economic plan that is 10 years out and destined to fail is not what this candidacy is all about. we need to make real change happen.

the plan is simple and it's all about fairness:

free and fair elections - no reason to march, i agree, one man/one vote
freeze spending on religion - no spending on mosques until we decide if we want spending on all religions or none. spending public funds on just one isn't fair
merit based education - scholarships will go to the best students, ties will be settled by lottery
education loans, not gifts - students who study abroad and don't return will have their parents prepared to pay off the loans. no more special treatment for the elite.
eliminate tariffs on cars, autos, sports equipment - no need for middle income country to pay 3 times more for items than other countries
help companies hire and train staff - lets help college graduates find jobs and get job experience
eliminate special contracts - why should taxpayers pay more than needed for programs. contracts that remain should be open to review.
report politicians income - i will open up my income statement, and expect everyone else who runs to do the same. its a crime no one else has suggested this, and tells you they are hiding the graft they have enjoyed.
allow freedom of speech - eliminate ISA and remove political pressure from media. let people say how frustrated they are so we can fix things
encourage green space - we have so much beautiful space, why are the homes on top of each other. let the kids run and play on some grass.
increase public spending on arts - music, dance, fine arts are important. beauty is good.
increase spending on education - help the next generation to learn and compete in the world economy, help the country grow and prosper, the current direction must be fixed
provide one set of laws to everyone - to be fair, everyone must have a single set of civil laws. religion, class, income and position are no longer ways to avoid fairness.
allow marriage without conversion - allow people to love each other without making it about what religion they are (this is the norm in most of the world, including arab countries)

it's a simple plan. it shocks me that a conservative asian country spends so much time talking about who is the man in a video tape that so few people have seen. it shocks me that an opposition leaders spend so much time defending themselves, but never talk about policy. ruling party spends so much time reminding people they had nothing to do with the leaking of a tape or the making of an allegation, but don't come forward and admit corruption and privilege is part of the reason the country is stuck in the middle income trap.

my position is simple, let's really fix things not just talk about it. you can vote for patik botak, or you can run yourself. step up and help fix things, you can even use my platform if you want. if you do i would be happy to vote for you. i would expect others to vote for you too. there are only two things wrong.

first, i don't get a vote here. second, no one else seems to be asking politicians to come up with a plan or to demand fairness. british divide and rule is still dominant and expected. why would politicians improve if no one tells them that they should?

vote for me, patik botak. adil untuk semua.

coping parent

2011-05-22T15:06:00.000+08:00

i have a friend in the US who i need to have detailed conversations with occasionally. because most of these happen late in the day for me, and come with filler time before the real discussion begins, my randomness tends to shine through. a few weeks ago we had a side conversation that i keep thinking about. it revolves around personal freedom, fear and parenting styles, all subjects that are hard for me to skip over; or fail to ruminate on.

to set the stage a bit, my friend is almost the poster child for upper-middle class soccer mom. she is smart, professional and respected. she is also semi-asian, fully american and east coast preppy, but with an asian parent and a bit of the "tiger mom" drive you would expect from a type-A over-achiever. if you needed someone organized and detailed on your team, she would be the choice.

we were talking a few weeks ago and somehow i turned the conversation to backpacking in europe. i was thinking about taking the train from amsterdam, through belgium and into france with my kids, and she admitted she had done the "sleep on the train" blast of moving around europe for a summer while in college. she said she had done something like 14 countries in 31 days, and when asked if she had enjoyed it, the answer was a simple "oh yeah".

it was clear she enjoyed her time, and has stories that i am sure are worth hearing. i am also sure they are only told to those much closer, better to be boxed up with other college aged memories and kept safe from prying eyes. as i heard her telling the story i was confused, it seemed out of character, but i was hopeful that i was seeing a new hippie mom side. so i asked if she wanted her kids to do the same trip, and the answer was an immediate "no way".

i had images of spending time with the kids in europe. my older son breaking his should either doing one arm hand-stands outside a bar at 2 AM (i was in the hotel with the other kids), or falling down the stairs in the hotel at 3 AM when her finally came home. my younger son taking a sip of his "beverage" at midnight, right after leaving the belgium restaurant where his sister ate horse. or standing in de wallen area of amsterdam explaining the women in the windows while his brother was in the coffee shop. these are all memories from the first family trip to europe. our eurail adventure headed for the south of france, but adjusted to champagne when things didn't work out on the train.

we are currently planning this years vacation. we have been doing a international vote for the past month, we are looking at flights and considering hotel locations. the kids have had the choice of a paradise island of ozzie surfers and bomb warnings, a communist country with great coffee shops and beaches americans bleed on or a semi-indian island that recently ended a 26-year civil war. we also considered one of the popular hindu temples nestled in a buddhist country, but it didn't have the draw of the locations on the list. my kids have become very good travelers, with discerning tastes.

but back to my friend... what is she trying to protect her children from? my older son, while walking around europe with one arm in a sling, asked if he could do a semester in europe. he had the city and the degree selected. i had reason to believe the plan was semi-directed by the rasta-haired twenty-something waitress he was spending time with. but i honestly wish he had executed the plan, it would have been good for him. also, as i look back on my early adulthood, i wish i had taken time to go to europe and learn more about the world, its people and the options out there if you took the time.

as a parent coping with kids, watching them grow up and hoping they are ready to take on the world, i am very happy my kids can get on an airplane, transit in europe and make it safely to asia. they will leave the US with euros in their pockets, they know how to negotiate a european airport and they know how to enjoy an non-american breakfast. i know they have the ability to react to issues that come up, i know they are smart enough to stay safe and see danger where their naive peers might just rush into high speed traffic of the world. they are able to take trains, they have able to adjust to a situation, they have learned to walk up to a guard holding a machine gun and ask for the bathroom in multiple languages.

i am not worried that my kids would not be safe as they travel the world. my daughter goes to NYC for new years, my older son already has control of his life fully in his hands. they have been trained, they have been prepared. they have seen me make mistakes, they have heard "semi-cleansed" stories of other adventures. i am looking forward to them taking on the world directly, i just hope they will share the stories with me. it would be bad for me if they didn't share, but worse if they never took the trip in the first place.

the world is too big, too interesting and too much fun to not go out and enjoy it. years ago i took the older kids to see "eurotrip", i laughed along with them and wished i had adventures like that when i was that age. i was too busy growing up. here is to hoping they take the time and safely enjoy themselves as they travel the world.

they are ready, and i can cope with it when they travel alone. for now, i am looking forward to us traveling together.

shamelessly moody

2011-05-14T12:44:00.016+08:00

i spent last night watching two different dvd series. as i tossed and turned later, i realized there were similarities between the two shows. both follow non-typical american fathers. they are irish-americans from the east-coast, they are both single-ish and have children who are forced to see them for who they are; the virtues and flaws they have as men and fathers. neither of these guys are going to win a parenting award, they would not even make the nomination phase.

in "californication", hank moody, a new yorker living in venice beach, is a writer suffering from success. he has terminal writers block caused by the movie "crazy little thing called love" a script based on his book, the less feel good "god hates us all". he uses his gifts of wit and connection to move through life with a focus on staying within the moment. never taking the long view, he allows himself to indulge in nearly any random offer that presents itself. hank has two women in his life who matter deeply to him, his teenage daughter becca and his estranged not-a-wife karen. they are the only people he loves fully, but who are not quite enough of a conscience for him to suppress his libertarian naughtiness.

in "shameless", frank galagher lives in deeply blue collar south-side chicago, with his 6 children. rather, he lives among them, because he is rarely there to help them in any way. he is a raging drunk, not in the hip but sad moody manner of doing something inappropriate at a party, but in the painfully pathetic come home after days of absence smelling of vomit and bleeding from a broken nose with no memory of how he got that way. frank is not getting through life on his charm, more like a complete disregard for obligation matched to a practiced belief that the safety net of the liberal agenda is a dodge built specifically for him to never actually work.

when you first meet these guys you are shocked that anyone can live their lives like this. both are embarrassments to themselves, and more importantly to their loved ones. they careen through life, one alcohol infused crisis to the next, disappointing everyone with their unacceptable behavior. they are difficult to watch, but they are impossible to stop watching, because as the proverbial car-wreck happening right in front of you, you just can't stop the morbid fascination demanding to know what will happen next.

but these are the first impressions. as you continue to watch, you begin to see a depth to these men you missed while overcoming your immediate revulsion. you notice that as events unfold those closest to them continue to allow them to be close. there is a distance that people take out of self preservation, but they do not force them out of their lives. they might take space when the craziness gets too intense, but they never close the door fully. this may be seen as codependence by some, but watch closely and you may see it as true love and a respect for family bonds.

you also notice that both moody and frank are central in the lives of their children. as you watch them, you realize they love their children. they are too self-absorbed to be there as full-time care givers, or even to be sober at the appropriate times, but you can see that they realize they need to be better than they are. the angst they express in being less than the perfect father is painful to watch, but is also hopeful because it appears to be the single motivation capable of pulling them back from the brink of self-destruction.

the thing that makes these losers good men, is being self-aware that they are full of shit. neither of them makes excuses for their behavior, they know they habitually make bad choices, and seem to accept that given the same circumstances they would probably make them again. but rather than trying to cover that up, they admit to themselves and others that what they do is unacceptable. it's the elimination of hypocrisy, by admitting the truth to themselves and not hiding it that makes them role models in an anti-hero sort of way. they also say they are sorry to those they hurt, and when the ones you hurt most are your own saying sorry can be very hard.

the result of this is also that they do not make choices for others around them. the children of these men are smart, capable and ready to take on the world. moody and frank are also smart, but they allow their stupidity to get in the way. their children on the other hand are smart, smart enough to try to stay out of trouble. they have good reason for this, they have a "there but for the grace of god" image of what can happen to them if they are not careful. since they are in some ways parenting their parent, they do not have the luxury to allow themselves to go off the rails.

and this brings us back to the question of a parenting award. both of these guys are anything but the classic "father knows best" image of american life. no group of opinion givers would vote for them, because they are not acceptable role models. but that is based on first impressions. when you live with them you realized that having someone listen to you is better than being talked at, you know that having someone admit their faults better than hiding them, you recognize that you are capable of doing more because you needed to be able to. the moms in the PTA, or the case worker from DFCS, might not see it but parents who believe in their children, even if its because they see they are in no position to be judgmental, are hard to come by.

this is why the kids in these shows are so able. they do have good role models, just not ones that are socially acceptable. the best part of moody and frank's parenting is that they love their children and show them the best qualities an unreliable adult can; truth, honesty and compassion for others.

these men are not the narcissists others believe them to be, they are both fighting demons that only they know. but, when possible they keep the fight away from the children, even if that means they are absent. when they are with the kids you see great moments of parenting. parenting with self-realization, like:

Becca: Do you remember what you used to do for me when I couldn’t sleep?
Hank : Dose you with opiates?
Becca: No. Look at the ocean and count mermaids.
Hank : I did do that. I’m a better father than I thought.

these men might be embarrassments, but they are also better fathers than they thought.

naked pool

2011-05-01T18:12:00.010+08:00

this vacation is coming to a close. we are on day seven of the get away to get away tour. i have only called work once, i have done email a few times, but i have been happily disconnected from the internet most of the time. i have lost one almost completed book, and read parts of three others. we have had drinks at sunset every single night, and then snuggled in with dvd series. but the best part of the vacation was the single element required as we searched for villas. it is the element we loved last summer in thailand, and the one i will miss the most when it is not available. it is the part of asian top-end resorts i have come to love, the naked pool.

when we checked into our third resort, it was quickly noticed that we had no view. the room was great, big bed, wonderful bathroom, a bathtub outside that was placed into a pond with plants, fish and very loud frogs. there was a sitting area on the other side with grass leading to a high stone wall that ran all the way around the villa. the villa sat on a terraced hill, following the contour lines of rice padi's surrounding the resort. it was very quiet and secluded, facts that called out as you looked at the long still lap pool outside the rooms wall of windows.

last year we had gone to thailand and barely left the resort. the spa, the bar and wonderful chef who made yummy beignet in the morning and quesadilla at night were all good. but the room with the private walls and swimming pool were the draw. throw in an outside shower and a open air bathtub and you get a glimpse of a vacation for the rich and famous. now mix in a gentle zen spa vibe, service with asian distance and someone you are comfortable with and you get to a holiday that sends the stress of life far, far away.

so as we searched for villas for this trip, we had the single requirement. a naked, sorry private, pool. we ended up with the first room surrounded by rice padis and over looking at the beach, but set to the side of the resort with walls on three sides for added privacy. the second room had walls ten feet high all around, with added height in areas that adjacent rooms second floor could look down into the pool. clearly added to ensure privacy for all. and now, this room again with high wall, but without the views the site had talked about. i asked the butler showing us to the room and he explained. other villas have a view of the jungle and river bottomed valley, but these are the rooms they put the "private" guests in. i made a face and he explained.

some of the guests are so famous they can not check in under their own names. if they were in the other rooms there would be people with cameras in the jungle trying to take pictures of them. these rooms are built for them, to ensure their privacy, and to allow them to enjoy their vacations. the vision of a someone checked in as "anna scott" who had come to be the most famous recreation of "eat, pray, love" needing time away from the paparazzi snapped into my head. i was not sure how i felt about staying in a room that a runaway bride may have stayed in, but the pool awaited.

the next few days were a cycle of swim, outside bath and overall relaxation. if a star did stay in this room, i hope they were smart enough to relax in the pool and tub. i had painfully sad visions of someone not being comfortable enough to fully enjoy the freedom.

i was taken back to my penultimate summer on the cape, when i tried to motivate a midnight trip to the beach for a natural swim. that attempt was sadly not shared, new england puritanical mores winning out over newport hippy culture. but all was not lost, i was able to correct the misjustice and teach the love of freedom a few years later in borneo, when we left the rainforest music festival, dodged a guard, abandoned the half uptight, and played in the south china sea.

but here i was, far from the house in truro, paparazzi safely walled out, with the most relaxing trip of all time quickly slipping away. it was time to fill the tub, and do some laps in the pool while the water ran.

as auntie ann used to say, of course i was wearing a suit, my birthday suit.

too stressed

2011-04-30T18:41:00.006+08:00

the past few days have been a discussion of the plan for today. after the driving adventures we have had on this relaxation quest, the fear of the coming trek had begun to leak onto the rest of the trip. we have asked those available, with little luck, and have used wikipedia and google maps to try to gauge the effort ahead. in the end a disconnected wire brought us back to the beginning and reset the course. how the wire got disconnected, is a case that will not be investigated. somethings are better left shrouded in assumption.

we are moved locations again today. leaving the flat shoreline for padi filled hills surrounding an art haven. this last step was a matter of saving the best for last. on previous trips i have never found my way to the little community in the hills, the promised heart of the arts, but i was looking forward to it. i have enjoyed the challenges of the previous moves, finding our way and negotiating the twists and turns. but i had to admit at times to being in full information overload.

the island roads are a mess. they seem to have been laid out with little or no planning. it is as though the entire road system grew organically, at a much earlier time. a time when there were no cars and the locations that people would eventually want to find were just distant places the path was never meant to connect someone to. the lack of a straight line is the most striking feature, it feels like you never go more than a mile without needing to take opposing 45 degree turns a few hundred meters apart. the right-left patterns to wind your way through a haphazard grid of paths between the buildings that surround the unplanned roads.

to add to the complexity of driving here, there are fully three traffic flows sharing the road. the first and heaviest is the motorcycle traffic. it both moves around and among larger vehicles when they are slowed for any reason, or stretches out to take the side of the road forcing the faster moving vehicles to cross the center lines to pass them. those larger and faster vehicles then make up the other two traffic flows.

i say there are two traffic flows, other than the constant swarm of motocycles, because cars and trucks mostly move at two different paces. the trucks being equally overloaded and underpowered, tend to meander only marginally faster than the motorcycles. this makes them the other hazard to be watched and passed by the passenger cars. cars being the most balanced in terms of power of the three types, spend most of their time either tucked into the flow of the trucks are wildly swerving from lane to lane, attempting to slip between the slower traffic to move forward. to get the image of what i am talking about we need to do an exercise.

imagine an ant colony on the move; a long line of insects moving at different paces, some carrying loads of leaves, with some crawling on, over or around others. note that some are stopped or moving backwards for no good reason. it appears to be complete chaos, but the colony appears to somehow be getting somewhere. now add other equally disorganized colonies also on the move, but they are moving across the path of first, a new messy line every few feet on the jungle floor. finally add some streetlights, signs of marginal utility, make the ants humans on economy-focused vehicles of different sizes and you have the picture. this is driving on bali.

now to that final picture add two foreigners with no idea where they are going, a jeep with a sensitive clutch and no music to calm the nerves, a GPS that points to major landmarks but nothing less, and a question on how challenging the roads are on the way to the art community in the hills. you might now understand the discussion on friday night. rather than continue the debate, i suggested a stop for coffee at my favorite grocery/deli on the island. a oasis of solitude i have written or coded in on prior trips; one that requires being frisked and having your bags checked for bombs by a guard with a machine gun. i left out those details, and hoped a good coffee would help calm the nerves.

with the jeep packed and ready for the next leg of our adventure, we found the GPS was not working. the power cord was broken, it had "come apart" overnight. a more suspicious person than i would have openly questioned how this had happened, but i was stopped as we drove towards the airport to replace the device or it's dubiously damaged power-cord. "do you want to see if we can return the car and get a driver? you are too stressed to drive here."

we had found our way. there were no fights, no strained words. there was little in the way of difficult silence. we had only been pulled over once, it was a check for papers not for speeding, and was let go when they saw my IC card. we had really never been totally lost, or without some form of direction, and after fixing the seat and getting full use of my legs the driving was much smoother. so, what was this "too stressed" all about? the explanation, genuine or not, did resonate with some truth. to boil it down, i am a type-A personality and in my self-driven focus on forward motion i was losing the spirit of the relaxed vacation get away.

to make a long story short, we returned the car, got a driver, went to the deli and then relaxed on the way into the hills. the driver knew the way to the resort and delivered us right to the lobby. it was the simple and easy approach. there was no stress over where we were going, there was no questions of direction and the crazy roads and weaving traffic was not an issue. i did feel a pang of regret that i didn't get to try and succeed. this was the easy way, i gave up the freedom of challenge to keep the peace and prove i was not a stressed out type-A. i proved i can take feedback and relax. there was no long discussion, the day was not impacted. this is a positive change once again; another chance to prove i have grown. but to be clear,

i watched as we drove, and know my own way for next time.

minimal shaving

2011-04-28T16:03:00.006+08:00

one of the things i like about vacation is the ability to live exactly as you want. you can wear the clothes that feel good, wake when you want, and eat and drink whatever you want. but the thing i like the best is the ability get up and walk the beach immediately after rolling out of bed. throw on some shorts and start your day. it is the elimination of the daily routine that reminds you that you are on vacation. it is the freedom from the daily grind that tells you that you are free.

one of the core parts of my day is the daily shave. with the need to keep my agressive haircut in good form, i shave head and face every day. i do it everyday, a reminder to myself that i made a decision years ago, i changed things inside and out, things that may have only mattered to me. it all came with a central promise to myself, and everyday the process is a reminder. my routine is for me, no one is watching or telling me to do it. it may not matter to anyone; but it makes me happy so i keep it going it and remember.

but when i am on a trip, i tend to relax and delay my ritual until later in the day. i spend the day-time hours with stubble and then clean the day away with a shave and shower before dinner. there is something about being on the beach, holding a glass in your hand, and looking like hemingway's santiago that feels good in a different way. it also reminds me of my father, the man who taught me to shave, who when i see him now is rarely clean shaven. i look in the mirror and think about the old man, and the ritual that has changed over the years.

when i first began, my father brought me into the bathroom and gave me a soft brush and a cup for the shaving soap. he taught me how to wet my beard, apply the soap to my face and then to draw the razor over my skin. i was brought into the club, a clear sign of manhood and i felt as though i was taught the right way. something about wetting the brush and then swirling it against the soap in the cup just felt right. it was more thoughtful than pushing the button on a can. i started my adulthood by going old-school, feeling the brush on my skin before the cold razor.

i shaved like this all though high school. when college came, the brush was in my toiletry bag, but i also had a small can of cream. standing at the bank of sinks after showering, with a brush in my hand lost some of its appeal. i used a razor and shaving cream at the sink for the next 15 years. it was a standard practice, it lost the appeal of the original. it was now a chore that i needed to do. it might have felt good before a special event, but most days it was just a portion of the routine. until i moved my shaving into the shower.

i had read an article on shaving, the focus was that shaving cream was not important for anything more than to keep your skin wet for the razor. the article made it clear that water was the key element, soap or cream was an enabling technology. i decided to experiment with this by moving my shave under the shower head. the major upside was that shaving was now under the warm water spray, rather than standing at the sink during the winter. the reality that the sink remained clean with my new technique was an added marital benefit.

the next decade saw changes to the process. i went from shaving cream, to women's shaving cream i shared with my wife, to soap because it was there and my wife no longer was, to elimination of the soap all together for a razor and water only shave. this was the culmination of a transition the article had pointed to years ago. the legacy of my fathers teachings were hard to shake, but in the end simple was better.

when i had moved into the shower, i needed to bring a mirror with me, over the years that was dropped too; it became all about feeling my way to the clean shave. this was reinforced when i moved to asia and spent months shaving in the dark, no need for a mirror if the bathroom was dark anyway. those months were also without hot water, which i was told was normal for malaysia, but it was the line i could not cross. razor and hot water were the limits of my simplicity of the daily shave.

until this week, i have found a way to further simplify the package. my toiletry bag stays in my luggage, always ready to travel. before i left on holiday i checked the bag and found fresh razors ready to go. i had a nagging feeling i was missing something after my last trip, but checking made me feel better. until i reached my post travel-adventure shower and found the razors there, but the handle missing. i was without a key piece of shaving equipment, in a resort over an hour from the nearest city, no hope of finding a spare handle and no desire to go without shaving for 3 days.

so, i did what any former macgyver viewer would do; i found a way. my solution was pretty simple, i didn't have to break out the leatherman and duct-tape and attach the razor to a trimmed down toothbrush handle (i considered that and discarded the idea). but i now know that razor handles are not a requirement for a clean shave. in a pinch, you simply need to pinch the razor between your thumb and first two fingers. it takes a second to get the feel, but a clean, smooth shave is possible. again, simple is best.

i remember the old man every time i shave. i love that i was taught the right way to do it when i was young, but i also love that i have made this process my own over the years. slowly eliminating all the extras and getting to the bare requirements. i never set out to do this, but as the years pass you learn things. if you travel and take on new situations, you find what is important. you also find that you can control the time and place for yourself when you are relaxed and enjoying live.

what is better than a clean smooth shave? the ability to remember what got you here.

bourne holiday

2011-04-26T12:06:00.006+08:00

i woke up this morning to bright sun and the sound of surf coming ashore. the rhythm of the waves added to the depth of relaxation that i have been missing so intensely. as i laid in bed i remembered that i was on vacation and that i had nothing to do, no where to go. the most stressful thing i planned to do after getting out of bed was to take a walk on the black sand beach before breakfast. vacations meant to allow you to get away and relax, and choosing a place without phones, internet or TV in the room is a good way to guarantee you actually do it.

but picking a resort like this comes with its challenges. when the resort is well off the beaten path, you take on finding your way there yourself. not that i have any issues finding my own way, i could have asked the resort to do a pickup at the airport, but what is the fun in that. better to get a car and drive out to the resort. it was in the general area of a landmark i had accidentally found on a previous trip, so how hard could it be to drive out and find the place?

leaving the arrival terminal, it was time to find a car. we were immediately swarmed by the touts offering taxi, car or driver options. there is still something unsettling about having a guy walk up to and offer to rent a car a few dollars cheaper than the rental companies. i kept saying "tak mau" until i identified the rental window with the least aggressive staff. the 40ish woman behind the counter seemed to care less if anyone talked to her; this may seem a strange selection criteria but relaxed apathy was the emotion of the day and i wanted to make sure i fostered that.

the default vehicle for rental was a asian mini-van, but they also had a jeep looking thing, which seemed like much more fun than a mini-mini-van. i had visions of driving the little jeep through rice fields on an adventure. the rental process was easy, they pre-programmed the GPS and set us off on our way. the moment to reconsider the plan was when i got into the jeep and found the seat was too far forward for me to sit without my knee jammed against the dashboard. the back was full of bags, and trying to fix the seat would have meant pulling the entire car apart. the rental guy was waving good bye, it was a moment of truth and the desire for adventure took over. how hard could it be to drive an old jeep with a standard transmission, one built 20 or so years ago, while jammed into a space equivalent to an overbooked redeye flight on an economy airline?

i had to admit how hard it was about 40 minutes into the drive. i had stalled the engine again, we were in massive traffic, indonesian-swarms of motorcycles were weaving their way around us, the cars in back where horning to express their displeasure with the clogged intersection. to add to the fun, i had just realized the GPS was programmed to the wrong location and had been taking us to the east side of the island, while our target was the west. all of this happened a few minutes after the random musing that travel was so much easier than it used to seem, off in a foreign land, driving rather than being driven. independence being the key to experiencing the real island, not the standard tourist version of the upscale beach resorts.

the next two and a half hours broke down into three basic phases, realizing we were screwed, planning on the fly to get us most of the way to the goal and bumping over potholes with random instructions telling us we were almost there. the GPS could not find the resort, its road or area, the jeep continued to stall as my knee ached from being pressed against the dashboard and people on the side of the road kept pointing down the potholed single lane paths and saying "just ahead". it felt just like being in the office, an entire project cycle compressed into a single ride through the backroads of bali.

the moment of truth, that moment when you are sure you are doomed but that you are too deeply involved to turn back, came when the road passed through jungle and careened down to a river crossing only to go steeply back upwards on the other side. the last hill we had climbed had been marginally steep, and the keys had fallen out of the ignition and landed on the floor, stalling the engine. this hill was dark with jungle cover, steeper and longer than any hill we had come to so far. i had one hand on the keys, another on the shifter, my knee was screaming in pain and the road just kept going upwards. as we climbed, the RPM feel and i realized i was going to need to downshift to make it to the top of the hill. stuck on a jungle path just wider than the jeep, crazy steep with no way to back down if the engine stalled with the downshift. why did i want to drive again? what is it that allows me to find stress like this, even on a drive to a beach side resort?

with self-imposed fear pressing inwards, i downshifted and rode the clutch to the top of the hill. as the road flattened out, the jungle opened and the road passed through a kampung with smiling people who pointed the way to the resort on the beach. it was hidden safely between rice fields and the surf. as i parked the jeep, the realization that we made it melted into me, the pressure released and i allowed myself to breath. there was no need to drive; there was no stress, no phone, no email for the next few days. there was just beach and books and relaxation. there was a morning of waking up to the sound of surf and taking a walk before a long slow breakfast with sweet coffee.

i am listening to the waves, and i am glad the adventure is behind me... for now. the jeep is sitting there, a reminder that future drives await.

crisis averted

2011-04-24T10:29:00.009+08:00

i am sitting in my favorite KL coffee shop, eating a grilled blueberry muffin, drinking a very well made 4 shot cappuccino; with a little dollop of whipped cream; because the life is better that way. i am getting on a plane tomorrow to one of my favorite places in the world, a week long holiday that comes right when i need it; a break from the craziness at a time when the teams have direction and should not need me looking over their shoulders. life is clearly good, more so because my morning started with the elimination of a looming crisis.

the crisis would not have been carried in the news. it would not have been as devastating as the japanese tsunami, or as disruptive as the iceland volcano, but for me it is something i am glad is not happening this year. it could happen in the future and when it does i am going to need to roll with it and accept, but for now it is something on the back burner of fear.

living on the opposite side of the planet comes with issues. small things like buying a bottle of ibuprofen to help manage the stress headaches comes with worry of import inspectors. buying sneakers involves internet orders, assisted shipping and month long delivery schedules. these are small things that most americans do by dropping into a mall on the way to somewhere else. i am somewhere else, and dropping into the mall is not an option. planning and logistics have become second nature, which is not easy for a "code, test, debug -- repeat" engineer.

the crisis that was averted was the delivery much more important to me than ibuprofen. it is actually the drug that i really need more than any other, it's the one i hold my breath for all year. it comes with even more negotiation and stress than any other. normally the planning begins in march, but i know i have been avoiding the conversation. avoiding not because i didn't want to ensure success, but because i was afraid of failure.

the planning began a few weeks ago, but no details were exchanged. at that point, i found that i could get 2/3 of my order immediately, with the hope of the final portion before the end of the year. this was a new option, previously it was one delivery a year. i like the idea of the order being split, but there were more details that needed to be resolved.

i woke up yesterday morning and made three international calls. the first was to guy that had no dates he could confirm and was in a rush to move onto the next thing he was doing. he asked me to call back today, and confirm plans with his chief of operations. the second was not answered, this is the hardest connection to make, but only involved the second order so it was not crucial for me to resolve the issues i needed to discuss. the final call was not really about the logistics, it was more of a general touch base that evolved into a discussion of dates and timing.

and that is where the rub was. it looked as though we would be under deep time pressures this year. it was strongly possible that the delivery could take place but that i would need to ship back much sooner than i hoped. when you go to the effort to plan your year around getting something, you do not want to send it back as soon as it comes. the discussion of timing was not clear and i decided to wait a day before worrying about it. but, worry i did. my life is pretty much about anticipation of looming crisis, and this was just one more thing to try to breath my way through.

when i woke up this morning, i was thinking about my favorite drugs and if i could get them or not. i miss having them, i miss the thrill of experiencing them, the way they open me up and let me laugh. they are the thing i miss the most when i am here, and they are what makes me want to go back to the US more than anything else. i like asia, but asia does not have anything like this and i know i need to go back if i am going to have more of it than i have now.

one final call this morning. they are going to do an early shipping date, and the abrupt return i was worried about is not a requirement. so rather than the less than two weeks i thought i would have, i will actually have close to 5. as i heard this, i let out a huge sigh of relief. one more year will pass and again i will have my kids here in KL with me. the junkie desire i have been feeling build is going to be satisfied, i felt my stress headache melt away.

so i am here for today, i am going to a quiet island tomorrow, i have everything i need in life and the time to enjoy those things. i have a series of new logistics to work out, and i am sure there will be bumps along the way, but at this point i don't care at all. my kids are coming to spend time with me.

they are my biggest high of the year, and their time is best thing i could ask for.

completely built-up

2011-04-22T14:50:00.008+08:00

living in malaysia can be the most frustrating moments of my life. if you know me at all, you know that frustration is pretty much a constant for me, and i have the ability to deal with frustration well beyond the norm. but, dealing with complete stupidity is the thing that sets me off, and living within the rigged systems of this country are constantly annoying.

in the US i own a volvo XC-70, the full-size all-wheel drive model of my lab-owner/soccer-dad social class. i love the car, and miss driving it while i am here. the hyundai i am driving now is a big step up from the proton perdana i used to drive. the upgrade was done by the rental company because they could not keep up with the constant maintenance the local car required to keep it running. both are well short of the leather seats and handling of the volvo sitting lonely in the US.

they are also short of the VW or mini-cooper i planned to purchase when i first moved here. i planned to buy a cheap car that was fun to drive, maybe a convertible because of the heat. those were quickly dashed, and not just because there are almost no convertibles here. i learned cars that cost USD 20K in the US, cost USD 60K+ here. why would i buy what to me was a cheap car, but pay 50% more than the top of the line sportswagon i was leaving behind? i wouldn't, and anyone who does has just failed an intelligence test.

but people do buy overly expensive cars here. i used to assume it was just people benefiting from datuk-driven corruption, but there are simply too many nice cars on the road to explain all of them. i next assumed the owners are paying off import officials to get reasonably-priced foreign cars in. this one has not been proven true or false, but it is clearly in the realm of possibility. lastly i learned that people take loans for 7 or more years to pay for their cars. americans upgrade cars on average every 4 years, and the higher end market is closer to every 3, so buying any car and paying for it over 7 years is a strange idea.

but when you consider the cost of buying a car here, in relative terms to average salary, you can understand why people need long financing. having grown up in an open economy, where prices are kept low through competition, rather then high through political means and layers of skimming, i am simply not able to participate in the system. so i sit on the side and grumble.

a few weeks ago i was in BSC looking at a slightly less price-elevated macbook air. as i was walking through the mall i saw a volvo V50 on display. i walked over and sat in the car, thinking about returning the to US and buying this as a smaller version of the car that was paid off years ago. but as i sat in the car i noticed a bleak interior. everything was cheap plastic, and the accessories were either missing or of lower quality than i expected. the car had no soul, no personality. this was not the volvo product i had been craving, just a welfare version with the same shape.

i got out of the car and asked the sales girl standing near by about the car. she didn't speak english, so she shyly called over "her senior". selling cars in the premium expat mall in town, i would expect english, but i know finding those skills is getting harder and harder as generation M comes of age. the slightly better skilled senior came over and explained the car was CKD, which he happily explained as "completely knocked down", a car assembled in country with the cheapest parts available shipped in. i asked about cars produced entirely outside, he told me those would be CBU or "completely built-up", and also explained those would cost more.

okay, so maybe CKD was a practical way to purchase a car. i assumed the cost would be a rational number, so i asked. what he quoted was more than twice the cost of a fully equipped version of the car in the US. here comes the frustation. i sighed and asked if i could get a sunroof, remembering my plans of driving a convertible. he laughed and said, "malaysians don't know how to install a sunroof". so what if i buy CBU? no, CBU comes with none of the options i would want because it would make the car too expensive for the market, and its impossible to order it with anything that would make the car fun or give it a personality.

the frustration was now on multiple levels. yes the corruption of the country has been going on for much to long and must change for the overall economy to improve, rather than slip backwards into happy dysfunction. the tarrifs must be removed, so the people can buy items at world prices. if this mean inefficient companies that cannot compete or produce quality products are effected, that is what capitalism is all about. malaysians need to demand these changes, and it shocks me that they do not already. but the most important thing is that malaysians need to look at the reality of the situations around them and stop using good sounding words for less acceptable reality.

it could be saying "the best and the brightest" for recent graduates who are not able to pass an interview in the foreign-owned companies that must be attracted and retained to continue to grow. it could also be ordering an "airport limo" and being picked up by a proton waja. but, it is definitely that "completely built up" should not be applied to a stripped down shadow of the real product. malaysias need to understand that there are better options out there, and that they are being ripped off every time they make a purchase today. the reason i am frustrated is that i see so much ability to improve, and so much more organized denial stopping it.

the first step to change is admitting you have an issue. please admit it so we can begin to change the names of things around here and i can be less frustrated;

only then will malaysia be completely built-up.

being good

2011-04-22T13:17:00.000+08:00

a few weeks ago i woke up in a hotel room and wondered how i had gotten there. as i laid in bed and felt the soft sheets around me i knew i was not home, but i did not remember where i was. i was alone, i was happy and i had a simple night before, spending the night at a friends wedding then returning to the room to read a book in the bath. it might sound boring, but it was the night i wanted to have if i was being good.

being good is something that is subjective. those two little words can mean completely different things. i am sure the asians sitting around me as i type this have as many views on what it means as there are people in the room. the malay guy with the shaved head, intense stare and tattoos might disagree with the malay girl at the register whose name means abstinence. then again, maybe they completely agree but i doubt they would both admit it.

that afternoon i was waiting for my car at jockey parking after lunch. there was a little malay boy standing near me. he was with his mother who was waiting for her car. as we waited, he noticed me and looked at his mother. he pointed to my tattoo, and she shooshed him a bit embarrassed that i had seen the exchange. they were clearly upper-class, and i assumed were exposed to the more cosmopolitan sides of KL. i assumed this based on location, dress and the fact that this kid was openly cheeky, not the average shy (if not functionally mute) malay kid.

this is when the kid dropped his water bottle on the ground and kicked it towards me. mom was horrified, and apologized as i picked it up and handed it back to her. i told her it was not an issue, and said hi to the kid. she handed him the bottle and he stepped closer to allow his little arm to hurl the bottle directly at me. this was the moment i knew i liked him.

we had a few more minutes of mom trying to suppress this kids clearly natural behavior. he threw the bottle, kicked it and laughed the entire time. the fact that i was smiling and laughing at him might have added fuel to the fire, but i think he was capable of this without my encouragement. my car came first, as i got in i heard the mom say the still strange, "say good bye to uncle". as i turned i saw him watching me from behind his mothers legs. i waved and said, "be good". i saw him smile with that same twinkle in his eye my grandmother used to talk about. i wondered if he understood exactly how i meant the advice.

as i drove home i was thinking about this kid and what he will mean to the country. he and the other kids in malaysia are the future. the country is changing, becoming much less shy, at least here in KL. the children are the next generation to come into power, if they do not all leave as part of the talent diaspora, they will be the ones demanding the ability to be themselves. is the country ready for the future behavior of this less than shy generation.

when i got home i walked into the elevator and on the next floor up a chinese family came in. they had a kid of about the same age with them. he had a french school shirt on, so i said, "bonjour monsieur" to him. he smiled and laughed at me. we had a short conversation until we got to their floor, as they got out he waved to me and i said "be good". this was not the same encouragement as before because i didn't see any of the natural readiness to challenge in him, but it may have been more subtle advice. as the doors closed i heard him say to his parents, "that is a nice man". i wondered how many people agree with that.

when it comes to being good, i know i do not agree with the people around me. being good includes being yourself and using your skills. if you have the ability to think or be different then being good is exercising those abilities. in this case, less is not more. working hard to allow yourself to be as good as you can is easier and more fun than working to suppress your natural self.

as i think back on when i came to believe this i keep hearing coach toppa say, "look good, feel good, be good". being good for that group meant going out and beating another team into submission. it meant competition and success, it did not mean gentle or shy discussion. toppa taught us that "three, three, tackle to tackle" anything was allowed. this is a box around the ball where the substance of the game happens, its where most people ignore because its messy and active, but this is the box that i learned to be good within.

here is too hoping these kids find a way to get out of their box, and to be good while they are within it.

talking racism

2011-03-05T11:48:00.006+08:00

i walked into my new favorite breakfast place and the owner came over to me to say they were reversing their reversal and would now cook an egg a second way. this made me happy, because it was good to see something change for the better. while thanking him, he said thank you to me in return. his point was that i needed to tell them what i wanted, so they could change.

when my special order was brought over the women at the table next to me asked me what i was having. i told them, they laughed and told me the same thing had happened to them last week, and announced the next time they came in they would order the same thing because it looked so good. the table next to them was listening in on our conversation and called the waitress over to see what i was eating. a movement has begun, welcome to the breakfast sandwich revolution. it all started with someone asking for something to change, and those in power to listen and respond. the happiness is spreading.

as i was enjoying my coffee and surfing wikipedia, i heard the women at the table next to me mention my company by name. i leaned over and asked if i had heard correctly. i had and the simple question turned into a 20 minute conversation. one of the women had spent three years in the US, and is now struggling back in her native country. she talked about the culture shock of returning and brought up how hard it is to live within a racist country. this is a common conversation here, people talk about it openly, but it's bollocks and it would help if they stopped talking about one thing when they mean another.

american's have a reputation around the world as being simplistic and rude. we are made fun of because we do not travel outside our country and do not understand the world. the political system in the US is contentious, but it is also stable and effective. our government is passed back and forth between the parties, and even when we have election issues like the ballet crisis in florida that elected bush, the system works. the parties use division, but it is less and less about race; or only indirectly.

american politics are about religion and economics. the GOP is seen as the party of the fundamentalist religious right, they are for small government, low taxes, and would like to use christian values to direct the country. the democrats are on the left, they are the party of the working man, suspicious of big business, believe government should be used to protect those least able to protect themselves. at times this has been portrayed as the white business man against his workers of color, but those days are gladly disappearing. the courts helped to wash that away, enforcing the equality and freedom of stupidity guaranteed by our constitution.

my hippie parents were a great example of working class amercians. they came of age during the 50s and 60s, they have lived through the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll years that were part of the amercian social upheaval. my father worked and socialized with friends across color, religion and economic boundaries. i remember him waving to a person on the street, and then under his breath saying something rude; drunk-bastard, stupid-wop, nigger all passed his lips over the years. did this make him a racist? he would say he was just calling a spade a spade.

when i dated an african american in high school he pulled me aside and warned me it was going to be hard. the thing was, he was right, it was harder than normal. we had social differences, and they didn't make connecting any easier.

dad could use harsh words, but he could also open his doors to people of all colors. i remember sitting at thanksgiving dinner next to a man who scared me most of the year. his name was sherwood, he was a neighborhood alcoholic who could get mean when he drank. as kids, we knew to give him a wide birth while he was drinking. when i asked my father why he was coming to dinner, my dad looked over and reminded me that sherwood had no one else to have dinner with. he told me that no matter how little we had, we needed to help those who had less than us. race didn't matter, we would help those around us regardless of color or lifestyle. this doesn't sound racist to me, it is advice everyone should get from their father.

as i look at malaysia, i don't see racism. i see people trying to live their lives. i see self-imposed or socially-supported segregation all over, but at least in my MNC world, there is little open hatred or hostility. the social rules, enforced by the asian shame culture are the root of the evil here, and people have little capacity to honestly question it. segregation happens with the practice of endogamy, enforcement of semi-halal rules, and educating children in religious or language segregated schools to ensure they are indoctrinated into a foreign culture. these all happen at the expense of creating a single culture, and is universally accepted as proper.

the US has a program of affirmative action, meant to protect the rights of minorities and level the playing field. for the past 50 years it has been illegal to "discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of sex, race, creed, color, or national origin". affirmative action was at times implemented as quotas, but in the past decade that was rolled back because it unfairly selected minority candidates over the majority. much like affirmative action rules all over the world, the issues in malaysia are not truly about race, they are about preferences that help some at the expense of others.

last week, local newspapers had coverage of 100 ethnic indians being arrested, and more threatened with water cannons, for attempting to march against a book called "interlok" being added to the school curriculum. the book includes a plot line of indians coming to malaysia 60 years ago, and bringing their cultural standards such as caste system with them. having been here 5 years, i can tell you the caste system is still echoing in the indian culture. is it racist to have a book written in a different time point out the realities of that time? someone here should read "to kill a mocking bird", a book that helped white amercia come to terms with itself.

last week the newspapers also had coverage of a debate on stopping the practice of asking for race on applications. this is not just for employment, it is done on almost all applications in the country, not really a shock for a country that lists religion on your identity card (IC). but honestly, if you had a stack of applications with names like "adbul", "ganish", "chew" and "fernandez" would it be difficult for you to select based on "racism"? more importantly than not asking, make sure it does not matter. a level playing field is the only way to do that, and for it to be level, there should not be teams competing with referees who care who wins able swing the game.

i live and work around malays, chinese, indians, japanese, iranian, egyptian, burmese, indonesians and koreans and an assortment of other expats. i see mixed marriages of all sorts, those that work well and those that do not. i watch groups of people at tables all over this country and see the high level of mixing that takes place. i also see many more tables that are a single race. but those are self-imposed choice, not a conspiracy of racism that malaysians talk about.

if malaysian's don't like their political parties that are divided by race and unified by the political segregation, they should change it. there is no lack of talk about it, but nothing happens because they are taught to stay in their correct place and do what the society expects. this is the heart of living within a shame society:

shame is a reaction to ... our failure to live up to our obligations and the expectations others have of us. in true shame oriented cultures, every person has a place and a duty in the society. one maintains self-respect, not by choosing what is good rather than what is evil, but by choosing what is expected.

if there is racism here, it is that each group refuses to give up the expectations they have for those in their own group. it is not driven by the other groups, but by each of the groups within itself. there is no cultural agreement on "one malaysia" because there is no single set of rules. imagine the stadium in bukit jalil, with four different sports being played at one time, and each team pointing to each other and complaining they are not being treated fairly because they do not have enough of the field.

my father the plain talking, and obnoxious, american would have looked at this and shook his head. he might have said, "this is an useless as a tit on a bull"... i can imagine three cultures offended by that johnism, but with typical self-imposed segregation i doubt they could agree on the word that was offensive.

malaysia is not racist, but it is also not multicultural, if so it really would be 1Malaysia.

/********

multiculturalism has come to mean the advocacy of extending equitable status to distinct ethnic and religious groups without promoting any specific ethnic, religious, and/or cultural community values as central.

********/

planning distraction

2011-02-27T16:07:00.010+08:00

i had a trip planned a few weeks ago, but it was cancelled at the last minute. this has left a space of freedom in my near future, and the sound of "mind the gap" has been heard deep in the coming trouble areas of my subconscience. i can sense the train is coming, but i am questioning if this is the station i should be in. i feel like i should be somewhere else, the english country side, safely tucked in, rather i have this image of the train station scene of american werewolf in london. could it be that a bad moon arising?

i am sitting in my third cafe of the day, waiting for a salted beef and thinking about what i am going to do with myself when i am left to my own devices. i thought about another quick trip, to a beach to listen to the waves, but i also have an invitation to a wedding. it's strange that someone else's commitment has an impact on my freedom of movement and expression. rather than digging for my swimsuit, i am considering the need to dry clean my other new suit from vietnam.

even if i do know what i would rather be doing, there are limits to the amount of distraction one can enjoy in a short time. rather than two weekends, i have two peri-weekend nights that i may or may not have fully free. if recent history holds true, both of these nights will have other commitments which i might want to blow-off, but will elect to be a good boy and do the right thing. what was that saying in the shining? all work and no play makes jack a dull boy.

dull boy i have become, i should be able to plan distractions for myself and i am not able to do it. i can imagine it, i have the playful and cheeky side to exercise, but i can not visualize the end result. i can hear the philosopher/golfer in caddy shack, ty webb, giving me the advice "be the ball"... wait how does that entire quote go?

ty webb: I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.

maybe thats the advice i need, stop thinking and just let things happen. no, how can that be a good idea. to enjoy life you need to plan right? i just need to figure out what it is that i want.

i know, i am going to go to the video store and hope they have what i really need. movies with jack, chevy chase, bill murray. in addition to the ones above that sound like a great way to hide at home, maybe i can add in stripes, and if god loves me, fletch. i am not sure why i feel such an urge for movies from the 80's about wiseass guys being annoying to those around them, but clearly i am. if i can't find these movies, i must have a copy of road trip at home already.

yeah, those are the distractions i need. it's good to have a plan.

anti-po service

2011-02-27T13:21:00.009+08:00

i left the house today looking forward to breakfast, and some quiet time to write. there is a new cafe in bangsar that i have been to 4 times over two week-ends. the place is run by two expats, and have brought a non-malaysian coffee culture to my adopted haunt. i have been very happy with the new menu, the flexibility of the owners and the culture they are bringing to a location that is feeling more dated by the week. too bad all the good may not last.

antipodean sits next to the aging la bodega in telawi. even the name is a hint to the background of the owners, two kiwis who are attempting to bring a new cultural spin to a poorly copied food and beverage scene in KL. a cafe that roasts its own coffee daily and can correctly make a ristretto was not uncommon in the US of 20 years ago, but is long long over due here. well trained and energetic staff, with owners who seem to always be close by help make this a stand out new location for those who grudgingly accept poor service as the norm.

the menu is a nice mix of all day breakfast items that go far beyond the "english breakfast" norm and light cafe fare designed with a playful sense of balanced fusion. the food is simple, but sports freshness and quality of ingredients that stands apart. it is also presented with a sense of style that reminds one why nouvelle cuisine works at all levels, even in the cafe.

the two best things about the place have been the fact that they are non-halal, meaning i can have pork with my banana pancakes, and that they are flexible and focused on customer service. last week i asked one of the owners if they could make me a breakfast sandwich on croissant. to do this, they needed to take one of the menu items and convert the eggs from scrambled to "over easy". this would let me pick the croissant up and eat it the way my mother used to make.

the breakfast sandwich was one of longest lived craving items from the time when i first came here. mcdonalds has pseudo-mcmuffins, but the chicken sausage takes any enjoyment of breakfast away, so i have long ago stopped looking for a sandwich during breakfast. when the owner said, "sure, no problem, we can do that" and sent it over, i was in heaven. i knew i had found a new place to call home.

this morning i tried to replicate the experience. a few minutes after ordering the other owner came over and said, "i have some good news, and some bad news". which was a polite way of saying he had bad news. the kitchen, as he explained, was not able to cook an egg any way other than scrambled without falling into chaos. yesterday, people had come in and asked for eggs other ways but hard boiled had come out soft, soft boiled had come out wrong. rather than helping me enjoy home, i was back into the standard malaysian environment of "the good news is we do it one way, even if it isn't the way you want it".

i said okay, finished my tea, and packed to leave. i moved over into bodega after i decided that if i was going to be disappointed by food options i might as well have better music. some how, moving to a place that never offered to be different or to provide great customer service seemed better than having it offered and then taken away.

antipodeans are the people who live on the opposite side of the world. only 4% of the worlds land mass has an antipode. new zealand and malaysia are both those that do, but it is uncommon. this cafe opened with the promise of being equally uncommon, having quality, creativity and service. sliding into a lowered customer service because staff is not capable of cooking an egg other way than a single way, is the slippery slope to be as mediocre as the competitors.

go and have a coffee, try the orange/lime soda or the very good french toast. talk to the barrista or the owners and get to know why small coffee shops are a welcome change from the corporate caffeine giants. support these guys and hope that the trend of better quality F&B continues the recent trend in KL. but when you go, do me a favor, ask them to be flexible and teach their staff to make an egg more than one way.

the world should not always be scrambled, trust me and try it "over easy".

self driven

2011-02-27T12:27:00.005+08:00

i was driving home the other night and looked over to see someone being chauffeured in a hyundai. because i also drive a hyundai, and are still regularly asked if i drive myself, i began to think about why someone would need a driver and what it says about the country where so many people expect that i would want one.

when i first came to malaysia, i took a cab to the hotel close to my meetings, then another into KL for a weekend of site-seeing. that was the end of my being driven in this country. while wandering around KL, i bought a map at a book store. next i rented a car and began to find my way around. a drive from cyberjaya to nilai, my first long drive on the highway while sitting in what had always been the "passenger seat", reminded me of the first long drive i did solo while a teenager. both trips were a rite of passage of sorts, moments of self imposed fear that allowed me to confront the emotion and take control of my independence.

i have a friend of a friend here who is over 40 and does not have a license to drive. he gets around on public transit and through the good will of others. this is really not as uncommon as i first thought. i can quickly come up with a list of people i know here who began to drive in their thirties, or are "getting ready to start driving". even the people who do drive frequently say "sorry, i can't go there, i do not know my way". being able to find your way, without requiring someone else to lead, is what being self driven is all about.

i used to stop into an expat coffeeshop on the way to the office. occasionally a black van would pull up outside and a pretty chinese woman about 30 would get out. she did not come in alone, there were always two guys who did not smile and took up protective positions at the front and back of the cafe as she was ordering. when she left, they would quietly follow and load themselves back into the van with blacked out windows. the driver who had been standing next to the van watching the street outside was the last to get in before they pulled away.

the second or third time i witnessed this, one of the baristas leaned over and whispered to me, "do you know who that is"? when he gave me a name, i had never heard it. then he said, "her father owns mid-valley, they are afraid she is going to be kidnapped, so she as a driver and guards". this is definitely a reason i can understand. but i wonder how many of the people with drivers are in a situation like this? maybe, they just want people to think they are.

asking why malaysian's have drivers i was told it's not the driving, but the parking that is the issue. given the state of parking here, i see some of the logic behind this. but you would think that after paying 3 times more for a car than it would cost in a country not using protectionist tariff policy to give jobs to proton workers, paying the added cost for jockey parking would not be a deal breaker. doing some quick math, i guess i spend an extra RM 200 (USD 65) on jockey parking a month. a driver would cost me 10 - 20 times that. jockey parking to save time and money, it might be a challenging idea, but only for the math-illiterate.

when i think of the conspicuous consumption of having a driver in the US, i think of mr. big, the role model who is carrie's soulmate in sex and the city. having a full time driver in the NYC will easily cost USD 200K a year. having so many of the scenes with big and carrie in his car is a constant reminder of his wealth and status. seeing big roll down the window is really enough, but having him say, "change of plans jimmy, let's take the lady down town" is the classic big moment where he changes his busy schedule just to do something nice for carrie. for big, time is more important than money, and that is what he gives carrie when he offers his driver.

but the person i saw being driven up the sprint was almost the opposite. being driven in a hyundai, reading the sports page to keep up on the EPL, and trying to look important enough to warrant a driver comes off as small, not the big that one might have in mind as they cut the monthly check. new rule: if you cannot afford the limousine, don't hire the driver.

i drive myself because i enjoy it. i use the moments behind the wheel as meditation, where my mind can wander as the driving moves to a semi-autopilot mode. i enjoy the experience of wandering in new areas, getting lost and finding my own way. i like having a map of the world in my head, that i can tap into and find a new way between two points. i am not sure why you would give these moments away to someone else. why would you delegate the adventure of experience to someone else? it is too easy to let life slip by unnoticed, all the more when you are in the back seat reading a newspaper.

being self driven is the only way to live life. it allows you to find new places, to take new routes and to learn as you experience the day. being in control of your vehicle and the destinations that you reach, teach you that you can accomplish anything you set out to do. without facing those fears, you would be forced to stay in the small space you started in, or where ever your driver was able to take you.

when i am asked if i drive myself, i smile and say:

"of course i do, don't you"?

p ramlee

2011-02-20T16:02:00.004+08:00

living in a foreign country for almost 5 years gives you the opportunity to question your own country is many ways. the things you take for granted, because you culturally share them with friends and family, are rarely the same for those who are around you day to day. social beliefs come from many sources; the words of politicians and preachers, the spin of news and the fiction in books. but the most powerful for me is the stories and characters in movies. i find that cultures are driven by their icons, which has me thinking about my adopted home.

there is a new restaurant in bangsar village called "plan-b". as the name suggests there is almost nothing new about the place. the menu and management team were both stolen from delicious when the owners sold that successful chain to the E&O hotel group. possbily to make it less of a direct copy, this time the color scheme is black, and the staff is mostly local; neither of which is a positive change. the only improvement to the place is the showing of "p. ramlee" movies running silently on large screens at the back of the house.

as i was waiting for the worst service i ever, the movies gave me a chance to consider how much malaysia has changed since the 60s. the women in the film were uncovered and tightly wrapped in kebaya, some of the most beautiful women i have seen here. the subtitles helped me follow along with the plot, which seemed to have three paths:

the splitting up of a fathers estate among brothers that smiled at each other but all wanted more than they got
the failure of a one of the brothers businesses
the attempt to marry three daughters off to a rich business associate in an attempt to avoid admitting failure publicly

the movie was full of plotting and fake smiles, success would come from inheriting or marrying into wealth, rather than building it. talent was not the driver of the film or the culture, it was what connections you made and how you conducted meetings behind closed doors. the idea that "it's not what you know, it's who you know" is there in the US, but it's not the core of the cinema experience; or of the cultural. if p. ramlee is the example of movie icon here, i began to wonder who it is for the US.

using movies from the same period as the ramlee films, i would point to john wayne as the typical american icon. films with wayne as a strong leader, almost always a self starter and independent man. one who fought for what was right, and would always win. later films, like true grit the recently remade classic, showed that he understood he was aging, but that the world still needed men with grit. riding tall in the saddle, blocking the way of a larger group and speaking clearly with "bold talk for a one-eyed fat man" was the example being set.

a more modern example of the same american character is jason bourne. a man put into a situation that he does not completely understand, but that he finds he has the skills to react to. bourne represents a bit of the europeanization of the american phyche, more educated and nuanced than any character wayne played, but always capable. early in the series, bourne even shows how surprised he is at the things he can do when he is forced. americans have learned that sometimes they are forced into action, but much like the old john wayne films are still expected to succeed.

another example of this is the "die hard" character john mcclane. mcclane is an average guy, when we meet him he is picked up at the airport by a chauffeur he did not expect and driven to the holiday party of his estranged wife's company. she is an executive, he is a police sargent and they live 3,000 miles apart, this is a man whose life has taken turns he did not expect. as the film unfolds we find that "only john can drive someone that crazy". he is difficult to live with, has a big mouth and enjoys annoying people, but is also the guy you want on your side in a fight. mcclane, like bourne, takes enormous punishment through the film and keeps going. stopping is not an option; being tired and bloody, but continuing on is what makes him "that guy". he could stop, but no one else is there to do the job.

i asked an american friend about this the other day, who did he see as the amercian icon in film. he quickly said, bill murray in stripes. the movie is about a guy who loses his job, his car, his apartment and his girlfriend all in one day, so he joins the army. this is not an action film, it's a comedy about being a wise ass, having the freedom to be oneself even when you are forced to fit into a community you do not naturally belong. but even in this film, the character is forced into action and takes leadership of the unit, steals an armored RV and invades czechoslovakia to save friends who have strayed into trouble. another hero, clearly one we did not expect at the beginning.

as i look over this list, it reenforces the idea that american films teach that the community must succeed. culture says we must be ready for action (even if we did not want it), we can get the crap beat out of us, but we will win if we keep going. we expect to win because we learn to not give up at the first sign of tough times. in almost all of these films, the hero is working against those in power, or are getting less than the support expected. needing to be self sufficient is also part of that beaten up and bloodied american psyche. which brings me back to malaysian film icons.

i did some reading on p. ramlee after watching the silent movie. he lived the end of his life in singapore. towards the end he was the butt of jokes, and considered a has-been and was rejected by malaysia. after an untimely death in 1973 the malaysian community waited 9 years to rename a street for him, and another 8 after that to award an honorary title of "tan sri". he is now a caricature that silently runs in a restaurant with horrible service. i am not sure what he represents to the malaysian community and what his films say about the culture or the community as a whole.

i want to understand, but locals have not been willing or able to tell me. to be fair, i just asked one more time, trying to get an answer before assuming that the country really does not have an inner message. i turned to an available malaysian and explained my question, when asked who is the film icon for the country he quickly said "p. ramlee", when asked what the films said to malaysia, he replied:

"i don't know, i have never watched one"

most alive

2011-02-09T14:00:00.007+08:00

being away from your home country forces you to try to stay connected with the cultural events you are inherently missing. the superbowl was this week, other than having a raving packers fan in the office, and calling my son on the drive to the office on monday, i would never have know; or honestly cared. but other events and ideas happen back in the land of the free and i feel the pull of desire to share them. this is how i get pulled into reading articles on sites like good.is

living in malaysia takes away my ability to think about the best beer in each state, but i can read an article that maps the best beers of my home country. it points out that 78 percent of the beer sold in the US is produced by busch, coors and miller brewing companies, but the fact that we have a map with 49 great breweries, spread evenly across the country, does warm my heart. it also made me happy that smutty nose, harpoon, flying dog are all on the list, but gives me ideas for reasons to try new brews the next time i am back.

while i was reading the site today i saw the community discussion, when you do feel most alive? read the aswers that people left, they were great. those leaving comments were honest and open. talking about moments in life that are personal, but which do make them feel fully alive. this is something i miss about the US, those types of conversations, and here it is in an online forum.

as i read the article, i thought about it for myself. what moments make me feel fully alive?

the first thought was of driving in malaysian thunderstorms. speeding up the roads to KL, with rain sweeping over the road, other drivers making erratic lane changes and entering curves like those on the MEX or Sprint just a bit too fast for the conditions. in those moments, retaining control as the fear of slipping off the edge of the road kicks in. i feel a rush and then the relaxation that comes when the wheels straighten out and the stress passes. it's the moment after the near loss of control that feels the best, that is the moment of success.

this happens in other situations also. work, thankfully, has plenty of chances for almost crashing. last year while we were trying to go mobile, we had black screens of death, fears of apple rejection, risks of selected tools -- i felt alive and well. it reminded me that life is too short not to do the things that you love. the day the app went live, i was swimming in a private pool in thailand and i knew success was worth the effort.

the moments of life which are the best are those where i pushed into a risky situation, took a chance that others would shy away from, felt the pressure rise, felt the rush of excitement and the eventual relaxation when the pressure has passed. the moment some call "la petite mort", a short period of melancholy or transcendence as a result of the expenditure of the life force, is what makes me smile. it gives me joy and is worth the stress that brings it.

does this make me an adrenaline junkie? i don't jump out of airplanes, rob banks or other self destructive acts. but i would love to run with the bulls, want to surf really big waves again and tend to be dumb enough to take on a challenge for the pure enjoyment of doing it. i also have lived a life with enough excitement to know that it's the thrilling moments i must continue to have. those are the events i am craving almost unconsciously as i realize the speed has picked up and the roads are wet.

the slower moments, the comfortable times, enjoying the feeling of safety, softness and warmth are great, but the short, sharp shocks of life are the times i am most alive. can you imagine living life without those? many, many people do, they keep the speed down, the lid on and the doors closed because its safe. safe is what my mother told me i would not be if i kept climbing to the top of the tree so i could get my head above the leaves. i wanted to look around, she told me i was foolish.

she was right, the next day the branch i was standing on broke and i fell towards the ground. i bounced off of limbs as i crashed towards the ground. a larger branch broke my fall before i hit dirt. i was a 8 years old and i felt how close i had come to killing myself. i was scared and realized what i had done. i scared myself enough that i never went that high in that tree again.

i still remember how good it felt to have my head above the top of the tree's leaves, that bright sunny day when i went higher than anyone else, higher than they thought i could. the bruises were worth it, because i had lived. i know i am not going to climb a tree and get my head about the top today, but it feels good to have the memory and know i did it once.

i never told my mother i had reached the top, she would have beaten me for being successful, and how could that be a good idea.

one word

2011-01-31T17:14:00.002+08:00

i started today in a semi-strange mood. it seemed like things were just not clicking, the timing was slightly off, and i wasn't really sure why. the skys were dark and grey for the third straight day. for the second day in a row it was raining, which for KL is a very strange. the upside was that the weather allowed me to take a jacket as i left the house, something the normal tropical heat of KL elmininates as a choice.

my day typically starts with a stop for coffee. the past few months i have settled into a routine of going to the starbucks close to my apartment. i take the time to drink espresso at the bar before i head off to the rest of my day. as i walked in the door today i saw that my favorite barista was there, a malay girl in tudong who appears to harbor libertarian feminist views. knowing the conversation would be interesting, i smiled as i walked in.

she asked me how i was as i moved over to the bar, and i said, "i am happy i get to wear my raincoat", showing the jacket off as i settled in. this was when she asked the first question, "can you describe happiness"? such a simple question, one which i have been thinking about alot lately, but how can you describe a state of mind? happiness is different for everyone, it even changes as you go though life, so how do you explain happiness to others?

i had spent most of saturday watching movies. i thought "eat, pray, love" would be an uplifting film for a rainy weekend. julia roberts is usually fun, and i expected something like "under a tuscan sun", with the plumbers and the bright colors of italy. in the end, the movie felt too surface for me, as though the distance liz kept from those around her limited the viewer from connecting to the film itself.

the one moment of happiness i did see in the film was when liz ate simple a bowl of pasta in italy. it was a moment that represented her renewed hunger for life. the passion for enjoyment, and the fact that she had found it in a simple pleasure that she was enjoying alone was not lost on me. these thoughts had flashed into my mind when i heard the question, but before i could answer a second question came, "what is happiness, in one word"?

this one had me stumped, i had this great image of living in italy, learning the language, exeriencing the culture, hearing the sites and sounds of the people and having a glass of barbera d'alba and a delicious bowl of pasta dressed in tomato basil on the table in front of me. but how would i decribe that in one word?

it did get me thinking again about the elements of happiness. to be happy i would suggest someone do the following:

spend time with the people you love
find space to be yourself
be successful in the things that matter to you
live in a safe place
eat good food
feel your body move with vigourus exercise
know you matter to others in the world
accept yourself and others as they are
forgive so you can move forward
be as good as you can be
safely indulge your vices
travel the world as widely as you can
learn something new everyday
feel nature around you
relax enough to focus on nothing

now that i have a list what can i do to boil this down? this is a pretty complex set of values that i am suggesting someone have to allow happiness. i also know this list does not fit everyone. this is a list that suits me, and it specifically excludes the need to be sure about anything or to have the answers to big questions. both are things i don't see as possible, and having them would not give me anything close to pleasure.

the word i got to standing in starbucks was "relaxed". in some ways i meant this as a lack of fear, guilt or anger, and in others i meant the actual ability to simply slow down and do nothing more than feel the wind and sun on your skin. a moment of quietness for the mind, soul and body, a moment that stretches into the next, without stress or pressure. a moment you can share with others or enjoy yourself. that is happiness for me.

in "eat pray love" liz learns the italian term, "dolce far niente" -- the sweetness of doing nothing. and that might sound like what i mean by the above, in fact at times that might be exactly what i mean. but happiness is not about doing nothing, it's about doing everything, at your own pace and in a way that taps into your passions and brings you joy.

i think i chose the word relaxed because of the times i was not living. i was too worried about the past and the future. that led to not lving in the moment, which was a life that was not lived. i am happy because i accept the world and who i am, i hope others accept me in return. for anyone who doesn't, well my father had a saying for that too:

"fuck em if they can't take a joke" -- that sounds harsh, but then again my father did know how to be happy.

asian parents

2011-01-30T14:00:00.008+08:00

the US is in the middle of a conversation on parenting that started when amy chau, a yale law professor, wrote a book on asian parenting which was excerpted by the WSJ. why chinese mothers are superior is an interesting piece, that i have to admit i thought was a joke as i read through it the first time. but tiger mom, as she is now being called, was not kidding. she, based on the text of the WSJ article, is serious that parents must force their kids to achieve. she tells stories of calling her daughter "garbage" and withholding food so she practiced piano to learn a difficult piece. this is long after almost all american parents would have allowed their kids to give up and sent them to play xbox.

my experience as a child was more or less the direct opposite of tiger mom parenting. my parents were hippies with a gypsy bohemian approach that allowed their kids to find their own way. the fact that i came to believe my parents needed someone to remind them that education mattered, that small things like paying the bills and ensuring health care was in place, left me feeling that i needed to parent them more than the other way around. surviving an imposed alternative lifestyle when i was young convinced me that a conservative life was the course for me. i needed to build a safe and comfortable life for me kids, find a stable partner, teach the children right from wrong and always be there to help them make the right choices.

nagging at the back of this was the bohemian side of my personality. my parents gave me the ability to see that right and wrong as a function of situation. what malaysia sees as a reason to put someone to death is allowed in jamaica and fully legal in amsterdam (and a growing number of states following california). parenting in the 21st century with children who are allowed to travel the world comes with advice suggesting "when in rome, do as the romans". i wonder how asian parents feel about this advice, but then again i want my kids to be capable more than conformist.

i had a debate with an asian yesterday about potty training. i had personally "missed the chance" because i was distracted during the morning and knew i was going to need to wait until 10pm for it to present itself again. i was told i should just go sit and wait. that was the way asian parents taught their children, they sit them down and tell them they can not move until they accomplish the task. i tried to push back and explain that it was not really a choice for me, i knew i had missed the window of opportunity and just needed to let things happen as they will.

the two of us stood there looking at each other, not really sure where to go next. we were at a cultural bypass. i clearly did not understand the need to teach children the self control to force things to happen on a schedule, my asian doubter did not understand the idea that things happen in their own time.

i tried to tell the story of teaching my son he controlled his own destiny. the deal was that when he was ready to use the toilet he would not need to wear diapers and would move from the crib to a "big boy" bed. one day he asked for the big boy bed, and was reminded of the deal, he resisted and we held firm. a few days later he called us into the bathroom, took his seat and finished with a loud round of applause. grandparents were called to share the big news, and the big boy bed came out of storage and was ready for bed time. it was not our decision for him to be ready, it was his and he alone took the praise for the success.

my parents telling me that what was important was for me to "be happy", allowed me find a course of life that was very different than theirs. it also allowed me to change course over the years and come to understand that i am much more bohemian that i ever expected, even if i am a bourgeois bohemian which is very different than they are. it's also not what i had in mind as i picked the conservative future, a future that flamed out and sent me on this road.

the potty conversation yesterday made me realize that the fundamental difference of the world view was this, asian parents want their children to learn to conform to the parents rules, take their advice on timing and control the timing and methods of their most personal choices. this is in direct contrast to the scary and permissive attitudes that tiger mom is warning the US about, she is reminding us that our children are children and must be controlled; long after most of us would have given them freedom of adulthood.

western parents are permissive when it comes to allowing self direction and choice. but, at least in our house, it comes with limits also. choices have consequences and everyone must own up to their decisions. they must accept that they were free and must live with the results they have imposed on themselves. maybe our parenting could be boiled down to the simplest of directions:

"it's your life, but if you want to shit your pants, don't ask us to clean it up"

mediocre meritocracy

2011-01-30T13:18:00.000+08:00

a friend of mine asked me to review the college transcript of a family member recently. the question was, what should the family member do for work now that they have graduated college. i remember being in my early twenties and questioning what to do with my career, so i was happy to take a look and see if there was a direction that jumped out. i wondered how it would have gone if someone had looked at my transcript long ago and helped me decide what to do. is it possible to see a future by looking at the numbers on a page, numbers that tell very little of the story of the real reasons for the grades.

as i reviewed the grades, i had to wonder why this person stayed in the program to begin with. it was clear they did not like the core curriculum, and might have done well to find a degree that held more passion for them. i asked about this and was told, they were "assigned" this degree. i was not able to figure out who had done the assignment. this was clearly not something the student had wanted. it may have been parents, and i would not be surprised if the school or the government overall had taken it upon themselves to select a future for this young person. the truth was that the student and the program were clearly a mismatch, one that sadly will probably never be corrected.

as i graduated high school, i had few plans beyond going into the marine corp and flying helicopters. one rainy summer afternoon i went to see the recruiter, a squared away marine that impressed young men in all the ways that motivate them to sign on the dotted line. we talked about why i wanted the program and what i hoped for in the career. he told me that to fly for the marines i needed to graduated college, if not i had two choices, enlist and hope to work myself into officer candidate school, or go into the army and fly as a warrant officer. neither of these were choices i was interested in, i had a vision of what i wanted and i knew i needed to adjust to get it.

as i slid into the drivers seat of my old junky car, i knew i needed to take a direction i had not anticipated. i decided in that moment that i was going to college, i would get the degree i needed to qualify and i would make my dreams happen. from there it was a series of conversations and quickly made decisions that pushed me down the road of life. i selected my college because someone told me i couldn't get into his school, and if i did get it i would not survive the first semester because the school had a policy of over accepting and then weeding out the freshmen who were not committed enough to work.

i began freshman year as an education major, with thoughts of following george, dave and barry into the classroom and onto the field as i had followed them into the water. i dropped the major after a conversation with the department head. a conversation that focused on the question, "what do you want out of life?" my honest answers led my advisor to suggest i leave his department and find something that would allow more freedom and challenge.

my plans came to a crushing stop when the tractor jumped forward and pinned both legs between it's bucket and the curb i was standing in front of. it took me over a year to get back on my feet and begin to rebuild the legs. they quickly broke down and i had to accept that my future was once again not going to be what i expected. i would not join the second PLC group i was assigned to, i would not take the guaranteed aviation slot, i would not wear the uniform.

i was now qualified to do almost nothing. i had dual degrees that had taught me to think and learn, but no skills that made it clear where i was headed. i liked to debate and with a mixed sense of need to break and enforce rules, i decided i needed to go to law school and become a lawyer. i had no schools in mind, i had not worked directly towards this in college and i was sick of being a student. i wanted to do something, so i decided to work for a few years to allow me to travel and experience the world.

i was quickly consumed with work, found my way though three completely different jobs inside of one company, fell into a position doing software engineering and mixed the ability to think fast, communicate clearly, do just in time learning and allow my hubris to drive me from one risk to the next. i took no time to travel, i worked and worked and kept saying next year would be the year i took time and relaxed a little. but next year had new challenges, another chance to work on something new, and those drove me forward, up and over the bubble; directly through crashes that could have derailed me if i didn't take the turns as quickly as they came.

along this whole course i am sure people tried to give me advice. after moving to malaysia my ex-wife was talking to my mom, when mom expressed reservations about me being on the other side of the world my ex-wife asked why she had not told me that directly. "what is the use, you know him, he is going to do what he wants to do and doesn't listen to anyone". when i was first told about this conversation i almost got upset, mom had given me her best wishes and i felt as though she had lied to me. but i also realized she was right, and if she had told me she was worried i would have moved anyway. i had taken another turn when it came, stopping or backing up was really not an option.

i have enjoyed all the success i have had. there have been some major bumps on the road, ones that have caused damage, but allowing someone else to tell me what to do would not have helped me. i was the only one capable of making my choices. if i had listened i would be like the student who had listened, i would probably be in a life that i did not enjoy and would always wonder what else would have happened if i had made my own choices. "take the safe course" is what most advice boils down to, how boring is that. that is where you end up with a world of mediocrity.

this brings me to the advice i will give, its one of the pieces of advice my father gave me that i did listen to,

"whatever you decide, be the best you can be"

backpacker parents

2010-11-19T14:05:00.005+08:00

while i was in college, and after i graduated, i wanted to backpack in europe. but the reality of the situation was that that was for the rich kids and i needed to work to afford to stay in school. there was no eurail pass for me, i had no fort lauderdale or cancun during spring break, i went home and worked to help pay for the semester that was half over. graduation day came and i stayed at work to do a double shift rather than crossing the stage with my classmates. working double shifts all through college was the way i had afforded to get this far, it seemed like the right thing to now that i had 10 years of debt to pay off once i graduated.

i was asked about my previous travels this week. had i done the backpacking in europe? why do i travel with a backpack now, when i can afford to pay for the five star hotel? today the cost of the holiday is more time than money. i plan trips on weeks that have holidays embedded within them, the time away from the office is much more of a challenge than the cost of the trip. the desire to carry a backpack and stay in "local" accommodations rather than yet another hilton is why this is vacation, i need to get away from the business travel environment.

but i am not the standard backpacker. i seem to have done this backwards, i delayed the backpacking until my back actually hurts from carrying the bag. travel in my 20s was restrained by the desire to pay off the loans needed to fund the parts of education i could not cover with double shifts. travel in my 30s was restrained by commitments including not taking days away because they were non-billable. travel in my 40s, well this has almost become a survival act. the reaction to an always on lifestyle and the need to be anonymous.

as i have been considering this, i have noticed the number of backpackers who are all around me this week. there is a certain flavor to the type, they are dominantly white, educated, literate and in their mid to late 20s. there are some in their thirties, but the over 40 crowd is limited. many have long histories of travel, the longest i have heard was 18 months of travel over 4 continents, with another 8 months to go before landing back in new york for a wedding. how does someone take 26 months out of their life and travel the world? i am asking that hoping how to figure it out for myself more than as a rhetorical question. where is the funding coming from? is it too late for me to be adopted by these parents?

when my older son was 10 or so, he asked me about eurail and suggested we do it together. i thought this was a great idea, one i honestly would not have come up with myself. i looked at tickets, considered the route through europe and presented the plan to his mother. the conversation ended abruptly, the trip was never taken, an opportunity was lost, one i wish i could go back and reclaim. i wonder how life would have been different if we had taken this trip. how would i be different?

as i look at the backpackers around me, i see them in the future. i see the house, and the volvo. i see the business they are running and the clients they need to keep happy. i see the children they are raising. i wonder if their spouse will also be a backpacker, or if they will be someone who orders roomservice and has never worn the same shorts for a week or shared a room with semi-strangers in a hostel.

i wonder when they will tell the children the stories of their backpacking past. i was almost 20 when i found out my father had gone to work in the caribbean for over a year. he never really told me the story other to say he had a great time. that is a side of my father i never knew existed, and i am sorry i will never know him at that time. will these parents be different? will they have pictures, blogs and facebook friends who drop in and tell the kids the story of a crazy night in thialand that mom has never mentioned? or will those memories be quietly tucked away under the adulthood that mom and dad take on? will the kids be given lectures on safety as they are carpooled from soccer to dance? will dad remember cambodia when he considers snooping in his daughters diary?

i talked to my younger son on the drive to the airport this week. i told him i was going to the mountains and hoped to piss over the border. i could hear him smiling as he laughed and called out to his mother to tell her about my plans. i could hear her adult reply to my childish plan. that made me smile.

backpacking is the 21th century version of hippy-culture. it's about the freedom to not shave, not get up in the morning, not go to bed at night if you don't want to. it doesn't matter if you smell a bit, if you have a stupid idea that you carry out or if you drink a bit too much.

what matters is that you find the time somewhere in your life to take an overnight train into the mountains, to look over the border and to know if you do want to let go, you can take a picture and share it with your children as a part of who you really are.

we are our past, and if we are really lucky, we are also our long scruffy futures.

meeting people

2010-11-19T10:50:00.009+08:00

i have been thinking about what travel is for me. i am in a place that i really like, and have come to multiple times over the past few years. there is a certain comfort to the place and the pace of life here. there is both a history and a future that is clearly visible on the streets. i am here to relax, eat, drink and sleep. travel is about meeting people, places are more about the people you interact with than the locations themselves.

sunday afternoon i walked into a tailor shop hoping to get a new jacket. i had been to this shop a few years ago, recommended by the hotel i was staying in i had gone in for a suit; and came out 4 days later with 3. those earlier suits are wonderful, they are not only high quality at a great price, but they remind me of the fittings. i remember complete conversations, with a tailor who speaks little or no english. i made a friend that week, the experience made the trip and it was one of the reasons i am back now.

a few months ago i needed a jacket for a business trip. i started hunting in KL for a sports jacket. in contrast to buying suits here, doing almost anything in KL is an experience in frustration, inter-mixed with delay and miscommunication and ending in either expensive disappointment or complete failure. i have lived in KL for almost 5 years, i have no tailors who are friends and find it cheaper, easier and much more fun to fly to communist country to buy clothes. so many things are just harder than they need to be in my new home, and that frustration builds up.

i do have a favorite cafe in KL, i go there and the staff call me abang. i feel welcome and they know what i want. they took the time to figure out what i like and to smile and talk to me. but this is far from the norm in KL. the malaysian mindset is one of transactional encounters, with scant interest in building friendships over the longer term. this might be centered in retail space where staff are not owners and are not planning to be there for very long; but i think it goes deeper than that.

early monday morning the train to the mountains pulled into its final stop and we disembarked into the darkness. there was confusion with the pickup which taught that viet-english of "one minute" in no way means 60 seconds, or anything even close. the eventual pickup was followed by a slow climb up the valley, 30 km of switch back curves with piles of rock and heaps of sand blocking lanes of travel. if the roads where not scary enough, the mute driver was yawning and shaking his head to stay awake. i really wanted to know the viet-english for slow down and stop passing on curves.

checking into the hotel was made very easy with a helpful receptionist who spoke good english. she was dressed in a local costume with a red turbin and drop earrings with pearls hanging. she was pretty and punctuated sentences with a large smile, but there was something familiar about her. i noticed how closely she would watch the people she spoke to, gauging their reactions and adjusting her approach. i recognized i was watching a lionese, stalking along the edge of a waterhole, looking for signs of weakness to be exploited.

the next day i was leaving the hotel to walk to the village a few km away. the promise was that the level of aggressive selling experienced in town would be lower in the village. the suggestion came after i had complained about being unable to walk the streets without being followed by calls of "buy from me, buy from me". i was told that i had to expect this, i was white, i clearly had money and too nice.

i had a laptop in my bag and asked to leave it in the lobby safe. the same receptionist asked, "is this for me?". i replied, "do you want it?". she said, "no, i want you" with the same cool smile. the words were said in barely hushed tones, and again i sensed the prowling lioness. i felt like the aging water buffalo, momentarily separated from the herd. i retreated to safety and went hiking down remote mountainous trails towards a raging waterfall at the bottom of the valley. somehow walking into the wilderness added to the comfort.

when i was checking out of the hotel the receptionist again brought up the aggressive selling in town and again explained that i needed to understand the people here had grown up poor and were just trying to make a better life for themselves. i said i understood, i had also grown up poor and knew the desire to push for a better life. this is when she told me that if she told me of your childhood i would cry with her, and preceded to paint the picture of the 5 person family living in a small house, roof open to the elements, one bed, one blanket that was too small to cover them all from the winter cold. i paid my bill and moved away. i felt sympathy, but not for the story, for the need that drives the predator.

as i travel and meet people, i have noticed there are three basic groups. survivors, victims and predators. survivors and victims are common people who are living their lives, and i believe some move between these groups over time. predators are the outliers, they are the ones we need to watch for as we move towards the water hole. they hide themselves behind a smile with no real warmth, or the practiced tales of their victim or survivor personal history. i have met this same person a few times over the years, and did not recognize what i was seeing at first. it takes me a few data points to identify a trend, but once i see the curve i am good at projecting the next event.

beautiful women who show quick interest, who have an aggressive approach and stories to explain why the aggression should be understood are now one of those curves. i got in the overly expensive private bus, driven by the same mute driver, down the same winding curves with rubble on the road. this time, the mountain roads were covered with thick clouds and 3 foot visibility. the same behavior of passing other vehicles on curves was now a few orders of magnitude more dangerous than the drive up. i was glad to be on my way, i had a fitting with my tailor the next day and i was looking forward to the city.

i had gone to the tailor this time to get another sports coat. i will be leaving with two new suits, two sports coats and two shirts. buying in pairs is a thing for me, but it is not an indulgence, all of this is only slightly more than the price i paid for the single sports coat i bought a few months ago in KL (or less than the price of one suit off the rack in the US). the tailor does great work, and better than that when she walked into the shop as i was picking materials she smiled and laughed. she remembered me from two years ago, she came over and gave me a hug. it was the hug of a friend, i knew i was not at risk.

meeting people is good, the more you meet the better at it you can become. safety comes from awareness and if you are aware you can make good choices. a few years ago i made a choice to buy a new suit, that choice came with a friendship of sorts. travel for me is meeting people, and staying safe. maybe i am getting older, or that i am just craving the quietness that safety brings me. but for me, as i meet people i keep thinking:

safety first.

relaxing travels

2010-11-15T13:31:00.014+08:00

i started saturday morning at 3 AM, forced awake by an alarm set to stun me out of well earned sleep. i stumbled around in the dark, afraid of the blaring lights that would replace the night with the flip of the switch. i had started another holiday, time away from work and the standard pace of life that i bury myself within. what sounded like a great idea when originally planned, was forcing me up, when i would much rather snuggle into bed and let the weekend slowly creep past. i laced my boots, shouldered my backpack and headed for the door. pushing the grumpiness away, i tried to relax and draw in the comfort of a promised relaxing vacation.

driving to the airport i called my son in the US and found him preparing for a 10-boy sleep over. how he ever convinced his mother that having 10 boys over for a lack-of-sleep over is beyond me. allowing a small horde of laughing tweens to commandeer your home is right up there with running away and joining the circus. it sounds like fun and adventure, but when you get right down to it living with monkey poop all around you has its limits of enjoyment. then again, there i was hours before sun-up being slowly driven to a discount airport so i could fly to a communist country, board a train and go into the mountains. who was i to judge?

i need this holiday. the timing was set months ago to allow me to juggle three projects. the planning has appeared to work out, the first seems fully stabilized, another that is in test but is coasting down its planned slope, and the last is running ahead of the curve a bit like a runaway train. the past few months have been a roller-coaster ride; and it is clear i need to get off and take a break from the "fun".

a roller-coaster is probably the wrong metaphor here, it has been more like bungie jumping must have been before the sport had a name. in a moment of boredom someone started a sentence with "what if we..." and for some reason thought it would be fun to actually to try it. we then cobbled our gear together and found a high ledge and at the last moment called home to warn the parents what we had decided to try. there was tension and some coercion to force us to let go before we were completely ready, but we survived the first thrilling fall before hearing the onlookers say, "dude, that was awesome, do it again".

this is what i needed to get away from, the desire to sieze the day with white knuckles from fear of death secondary to unrestrained free-fall. it does feel amazing when the stress is replaced by the reality that you did let go, you accelerated toward a short sharp shock, and then just as you were sure you had overstepped, you where snapped back and the curve reverses itself to one of upwards safety. it clears the mind, but there can be a hangover, and taking a rest from the party is a good cure for that.

so here i am, walking a neighborhood i mapped in my head on previous visits. i know where to go for a morning ca phe sua da with banana pancakes, or to get a very good croissant to eat while strolling along the lake. i am ready to move around the city on foot, cyclo or motorcycle. i am looking forward to sitting on a corner for hours, drinking bai hoi and eating pho ba for less than the price of a single coffee at starbucks. i am also going to eat at my favorite italian restaurant in asia, go to mass in french, and if i am really lucky get my name on a wall of fame for drinking 10 shots of "rocket fuel" the rice wine served straight or with infusions of your choice from lemon to snake. why in god's name would i want to drink rocket fuel, not once but ten times in row? well, it will get me a t-shirt as well as the bragging rights of success. it will also probably give me a serious headache, so this will have to wait until after the train to the mountains.

maybe that is why i needed this vacation. i needed to have a challenge that would not matter if i failed to do it. i mean, who cares if i stop at 9, or push to 10 and then fall off my stool. i really do want to get to ten for the t-shirt, but the shirts are only 5 USD and i could always buy one rather than drinking my way to ownership... but that really isn't the way to get the t-shirt is it?

just like all the other stupid things i do, it's the doing that is most important. owning the shirt means that i also own the experience. i can wear it not because i can afford to buy it, but because i stepped my ass up to the bar and ordered the drinks while someone was keeping count. if no one cared to watch, if it didn't matter to anyone at all, why would the doing matter. i don't want to wear a shirt if i didn't earn the damn thing. and, i don't want to celebrate something that is easy enough for anyone to do it. it might sound stupid, but it's true that there are too few challenges in life, you need to be proud of the ones you have survived.

if you are really lucky you can look around the table after your jump and with a steady voice say:

been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

balik kampung

2010-09-30T16:19:00.007+08:00

i woke up this morning at 9 AM, but it was dark out, my bed was cramped and uneven and there were people all around me asleep in the dark. this happens to me every few months, i find myself waking up in a strange place with no idea of where in the world i am. i have gotten so used to it that the events have become almost a ritual. they are nearly the same each time, but not quite. the people i wake up with are never the same, even the bed changes. why do i let this happen to me? because i need to go home.

i woke up on a plane headed to paris for a 12 hour transit and then on to the US. when i boarded the plane i was in 1C, but as i was standing and waiting, an attractive indian woman who i have seen in my second favorite KL cafe, asked me to change seats with her. my seat mate was a friend of hers and if i moved they could work together during the flight. the pitch was just believable enough that i agreed before i could think the consequences through. her seat was 5C, which is a row added behind the business galley that shares a wall with economy.

i probably would have moved either way, but i should have taken the time to do the math. if i had not moved i would have been using the full-size head near the cockpit. i realized this while i was using the the chick-coup sized head near my new seat. bathrooms that allow you to change to your pajamas with room left over are a luxury that i have learned to enjoy and search out on long flights.

sitting in front would also have left me isolated from the crying child sitting immediately behind me in the first economy row. i am pretty sure the baby was the reason the woman wanted to move in the first place. she, the baby not the lady, was crying when i took took the new seat, and i figured it out immediately that i had been conned. but babies cry, and being cramped on a flight is almost enough to get me to emotionally flare, so i try to not let the crying bother me. rather than going and asking for my seat back i thought it was better that i was there, rather than someone who would be upset by it the entire flight. who wants the negative vibes of tear induced frustration flowing around the plane.

so here i am sitting in a lounge in paris. it's a rainy day, so the idea of taking the train down to the city has been altered. i am going to read, write, do work email and maybe code for the next few hours. it took me three terminal changes to find my gate, three seat changes to find power points that worked, but i have surprisingly free network access and a mostly comfortable leather seat. i have also just bumped into another pseudo-star on a business trip. i was sitting two seats away from a highly recognizable actor from the bond movies of my youth. i didn't know who it was before he stood up, i was focused on his indian companion, but at 7 feet tall he stood out in the crowd.

why am i spending this much time, money and effort to move myself halfway around the world? why is my back aching, my body clock completely out of alignment and my schedule blown for 2 full days? to attend meetings on planning for next year and kick off projects, of course. also to see my kids, get some music, sleep in my own bed, drive a car i like, go to my favorite chinese/sushi place and have other comforts i miss while on the other side of the world.

this is why anyone would go home isn't it?

one hamburger

2010-09-10T17:54:00.010+08:00

have you ever tried to explain to an american why they don't understand the world? americans who leave the US find their vision of the world, and the place that america holds within it, is very different from those of the people they meet. growing up in the US you are taught that the world is a dangerous place; but that with truth, justice and the american way things will improve. after being outside the US, you realize that you don't even know what the american way is. that's the issue, american's are are not good at seeing there is another way to do anything.

i have been living outside the US for almost 5 years now. when i decided to leave, the seasons were changing at the same time i needed to move to the other side of the world. i was moving to a place where the change in season is more subdued than the summer to winter change of my home. the subtle nature of the seasons is something strange to an american (outside of southern california). americans don't do subtle, we expect things being hard, fast and direct. it takes experiencing another place and culture to realize there are more than one way to do things.

in malaysia there is one political party that has ruled the country for 50 years. this one party is actually made up of three political parties separated largely by language. in the US there are two political parties, with an occasional alternative party thrown in once a decade or so. in the US the parties are not broken down by ethnicity, language, region or even political belief, 40% of the electorate is considered independent and moves between these parties with the ease of trying on a new t-shirt.

malaysia has begun to change, there is almost a second party, and there are almost open elections. but there remains 3 major ethnic groups that make up distinct voting blocks. the US has only one electorate. the people do not see themselves as 3, 4 or 37 groups, because americans do not embrace the subtle differences. they are a single people not matter where their grandparents lived and what color their skin is. at home they speak what ever language they choose, but in public 96% of them speak english "well" or "very well". there is no official language at the federal level in the US, but the country still finds a way to educate and communicate among it's people. in the rest of the world there are "official languages", and ethnically separated schools that hobble a student from ever learning it well enough to participate in government.

so there is the core difference, amercians have one language. it is properly called american, but they call it english while they refuse to pronounce or spell it as taught in england. this one language means they can understand and disagree with each other with clarity. because of that there is little confusion, you then do not have the ability to say that what you said is not what you said. we can leave clinton and his "what is is" comments aside, we all know bill was officially european the day he stated classes in oxford. this lack of wiggle room from translation, or can we say directness, is the heart of the american mind-set.

i was trying to explain this to someone who lives in the US, but grew up in eastern europe. the thing i pointed out was that americans have only one set of plugs. there are plugs with an added point for grounding, but they all have the standard, orderly, two flat points. amercians would be shocked to go to the mall, buy a gadget, take it home and not be able to plug it into the wall. this is the issue with americans, no need for adaptors. again they expect no translation. living in the US is easy, you just open the box and plug in.

this ease is throughout the entire culture, americans have an entirely native meal, aptly named the happy meal. sure there are other burgers, but McD's is the clear winner when it comes to consumption. natives will remind you that hamburgers are the canonical american meal. that is clearly the case; it is a sandwich (named for the english city) made of beef and named after hamburg (the german city where it was created). by the way, americans eat their burgers with fries (not chips, that word is used for what you know as crisps), or pommes frite as they are called in belgium where the dish was created; not france as americans will tell you. so the classic american meal is mix of european dishes topped with ketchup a chinese sauce that went to UK from malaysia. (seriously look it up)

if you try to explain any of this to an american, or the fact that scampi is the italian word for shrimp so they are ordering "shrimp shrimp" for dinner, that jelly donuts are not american but german, and that ordering a diet coke with the super-sized meal under the golden arches while wearing running shoes you never use to run, are all things that the rest of the world makes fun of them for, the american will act as though you are not speaking american. they will seem confused and remind you that this is america and you should find a way to fit in. you need to adapt and become an american. go to school, learn the language and plug into the culture. they will be direct and assure you it's the american way and that doing it that way is best for you.

american's don't understand because they are always right. it's hard being always right, but if you practice and learn to speak their language, anyone can do it. you might find it hard without the ability to pretend you don't understand, but you get used to it. you also get used to taking the best from all over the world and believing that if it's good it must have come from the US. we may not know the correct name, or origin, of anything but we know its ours and that we made it the best by making it american.

we are not subtle, but at least we don't need to translate that.

choosing overachievement

2010-09-10T17:15:00.001+08:00

we all have choices to make everyday. they can be big or small, some effect our lives, most just happen without us even noticing. humans are tuned to make choices quickly, sometimes so fast that the choice is made before we even realize we need to choose. this is a good thing when the choice is flee or fight, and the cause is a yet unseen predator. malcom gladwell wrote about this in blink, where he tried to get people to trust their instincts and just let choices happen. his point was that we get in trouble when we over-think the situations in front of us. i have been thinking about why someone would choose to be an over-achiever.

having found myself squarely on one side of the personality bell-curve, i don't really see it as a choice for achievement. it feels like "choosing" other things which there is really no choice in, like your sexuality. meaning for most people it is just a fact of who they are. the deeper personality traits they have are the driving force on achievement. does someone need to have control over their situation? are they willing to put in more than those around them to have a higher return on their investment? are they willing to "do what it takes" rather than simply "try to do it".

having never felt overly motivated, i grew up thinking i was a slacker. i was a crossing-guard (think outdoor proctor) in the 5th grade, and had no idea that other kids saw this as immediate access to the teachers pet group. i played sports almost every season, and was a life-guard as soon as i turned 16. i got my job on the beach by assisting on a save while there to interview; literally jumping in when asked. i selected my college because someone told me i couldn't get accepted; and if i did i would fail out. i became a developer because a consultant lied to me and i wanted to make a point. all of these things just happened, i never went out looking for them, they were just part of my day and i went with it. every single one were steps that led me to where i am right now.

i have also noticed that most of my good luck happens immediately following a failure of some sort. a few years ago i probably could have climbed into a bottle an drowned myself without anyone being surprised. instead i asked for a job i didn't know i wanted. i allowed the emotional response to make me move, but for the direction to be positive rather than destructive. but it wasn't a choice, i never sat down and thought about it, it just happened the way it felt like it should.

so why did gladwell get to write a book on this subject? because people have been conditioned to think things through after a round of requirements gathering and analysis. the idea is that if you are not careful you will make mistakes. but look at all the people out there who did just that, they were careful and they planned. they made decisions that made sense, and they thought were the things they wanted. look at them now, they are miserable and they make the people around them miserable in the process.

good thing they had a list and made sure the dotted the i's and crossed the t's. the issue is people don't know, or more likely accept, who they really are. their inability to be honest blocks their ability to choose in a rational way. so they choose in an irrational way. they choose in a way that can not work, because it's based on a hope rather than reality. they hope they, or someone next to them, are someone they are not. or they hope no one else will not find out what they already know.

not everyone is built for over-achievement, and trying to act like they are is a great way to be miserable. but there is a corollary, not everyone is built for under-achievement either, and it is just as bad to try to believe that you are a bohemian slacker with average prospects when you are anything but. what you need to do is admit who and what you are, and then just go with it.

life is about accepting who you are. if you are over thinking it, try to blink.

in threes

2010-09-05T12:42:00.014+08:00

i woke up early this morning and tried to decide what to do. i went to sleep with a fever and slept in a pool of sweat. i woke up sore, tired and hungry as the sun came up. i wanted to both start the day and go back to sleep. as i laid pondering the options, i sensed a feeling of dread. there was something wrong with the force. i hate when i connect with my yoda side, because it is normally a precursor to something bad that is about to happen. it's a bit past noon and i am well on my way to knowing why i wanted to stay in bed today.

the phone rang a few hours later. i had slept and woken back up. i was laying there trying to decide how to structure my day. i have an appointment later today that i wanted to cancel. i needed food and had no idea which of the limited choices to indulge. i listened to the conversation, by the third word i knew it was one of those calls you do not want to receive on a rainy sunday morning. actually, the feeling of dread lifted a bit when it turned out that the car accident that was being discussed was without personal injury. a mercedes coupe was broken, and a friend needed a ride, but the thoughts of hospitals and tubes were washed away.

i wasn't needed for this errand of rescue. this was a pick-up and drop-off. the first event was not over, but it was not a crisis.

that is when the second event came in the form of an email. the email was titled "tears" and included the words, "i took my life at 5 AM this morning". i looked at the time it was sent, midnight, just after i had fallen asleep. it was from someone who successfully accomplishes almost everything she tries. at that moment i believed i had found the dread of the day, my friend has been dealing with the crumbling of one commitment and had decided to commit to another direction. as i sat and looked at the words, i remembered my grandfather who took the ultimate control of his life, making a final statement, by controlling the time and place of his death.

i continued reading the words and found that the statement was made, but thankfully the act was not successful. the issue with friends who are overachievers is that you know they accomplish the things they set out to do. there was no regret, there was cold and hard analysis of the situation. there is clearly a desire to finish the project. overachievers learn from their mistakes, they get better at execution and they hit their goals. all thoughts that again remind me of my equally achieving grandfather.

the second event is not over, but the crisis is probably not going to be today. today is for the feelings of sorrow that someone i care about would want to select this as their next project.

the dread of the day has not abated. being a superstitious rationalist i am all too aware of the rule of three, and being a surfer i know that the last wave in the set is normally the largest. i am standing back and waiting for the last wave now. i am hoping the wave is not a tsunami, because i have no idea where the evacuation zone is. i would like to believe the wave is not coming, but as a long time rider of the waves i can still feel the set rolling in. now i know why my arms ached this morning,

my inner-yoda was telling me to paddle.

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

people build walls to stop waves from washing them away don't they? like the walls in new orleans that collapsed and flooded the city. reminding us why walls need to be maintained.

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

comfortably upset

2010-09-04T18:15:00.008+08:00

living on the other side of the world, especially in a place that goes out of it's way to make people believe that everything must follow rules that make no sense, can get frustrating. the worst of those times are when you don't feel well and you crave the comforts that you left in the patriot homeland. it makes you focus on the things you wish you had, but can not get.

i have gotten used to not having access to certain things. not big things, little things, things that a pampered amercian would have at all times, things like medicines that work, services that serve and comforts that provide comfort.

panadol doesn't work for me, it does less than nothing, and taking 8 pills for a headache and having it pulse away is just no fun at all. so i stock up on pink jelly-coated tablets when i am in the US and hope the number of headaches between each trip, multiplied by 3 or 4 tablets needed to combat each, is less than the stock count of pills i carry back to the land of strange and ineffective drugs.

the fact that i have headaches and have a solution doesn't change the fact that i have other needs like stomachaches, which are called oddly gastric here. this of course also means that i need a solution for acid reflux, again i have to import and manage my own supply of pepcid AC because the bottles of chalky white liquid and the pills the pharmacist will offer also do nothing to stop the acid that chews my stomach and wakes me up while i sleep. the list continues, but the solutions begin to run out.

it might be possible that i am difficult, or that i simply like products which work for me; even if i need to carry them from the other side of the world. but there are limits to the things i can bring here. my favorite wine, beer, whiskey, swim shorts, bicycle, pizza, pasta, yogurt, classic DVD and head bands are a few of the items i can not get here, and have almost no acceptable replacement. the fact that i can't get them is something i am normally okay with. the reason i can't get them is beyond me. a country that says it is trying to become a high income economy sometimes tries to have high quality items and good service as the backbone of the system. crappy service, bad products and lack of access is the hallmark of a dysfunctional system.

as my day progressed today, my stomach started to grumble and pressure built in uncomfortable ways. i began to think the best thing for me was to go home, lay on the couch and eat some comfort food. i didn't need much more than time to recover from this, but i wanted to feel comfortable and happy as i laid down with a grumbly tummy and waited for it to pass. the bump in my plan was that i had no food in the fridge and no desire to eat the standard dinner choices, sadly indian, thai, vietmanese and chinese foods are just not comfort food for an irish american with an upset intestinal track.

room service is a company that delivers dinners to expats all over KL. they have a strangely shaped catalog that collects the menus of the restaurants you can order from. i read the menu front to back, and found a single restaurant to order from. there was pizza with false sausage i almost ordered, there was chicken in strange sauce that i could have ordered, but i went with german/swiss pork and whipped potatoes with a gravy that tastes like ketchup. if you don't know it potatoes are like children, they should never be whipped and gravy should never, ever, ever taste like ketchup; even if it is a german kitchen.

there was no comfort from the dinner. it was just not what was needed to settle me down and allow me to feel better. so i am laying on the couch, watching an 11-year old television show about american politics, and thinking about the lack of access to quality items that help improve life and comfort. i am looking forward to the day that KL has all of the quality and comfort that the rest of the world enjoys.

until then, i have a headache, i need to go take a couple pills.

private walls

2010-09-04T11:46:00.006+08:00

i have always known that i have some pretty serious walls. i started building them the summer of 1974, just as the nixon administration was falling apart. well, maybe there were elements of the walls before that, but august 1974 was the first time i mixed the cement and filled the cracks to ensure my walls would be strong and lasting. as the years have passed i have been told that my walls are limiting and i should work to take them down. last weekend i realized just how much i need walls and why they make me so comfortable.

the summer has been filled with stress and pressure. my kids came for their 5th trip to asia, most of the stress of this trip is the time and effort to organize the logistics of flights and schedules for a family full of over committed and under organized people. even those not actually flying have needs that must be taken into account. it makes the spring a season of delicate balance, as the flowers are blooming back in the US the opportunities to discuss and debate come to life.

i had the added fun of spending most of the spring on yoyo flights between here and china. other than the weekend climb of the great wall or the afternoon walk through the forbidden city, there were few things i would want to do in beijing again. the fact that the two elements i enjoyed were a 4,000 mi long wall known as "the long fortress", and a city built of a series of walls enclosing ever smaller areas ending in the final space that was to protect one man from those closest to him, should not be overlooked as indicators of my inner self.

after the flights, after the kids, after the crazy push to finish a crazy project, it was time to get away and regroup. this sounded like a good thing and there were enough reasons to make it seem acceptable. but getting away came with another cycle of organizational logistics, location + flights + resort + leave time all come into play. the final location was the second choice of island, in the third choice of country. it was the place that flights were available to, and where a room could be found. the resort selected was done as a whim, almost randomly selected based on a photo and the hope that there would be space to spread out.

the room was exactly what i had hoped it would be, and spreading out is exactly what it allowed. a quiet resort, tucked into a tranquil area with nothing near by and nothing to do but relax. but best of all, a room surrounded by walls that allowed sunlight to bounce off the private pool and stream in the open french doors to the room within. add to this room service, a pile of books and a broken WiFi system and the ability to keep the world at bay for a long-long weekend was nearly complete.

so what i have learned about myself during this time is that although i live in a high tower with low walls all around, although my tower overlooks rolling jungle hills and distant city scape, what i really need are the private walls that surround me and allow me to disconnect from the constant needs of communication and connection. i don't need this everyday, but after the stress of successful projects and parenting, diving into a pool and not worrying about who is watching, who is going to question or comment, who is going to have an uninvited opinion, is very relaxing indeed.

walls are there for privacy, for comfort and for protection. i have built up walls in the past few years, repairing those that i had allowed to fall into disrepair while i was being told they were not needed. but having them again reminds me of why i put them up in the first place. and now that they are back i am much like the campaign slogan from nixon's successful presidential run in 1968:

"the new nixon: tanned, rested and ready"

awaiting acceptance

2010-08-28T12:19:00.002+08:00

six months ago i had my boss’ boss in my office. we were discussing our ability to be agile and to work on things that mattered. i threw out an idea that was almost immediately shot down. the idea went against the main thrust of where we were going and could not be “monetized”. it was considered fringe and a distraction; but i was given the opening to write a proposal for later consideration. this was the beginning of the real work, which has consumed too much of my time for the past six months.

during my review this year i agreed with my boss that when i have too much time on my hands i tend to find things to keep myself interested. the downside to this is that those things can be outside of the main stream. doing the same thing everyone else is doing is comfortable for many, but when you go out looking for a challenge finding a new path to take is much more interesting. making it an uphill climb may not be the goal, but finding new trails on the flat ground is what leads people into swamps. malaria, leeches and condor-sized mosquitoes all take away from the enjoyment of the trip for me, so i have become conditioned to head for the hills.

i didn’t do this trip alone. the original catalyst came from two of my staff who came to me and said they were bored. when we decided to really push forward i asked for volunteers and ended up with those same two and one other willing to come along on the ride. the departure was marked by a commitment ceremony of sorts. i told them it was going to be hard, and that no one was going to be able to quit half way, they all agreed but i was sure they had no idea what they were signing up for. the trouble with age and history is that you know just how hard things can be, you know the trail will be rough and that accidents will happen. you know just how painful success can be.

americans have the donner party tragedy as part of our shared memory. pilgrims set out on a journey and mistakes happen along the trial. they are slowed by events which could have been controlled and are trapped in the mountains by winter snow drifts. as the days pass and the realization that survival is not a guarantee takes hold they resort to cannibalism to survive. human nature held true, survival wins out, even if sacrifices need to be made. people who do not push the boundaries, who do not take risks or attempt things which scare others, may never find the need to confront this, but those that do are stronger for it because they know how far they will go to survive or succeed.

we are not winning a war or bringing astronauts on a crippled spacecraft home. this effort will not result in medals or a ron howard movie about us, but what we did matters. soon after starting this, it transitioned from something that was okay if we worked on it in our own time, to something that needed to be done in 60 days. attention had been focused and a goal was set, even it the goal was unachievable. another team was assigned the mission, but we decided as a team to keep going on our own path. as we had discussed things can happen along the way.

to cut a long story short, things did and the pressure to succeed became ours. we had all the focus and needed to hit the dates and deliver. which is what we did, we hit every single date agreed to. the team pushed while i disconnected to take care of a project i started 11 years ago; one that needed to come first. they got us there, and together we stabilized with a hard push at the end. it was not easy, try to picture the scene at the end of “black hawk down” soldiers running through chaos and smoke, exhausted and bruised. that was how we finished, on our feet because that was all we had left. we crossed the line together, no one was left behind, no one broke and left his or her post, and no one was eaten. it was not easy, but its over and now we can regroup.

almost. this project is a new format for us. normally when we finish testing, it gets signed off, and it goes into production. but this time we have a new hurdle, the application needs to be approved by others. while that approval is pending we sit and wait. we have no control, and we cannot influence the decision, we simply need to wait for others to accept us or not. but this is one more lesson for the team:

even when you are hit your goals, you still need the acceptance of others.

squared away

2010-07-24T16:43:00.002+08:00

when i first came to malaysia i began talking to locals about where to live. the advice focused a few of the expat areas. ampang was suggested if had children, bangsar if i liked clubs and mont kiara if i wanted an upscale and quiet area. the last alternative was to live in the high-tech backwater at the bottom of the multi-media super corridor. but a town with empty roads, no starbucks and almost no people held less than zero appeal.

i quickly decided ampang was the wrong side of the tracks for me. having an international school handy was not an issue if the kids were going to be in the us for school. the zoo wasn’t something i needed to see, and the hills were having landslides. ampang looked too slow, an area that had seen its day and then watched it slip away.

the next stop was bangsar. i was staying in central area hotels and found banana leaf next to the pasar malam in telawi to be a nice way to spend sunday nights. the clubs have never been a draw for me, but there were interesting restaurants, two starbucks and a mc donalds within walking distance. the place held promise, but the condos were high on the hill and a bit beyond walking distance. there were row house bungalows, but why would i need that much space? i was moving with two hockey bags of possessions a house would have been totally empty.

this was when a friend of a friend offered to drive me around and show me some of the other areas. we went from place to place, and finally ended up in front of a neon red and yellow sign that read hartamas square. in that moment i knew i was in the right area. i knew this was a place i would like to live; no clubs, slower life, and hawker stands near by for a vast selection of dinner choices.

why am i talking about this? i mean who cares why i selected where to live and what does it have to do with now? well, because before you even notice it, things change. i have been here long enough to find places that i really liked, make friends there, find meals i would order over and over as comfort foods and then see them close without telling me first.

at new years room service told me that TSB was closing. i went in and asked and sure enough, the space had been sold and the restaurant was closing. a few weeks ago planter jim’s also closed. i was walking to the bank and saw the gutted space that was once my favorite provider of green curry and mango sticky rice. last week i saw that devis in hartamas was closed, they either had a fire or they decided to do renovations. either way, there is currently nowhere local for me to stop at 4 am for a post-deployment teh tarik.

but the largest shock came this week. the kids and i wanted to do a fast dinner, we could not agree on a tau pow place, and we wanted to spend some time together before my meetings. so we drove down to hartamas and found the neon turned off. there were trucks being loaded with all things mobile. the lights were off, and it was clear they were not coming back on. another comfort zone has disappeared right before my eyes. the neighborhood is changing, and i am wondering if its part of a larger movement that i should be responsive to.

both bangsar and hartamas have recently exploded with reflexology spas, this has come with a closure of many of the best restaurants. other places, like our favorite burrito place in jaya one has recently been painted in bright green and white, but the quality of the food has dipped below the already lowered level of acceptance for mexican food in asia. (i have found great mexican food in australia, indonesia and vietnam, but never in malaysia)

i have begun to wonder if like ampang before it, my neighborhood changed while i wasn’t paying enough attention. or has malaysia in general decided that quality and improved life style does not matter. hartamas square is being knocked down to build yet another row of shop lots or a taller building of offices. but where does one go to have a relaxed and open-air dinner in the middle of expat land? my first hope, as with devi’s, is that the owners were going to put some capital back in and clean things up to improve the space. the trend appears to be to simply knock good things down and build more of the same.

malaysia talks about two things they need to continue to improve and compete. those things are driving innovation and improving life styles to match the growth in the economic opportunities. how does this square up with the expansion of semi-d housing complexes and cookie cutter high-rise apartments that remain empty when completed? innovation and improvement means creating things that are new and not simply copying the same old thing.

hartamas, devis, TSB and jim’s were all places that were different and had character. they welcomed the patrons and gave them something interesting and different. they are all closed now and their neighborhoods suffer for the loss.

if there is an interesting place out there that is high quality, unique in its service, welcoming, comes with choice… but… is not in a mall, has easy parking and has staff who know how to smile and laugh, will you tell me about it?

if you can’t think of something that fits this criteria… consider the deeper meaning.

saying nothing

2010-07-23T16:49:00.002+08:00

i am not sure if you have noticed, but i have been very quiet lately. i have not been writing. i have not wanted to write, or when i did want to i did not have anything i was willing to say out loud. this blog began as a safe and quiet place for me to put thoughts; over time it has morphed into something else. this private space has become my most public and enduring method of sharing ideas, and that has changed the thoughts i am willing to share. then again, all forms of sharing have changed for me over the past few years.

when i first started writing i created a few rules:

no names would ever be used, this is about me and my ideas, never about friends
i would not discuss anything work related
i would not write a diary or food blog
i would not comments on the actions of others, most importantly family

i started this looking for an outlet for the ideas what i questioned and wanted to understand better. the context would be close to mathematician who writes equations on whiteboards to build logical models of a complex world. i attempting to do the same and needed a place to put the formulas.

at the same time, i was building an openly public side in both work and life. i was attempting to connect with people who shared very few commonalities. coming to malaysia limited my access to middle aged, irish catholic, liberal arts majors who have the ability to quote complete scenes from movies that feature dan aykroyd. building anything new comes with making mistakes, and being in a brand new environment adds to the opportunity to make even more. the one i made most often was believing that i could be open with people.

i found that openness is not always a good thing. even, or most especially, with those close enough to be trusted. opening the veil allows others to see inside. the lesson learned was that those openings could be shared with others. unless you are ready to share something with everyone, you need to keep yourself shielded by opaque covers. the downside to this is the realization that the burqa obstructs the wearers vision even more than the vision of the eyes trying to be kept out.

this brings me back to my writing. i started this as semi-private way to discuss semi-private thoughts in a semi-anonymous way. these were the thoughts i would previously have shared with loved ones in the privacy of home. but, living far away limited the access to this safe outlet. the last time i had felt this type of need was in college, when i carried notebooks with the same kind of writing. those notebooks were labeled “reflections on malthus”, and also focused on the fast learning of strange ideas i was collecting by spending more than 20K USD per year. money spent to be forced to read, write and think, something i was now doing for free.

craving to have someone listen to you, while you are far away and disconnected, is a strange feeling. but the ability to control the conversation and complete a thought before someone tells you that you’re “being silly” is a powerful drug for someone in recovery. even more so when you realize the reason you are in recovery is that you had burst a seam from the pressure of not exercising this freedom in the first place.

so why have i not been writing? as usual, it’s basically a mix of three things:

i have been too busy to exercise in any form
i have not had subjects bubbling to the surface, waiting to be discussed
i have not felt comfortable with the semi-privacy i have built

someone wise once said, “if you don’t have anything worth saying, don’t say anything at all”. that didn’t make much sense to me then, but lately it has been spot on. when i came close to saying anything, i found i second-guessed myself. normally when i am unsure of the way to go, i crash forward just to see if i was right. lately it has been the mute on the other side of my conscience that has been telling me that “less is more”.

but, this week is different. i am on the beach with the kids, i have a list of titles i want to share, i am close to breaking two of the 4 rules i built when i started. i miss the process of sharing thoughts, and am reminded that veils are like locks on doors; they only keep the honest man out.

saying nothing does not stop the ideas from coming. if is for me to decide for myself that i am “being silly”; and its for others to decide if they want to listen.

phase two

2010-07-22T13:22:00.002+08:00

when i first started this blog, i wanted to talk about the new things i was experiencing with each new day in a foreign land. i have now been in malaysia for almost five years. i still experience new things, but most of my days come without surprise. i have been there, i have done that, i have gotten the t-shirt. maybe i need to find a new focus for myself or my writing.

some of these feelings of change may be related to changes in how i feel about the state of the state. when i first came to asia, i had high levels of guilt for getting out of dodge. i had left a party because i was shown the door, but leaving was a purely selfish act. i did it to get away and put the mess behind me. i did it to stop from making an even bigger mess; but that is another story.

as i left the country, i talked to friends on the phone while standing in the airport. i spoke to others while waiting to board the plane, but the last conversation i had was with myself as the plane began to take off. it was a rainy day that matched my mood; cold, windy and gloomy. i had spent all day dreading and second guessing this take off. the moment was now here and i needed someone to tell me it was okay to go forward rather than back. i was worried i was making the final mistake of a series and that this one would seal the future.

all of the actions and decisions leading up to the moment had brought me to this conversation with myself. i had allowed those i cared most about to close the door on me, and now i was hopping on a plane and heading for a far off land. i felt as though i was abandoning those i had promised to never leave. i worried that i was making the worst mistake of my life. but i knew i had been unhappy for a long time; that happens when those around you are unhappy and you blame yourself. i knew i needed a change of time and space, and i needed to be able to recover from the past few years.

i sat back in my seat and watched the rain stream down the window. it drew lines that i could almost feel; it clouded my vision and carried my eyes downwards. the plane was climbing off the runway now, there was no chance to turn back, the streaks were blown back off the window by the rushing air and i imagined the past mistakes being blown away with them. the future was the now; i had been saying for years that one day i would be happy, and i had no excuse to not do that now.

as i realized that i was committed to this change of location. i was going to live alone, travel, learn new things and meet new people. i missed the people i was leaving. i felt a hole in my chest from the space they used to fill, but that space would need to grow over and be filled with something else. i knew i needed to embrace this, because there was really no other choice any more.

i instantly felt better, but with lingering guilt for choosing happiness. this was the instant the plane burst out of the clouds that had covered my day. sunlight broke over the wings and bright blue sky filled the air. as we continued to climb, the fluffy white clouds stretched as far as the eye could see. the next 30 hours would be spent flying to the other side of the world, but the path looked soft and comforting as i looked into the future.

that was the moment i began to accept the changes that had been forced on me. that was also the pivot moment for me accepting that many other changes would also need to take place. some i have liked, others not. some things have been tried, and reversed because they were wrong to try in the first place. others have been tried and will never be forgotten because they were wonderful and i was blessed that i was given the chance in the first place.

that gapping hole in my chest has healed over. i have built up the scar tissue needed to cover it over. it would be cliché to say that asia has changed me. the truth is that i think i have figured myself out in the past 4 ½ years. i am more comfortable with who i am. i have found the ability to be completely independent and lost the guilt of youth. i have also lost the guilt i felt for coming here. i needed to leave the party, and i am glad i did.

it was good to find a quiet place to find myself.

public enemy

2010-04-10T20:14:00.008+08:00

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.

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

missing scotty

2010-04-10T16:48:00.003+08:00

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

2010-04-10T14:59:00.002+08:00

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.

defending tudung

2010-01-14T10:52:00.013+08:00

when an american moves to a muslim country they are confronted with many differences in social culture. the lack of pork and alcohol, the inclusion of sharia law into the court system are large for americans who are taught that "pork fat rules", going out with friends includes buying a round of drinks and that society works because of a separation of church and state. in the US everyone is entitled to the same freedoms, the first of which is exercise of their religious beliefs. moving to a culture where the majority are ruled with one set of laws and the minorities another is unsettling.

when i first came to malaysia, one of the first pieces of advice i had was given was to not shake hands with women if they were wearing a tudung. i was told that women in tudung were more conservative and would not touch a man's hand. people were surprised that i came to this country and began to drive immediately. they thought moving from left-hand drive to right would be difficult for me; it took me about an hour to make the transition. but, they assumed not sticking my hand out towards someone would be easy; it took me many months to make that transition.

about a year after coming here, a women i knew began to wear tudung because she had gotten married and her husband "requested" she appear more proper. my impression was that her bright and shiny glow was filtered by this new screen between her and the world. her full expressions were now only visible in private, in public she was more shielded. it was explained as a choice she made, but it was clearly a choice based on "request" more than desire.

there were other women i met in tudung, and later met outside of it. some were women who wore tudung in certain settings and not others. i came to realize the social pressures to be covered were not just from husbands, but also that families, bosses and peers who also had expectations of proper behavior. for some the pressure to conform required them to be covered in one setting but allowed them to be open away from those pressures. i was amazed at the amount of angst someone could go through simply in choosing to let their hair down.

i received an email this week, it had a picture of a little girl in the next car. she was in a pretty pink tudung and looked happy to have the morning sun on her face. the subject line of the email was "poor child", an indictment of the parents who would force a child this young to become separated from the world. rather than questioning the wearing of tudung, the image of the child almost hanging out the window of a car in traffic, had me wondering why she was not in a seat belt.

last week, an expat friend of mine made a comment about tudung, it was in the form of a question, "why would anyone want to do this?". i surprised myself by answering in defense of the tudung. i have asked the question many times, some women have shyly looked at me and said "i have to". other, smart and capable women have given me deeper answers; thoughtful and considered. it was clear they were making a choice for themselves. as a libertarian i am ready to respect and defend someone for making a choice, even if it differs from the one i would make.

in the past 4 years i have learned to see beyond the veil. moving from the view that tudung was a misogynistic form of control, to one that respects the choice a woman can make to declare to the world that she wishes to keep more of herself private. this change of view is one that i am honestly surprised by, and one that would not have happened if women did not choose to answer my questions openly.

malay women used to begin to wear tudung as they aged, they would be 40ish when they put the it on. the trend over the past 25 years has been to begin wearing it younger and younger. it should be possible for the 40 year old women to make a choice; but a small child has no choice. good parents make choices for their children, they set expectations and impose limits. i do not allow my children to rollerblade without helmet and wrist guards. i question why some parents would teach their daughters that scarfs come before seat belts.

protecting my children from high speed crashes comes close to first in my priorities of parenting, allowing them the room for self expression and choice closely follows. for malaysians i can only hope that choice of coverage is given to each as an individual. as i have learned, women who have real choice are those who can later explain why it is important to them. enforcement of rules without allowing choice leads those who can to rebellion, even if that rebellion is in the form of quiet hypocrisy. for those who can't think, following rules is not a victory, because thought is required for choice.

i have changed since moving here. i still believe in the evil tirade of pork, beer and secularism, but i can now defend something i used to see as oppressive.

but, only when being closed was an open choice.

rolling thunder

2010-01-11T13:45:00.060+08:00

during the 1960s amercia was fighting a war in vietnam, and a related one at home with itself. both were attempts to stop liberalism from overtaking the US. communists were threatening to tumble democracies in asia and the progressive social movement was threatening to change the dynamic of control that was the 1950s. in vietnam, the US fought a three year campaign of B-52 strikes called rolling thunder. it was a failed mission that was doomed from the start by intrusive politicians and their conservative policy of gradualism. these are shadows of the past which i see in the lightening storms today.

a few months ago i awoke to the loudest thunder i have ever heard. well, the second loudest, the first woke me two years ago; that night i was standing when i realized i was awake. this time i was still lying down when the thunder shook me. living 250 feet off the ground, perched on the top of one of KL's highest hills translates to occasionally loud nights, but this was well beyond ordinary. i got out of bed and went to the balcony to watch the show.

thunder storms in KL normally come with torrents of rain. water falling so hard it has its own rhythmic roar that tries to mask the thunder in the distance. as i stepped outside, i felt the still air on my skin and noticed the depth of silence that seemed to have a hold on the night. the normal roar was replaced with silence so deep it felt like the night was standing frozen in time.

low clouds covered the city and obscured the mountains to the north. i saw a bolt of lightening reach downward, it lingered in the air as though it was attempting to hold onto the base of the mountains; refusing to let go of the ground it claimed to own. a moment passed in silence until the bolt's angry thunder passed through me. rather than being heard once and fading away, the thunder trapped between the deep clouds and mountains ricocheted back and forth over the otherwise quiet city. it was as though it wanted to be heard over and over so it would not be forgotten in history.

the normally active city had been stolen in the night and replaced with a kampung, one too small to make noise of its own. this was KL at its best, covered in clouds, shrouded and still. i knew i was experiencing something special. i have been here long enough to know the rhythms of the city, and this was not normal KL. it was raya season and i thought about those fasting, i wondered if this quiet was related to them. sleeping soundly, with another hour to rest before they got up to subo. was the stillness of the night because so many were asleep?

this was a violent storm, breaking over the city and sending waves of sound back and forth through the valley. it was also a beautiful show to watch, impressive lightning and rolling thunder, the likes of which i have never experienced in the US. KL is an impressive and beautiful place, it is special in its quiet times. it is impressive in its shyness; curious eyes shifting away with a pleasant smile.

but KL also has a dark side, one that flared up last friday when the often discussed harmony was broken by SMS driven news that because some could correctly use a word others began firebombing churches and vandalizing cars while leaving prayers. i did not see the vandalism myself, but malay friends of mine did and told me it happened, with the same shyness and shifted gaze. this time they averted their eyes out of sadness for the truth.

i am old enough to remember the tension of race wars in the US. i had friends who were distrusted or disliked for the color of their skin, or the different name of their shared god. it took nearly 30 years for my country to recover from those violence stained moments in our history. the recovery was long, but it was better than allowing it to remain the way it had been. there were more brave people who cared for fairness than scared people demanding race politics; respect and justice won in the end.

i used to say that malaysia was like being in the US during the 1950s. my fear is that we are now slipping into the turbulence of the 1960s. malaysia is facing a storm of its own, one that is self imposed and similarly driven by fear of change. life here will not remain as it has been, so each person must decide if it matters that real harmony is found. liberalism might scare some, but we should all be more scared of firebombs and tyranny.

gradualism is code for status quo. all systems move towards equilibrium. this beautiful country has been out of balance for a long time. the distant flashes of light, and the sound of turbulence are signs of that the storm is out there. the only real solution is to allow the system to come into balance and stop simply saying that it already is. the US lost it's wars during my childhood, but won the peace by remembering what mattered most.

let's pray to {your version of the word} for satu malaysia, with liberty and justice for all.

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

as i stood watching that night, i was shocked that no one else came onto the balconies around me. how could a storm like this take the city and not wake the sleeping up? i guess some people heard but did not leave their comfortable place.

maybe i am the one that is strange, willing to get up and move towards the storm.

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

management psychology

2010-01-09T14:08:00.006+08:00

a few months ago i was in a cafe when one of my employees came in. he is a friend, so rather than sitting across the restaurant and waving, he came over and sat with me. he had his sister with him and as we talked she mentioned her masters program, she is getting a degree in management psychology. since that day i keep flashing to that moment and wondering if i need to look into the program to better understand my staff, my organization or the world.

the past two weeks have been about reviewing the previous 51. this weekend is the deadline to complete the documentation of those reviews. as i sit in a cafe typing this, i am waiting for the site we use for that documentation to return from scheduled maintenance. it is down during my daytime to ensure it impacts the fewest people. being on the opposite side of the world makes my impact acceptable. as i wait, i agree with that assessment, but the mounting frustration still remains. thoughts on management linger.

wiki defines management as:

the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal.

management is part of all of our lives, we do it within the family, in workplaces and within ourselves. to think of management as something that only true managers do is a narrow view that misses the universal nature of the act. the key to the above definition is "getting people together to accomplish desired goals". the first time i saw genuine management was in a locker room almost 30 years ago; a typical amercian setting with a typical american management style.

it was the night of my first varsity football game, and the excitement of being on the big field was what i remember. i was a junior member of the team and would see no playing time that night, but i was there and i was happy. the fact that the team was not winning was not as important to me, i had made it onto the team and i was reveling in the experience.

coach toppa was last into the locker room at half time, he and the other coaches had stopped outside as the players filtered in and found spots to sit. some of the senior player removed their helmets and shoulder pads to be more comfortable, but those of us new to the team stayed in full uniform. we kept our helmets on to show everyone we were ready to play; comfort be damned. as coach came into the room, he kicked an empty helmet that skittered across the room. this was the first time i witnessed this legendary leader of men use violence to get their attention. everyone in the room was now looking at him.

coach allowed his frustration to flow as he spoke, he allowed every person in the room share his frustration, and fostered a feeling of guilt for forcing him to have this conversation. the team was not playing as well as he knew we could play, he may have been 60 years old, but he would have suited up and joined the game if he could. he could not understand why those who could play were not. he did not understand how we allowed ourselves to fail. as he spoke, the excitement of being next to the field was replaced with a desire to be on the field. almost helping was not enough, i wanted to actively make a difference, i was a failure for just being there, i should have been helping us win. i was ashamed and angry at myself.

that was when coach changed the tone of his message, he turned to what we could each do to solve the issue, we could come together as a team, then we could go back out there and win the game. that is what would make him proud of us, and nothing else was going to help us feel better. 70 vikings rushed the field as one, some got to actually play, but we were all fully in the game during the second half. we rallied and won the game. together we proved to toppa and to ourselves that we could. those moments set the tone for the rest of the season, and in many ways for every game i have played since.

i was awed that day, i knew coach was performing as he spoke, but it was a great performance that raised the team up. coach motivated us to win that day. he managed us, he brought us together to accomplish our goal. he used psychology to do it; the planning, organizing and staffing was over. he needed to go beyond the plan to give us the need to win. being happy to be there was not enough, we needed to accomplish our goals as a team.

i have been thinking about this and wondering if those skills can really be taught. is being a leader something you go to graduate school to learn, or can you do by continuing to play? does it help to do it with different teams, each having different needs? does being forced to use non-amercian motivation help someone first awakened by the only in america sharp sound of a kicked helmet crashing into a locker?

toppa was a great coach. he taught three generations of players to be the better than they knew they could be. he did it with small players who learned to play big, making them proud to be on the field. he did it by managing each team of individuals, to come together and share a goal. he taught us to care enough to work as a team.

being on the field mattered, but winning mattered more. that is a management psychology i will never forget.

chicken sausage

2010-01-01T12:59:00.008+08:00

i have been challenged on the question of breakfast here more than once. why does it matter that breakfast has pork on the table? why do i whine as much about it as i do? i was considering how my day in the US and here are different, and basically it came down to the levels of pork and of quality. that last word was almost ease, but my issues here are not about having things, its having things done well.

in the US i can go into a restaurant and ask for a burger without a bun, the same burger but wrapped in a piece of lettuce. that really might sound like a simple request but without even trying i am sure the level of effort to get this done is not worth the return. last week i ordered two hard boiled eggs, with a side of hollandaise. the eggs came in 5 minutes, two eggs in the shell sitting in a bowl with no sauce on the side. as i cracked the first egg it exploded in my hand, hot runny yoke spilling over my burnt fingers.

i sent the eggs back, asked again for hard boiled out of the shell and for the sauce on the side. 5 minutes later, a new bowl with apparently new eggs, running together is a mass of soft boiled ooze. i asked the server how i should correctly order hard boiled eggs, he smiled and walked away. a few minutes later i asked another server for hollandaise and ate the soft boiled eggs. i wondered if the lesson was to not try to do things the hard way.

a few months ago i was trying to order breakfast and was given the choice of chicken sausage, beef bacon or nothing. i choose to skip the meat, but only after asking those around me if they would like pork also. the people at the tables close by agreed that they also wanted the other white meat; majority-discrimination or not, it just tastes better. i added a sign to my table that read, "beri saya babi", which was politely ignored.

in the US, having breakfast is simple. it comes without a moral debate over the animals i am eating, or a secular debate over why others are choosing which they will allow in slab or sausage form. i have tried the local replacement meats, but find them sadly lacking. i am sure if i asked my grandmother why she didn't serve beef bacon or chicken sausage, she would have looked at me in a puzzled way and said, "because that's not the way god made them".

that same puzzled look is the one i get when the debate of breakfast meat breaks open. but here is the thing, i have tried it their way, i have eaten the weak alternatives, and i have gone without. have they tried it my way? do the people who think chicken sausage is a good choice know the the taste of the meat allegedly evil? i challenge anyone to tell me beef bacon tastes as good as pork; or is even a close alternative.

by the way, baked beans are not for breakfast either. copying your cuisine from the british is a recipe for failure in taste, but even local "english breakfast" is done with compromise. the best part of baked beans is the flavoring of salt pork. the local version is correctly halal, and again suffers in terms of flavor. post-enlightenment democracy is about allowing people to choose without the enforcement of mystical tradition pressuring the way. at the very least its about letting quality come to the front over tradition.

take a taste before you want to tell someone what is best. or listen to my grandmother, let others do breakfast, "the way god intended".

less noise

2010-01-01T11:14:00.007+08:00

i have noticed something unexpected in the past few days. the world without wheat is a quiet place. i am beginning to wonder if this is what most people experience world as, a clear and quiet space that flows along a smooth flat path. this has been a holiday week, and work and life have both been unnaturally calm, but this is more than that. each day has shown that life does have the ability to move without the thrill of a bungee jump.

the last time i was decarbonated i was trying to vainly plug the hole of a dam that was set to burst. the process of holding back the oncoming wave, and asking how things had degenerated into a leaky mess springing holes faster than they could be patched, was enough to eliminate all hope of quiet time. whether i was driving, riding or sitting still, my mind was moving at full pace in directions of it's own. carbonation levels be damned, other things created their own noise.

this time is different, i have been waking up early and listening to the quietness inside and out. my near constant multi-tasking has dropped away at the same time that the light levels have come up. the room is bright and shiny, with the noisy neighbors apparently away on holidays. there is no distraction, and no urgency to begin moving. rather, there is the ability to sit on the couch and read the paper, or in a cafe write, without the normal extras.

what is missing is the chatter of the day that i am used to, the dialogue of debate that i have come to enjoy. i feel like a new yorker who has been dropped into the middle of the beautiful field with wildflowers and tall grass. i am sitting under a shade tree and watching the clouds drift by. the quietness is welcome. after the noise of the city, it is good to be out in the countryside with time to relax. but the lack of noise reminds me that i am truly a city kid.

choosing to live in the city is about being close to the action, to have a cafe on every corner, book stores on every block and a restaurant scene that you need to work to keep up with. it's about having amusement parks that allow you to ride a roller coaster when you feel the need. with these distractions come the noise, pollution and other distractions that staying in the country help you avoid. country living is about comfort not thrills, but the thrills can be missed.

stepping off the curb in decarbonated country does not come with the tension of dodging on-rushing taxis. this sounds like a good thing, until you find yourself wondering what will replace that tension. the flat, quiet country road is nice; easy to slowly glide down. but, the pace of city streets, even with congestion, horns and danger, is what is missed by a city kid as they travel that slow country road.

sometimes, noisy neighbors are good to have around. how long can a city kid watch puffy white clouds silently drift by?

living better

2009-12-29T10:24:00.007+08:00

one of the things about being alone is that you can ignore what others might point out. being with someone, you have a second pair of eyes which see events from another angle. those other eyes might notice what you don't, they might ask why something you accept is the way that it is. being alone you can ignore looking into the mirror, but one day you feel the other eyes and you are finally are forced to look and see what you have missed.

i have known for years that i have allergies. i spent almost two years starting each morning with a steroid inhaler. it kept recurrent bouts of bronchitis at bay, i would wake up unable to breath and would draw the gritty meds into my lungs, calming the clamped pressure that built up over night. this was about managing the symptoms rather than dealing with the cause, which was never clearly identified. it was clear that fresh beer, breads and dairy were all issues, but because i was sickest every year at the solstice a sad rumor of grinch-like christmas tree allergies circulated.

just after christmas 5 - 6 years ago, i was suffering once again. my general health was in question. i was gaining weight for no reason, i was exercising but could not maintain, when not exercising i was fighting to catch my breath, i was fighting mood swings and fatigue; all of which made me truly tired. it also impacted those closest to me; it's hard to live in a situation without solution. a solution was accidentally found one day, but it was too late to correct the underlying damage.

almost randomly i picked up a book that advocated removing large elements of the standard american diet to improve your health. i am not normally a person that corrects issues by elimination; i prefer to actively manage than draconian cuts. but i decided to give draconian management a try and a week later i stopped using the inhaler. by removing the things that were silently making me sick, i found i felt much better. all of my symtoms quickly disappeared, and i was the healthiest i have been in my adult life.

then i moved to malaysia, and as with all large changes i formed new routines. i remember the morning of the tipping point. i was driving and decided i could go to a bakery for breakfast, the decision was more about the need for comfort food then nutrition. i knew if i turned i would indulge in things i was better to avoid. this was the proverbial slippery slope, but i lied to myself reassuringly saying, "if it becomes an issue, i will stop going". even as i said it, there was another voice with a chuckle saying, "yeah right".

knowing your limits is a good thing, but even when you do you can still rationalize; for a while. i have slowly fallen back into the old spiral, and i have been paying the price. i have been living on antihistimines to manage recurrent coughs, nasal sprays for rhinitis and antacids for reflux. mixed in are my old friends joint pain, fatigue and weight gain. a few nights ago, i again woke up in a pool of sweat and with a mouth full of stomach acid. this is the first time in weeks that has happened, but its also the first time in weeks i didn't do my nightly regiment of imported medications. waking up choking is a really strong indication of the need to reconsider the idea of comfort foods.

so i have made a decision, it's time to listen to that little voice i have been ignoring. my sister and my mother have diagnosed auto-immune disorders, my other sister is having symptoms identical to mine and i clearly need to admit that having less than average is not acceptable if i am not average. i started making the changes i have avoided two days ago and i woke up this morning feeling the best i have in a year. i spent yesterday feeling clear and bright, i woke up early this morning and remembered how it felt to get up without being tired.

the downside is that i need to seriously alter my life. i need to avoid the sticky glutens that have inflamed my insides. i need to eliminate the things i crave, even if they are comforting they are not feeding me well. this can not be a 6 month change, it has to be for the long haul. i need to decide that no matter where i live, i need to follow the rules. the rules are not hard to follow, but they are easy to break a little bit at a time. the new rule is that even a little bit is bad.

elimination is the only way to a better life, i knew this before and rationalized it away. i think i need a mirror to make sure i don't forget this time.

happy drunk

2009-12-22T18:02:00.003+08:00

there are moments that lead to unexpected places, happy moments that lead to tragedy, and the opposite. i was on a plane a few months ago, flying to the US for business and talking to a seat mate about life and happiness. which is when the random eastern european guy sitting on the other side of me stumbled his way back from the restroom. he was drunk when he got on the plane, and had been drinking unsteadily since take off. his completely broken english had only gotten worse as white wines were added to the fire, but his desire to speak had only increased. where do you think this moment was leading?

as he attempted to climb into his seat drunk guy braced himself firmly on his wine glass and tumbled forward. the drink was projected into my seat, it's wine splashing into my lap and onto my ipod. a drinker falling over is not uncommon and spills happen on planes, something about being bounced around at 37,000 feet while moving at 400 miles per hour has a way of helping both happen. i should have expected it, and that i could have protected the ipod better than putting it on my lap. i cleaned it off, drying it with my blanket and decided soon after it was time to get some sleep. drunk guy was dosing off, i thought i should do the same.

it wasn't until i got to the transit lounge that i took the ipod out again. the second song didn't play, neither did the fourth or the fifth; the feeling of dread crept into the transit. i decided to wait and see if more drying time would make a difference. i mean, how much damage can a cheap australian chardonnay do to a consumer electronic device. the answer was clear when i got to the US and found i was without tunes on the drive home. my ipod was dead, drunk guy was long gone, i was driving listening to the sound of my own wheels. time to decide on next steps.

being in the US, i decided to go to the mall before i left. being a US mall, it was not stacked 5 stories high, this single fact made the trip better than average fro me. i took full advantage of the ease of moving around and began looking for a new ipod. in the huge electronics store i convinced myself that my 80 gig classic should be replaced with a 64 gig itouch. i hadn't considered the purchase at all, but i was alone and bored. i decided even if it was a mistake i would enjoy it anyway. sleek, shiny and sexy, it was time to upgrade and try something new.

after a few weeks of use, playing with downloaded apps, using it as an instant on micro-laptop to do IMDB and wikipedia searches on the couch, and listening to music converted through the sadly un-slick itunes, i had come to the conclusion that i should have made myself the target of a drunk spill a long time ago. the only downside to the touch was lack of internet connection while mobile. the device lost all its charm and glamor when it was away from wifi.

it's a happy coincidence that the holiday season was coming, it allowed me to do the only sensible thing; buy myself a present i didn't actually need. i am now the proud owner of an iphone, a slightly fatter touch with a 3G connection ensuring always on internet. so i own yet another phone, yet another computer device, one more thing to carry and track. i have my blackberry as primary phone and the touch as a music device, but i love my iphone. it is a near perfect computer device.

i was asked if i got mad at the drunk guy for spilling a drink on me or for turning my ipod into a paperweight. i might have years ago, but now i think of the question as funny; why would i get mad at someone for a mistake? life happens, spills happen, things get wet and never dry out. songs are lost and can not be recovered. when it happens you can get angry and fume about it, you can spend time thinking about a random person you will never see again, or you can go out and buy a new toy.

if you are really lucky, you can go out and get two toys. my mom used to say, better to much than not enough.

the drunk guy certainly was working on that plan before the spill, why shouldn't i do the same afterwards.

festivus season

2009-12-22T11:51:00.008+08:00

part of living in a foreign country is giving up the cues related to the traditions at home. this might not always be the case, if i were living in europe easter would be a shared tradition with the same springtime cues of softening weather and newly grown flowers. but attempting to get into the christmas spirit by listening to the playfulness of monkeys in the jungle, competing to be heard over the muezzin's melodic adhan (call to prayers), is harder than it sounds.

tropical days, monsoon storms and sweaty nights all hinder the ability for an american to sense the impending return of the giving season. after spending an afternoon of frustration at a local temple of commerce. the strange part of the trip was realizing that other than a few other mat salleh, no one else there was christmas shopping. there were lit trees, fake presents, signs of santa and carols playing over speakers, but most people were there to do back to school shopping.

the trip began and ended in the cork screwed patterns of congestion which derive from asian expectations of difficult lives. the roads, parking garages and escalators which are keys to the malls here all move in patterns of reversed decent. i was reminded of dante's inferno, the decline into the levels of hell with the warning "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" can only be appreciated after a trip to malaysia's malls. liberal arts students in catholic colleges back home should be required to travel here before exams. it is the only way to truly understand the meaning of the divine comedy.

i have pending invitations to holiday parties. one i think i will miss is tonight, it is for the dongzhi (extreme winter) festival. the invitation came from an tamil mom who is making tangyuan for her chinese kids. the whole yin and yang aspect of this holiday has a strong draw, but the need to celebrate the lengthening of the days when the difference between winter and summer is only 20 extra minutes of equally intense sunlight is lost on me. the symbolism of reunion that the sticky balls of rice evoke might be better savored alone.

tomorrow night i am going to a festivus party. a celebration will be hosted by an iranian amercian athiest and will be celebrated with stark lack of decorations, airing of grievances and feats of strength. this is clearly a no miss event that is core to the expat holiday season. the guys back in the US add in street hockey and liberal use of alcohol, this will be replaced by low contact wii sports and culturally sensitive non-haraam beverages. as long as someone raises their voice and possibly throws food, it should provide the feeling of a trip home for the holidays.

this will bring me to the end of week hunt for legal turkey. the normally halal favorite of benjamin franklin has a reputation of improper murder in malaysia. the symbolism of needing to search for dinner with an approved death certificate, on the celebration of a prophet's birth does make me smile. what would a holiday be without a question of the legality of the main dish.

i will end the day listening to the jungle outside, hearing rumblings of distant thunder and thinking about christmas morning in the US. as i watch the sparkles of light through clouds i will think about opening of presents, shoveling of walks, driving to the in-laws to exchange gifts and trade custody of kids. the true nature of christmas is best understood while watching it from half a world away, yet another event that is only truly experienced by watching it from the outside.

winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. it is celebrated across the globe in many different ways. the semi-dry festivus for the rest of us is the one i am looking forward to, for others i should just look away.

saying nothing

2009-12-12T22:37:00.004+08:00

it’s been months since i have published. the time has passed and i have had random moments and thoughts, but they have passed without being considered. i have been busy, i have written but allowed the words to be lost in a crash and unrecovered when restarting, i have gotten close and then reconsidered the desire to hit continue. something has stopped me from writing; i can’t seem to commit to the process. i need to figure out what, because my writing had become more than just a thing to do in a café.

i was given some advice last year. the advice was that my writing was too long. i needed to keep it short and get to the point. the advice was professional, and made sense coming from someone who read all my emails on a blackberry, but it has impacted this writing also. i no longer have the time to sit and craft a long message that no one is going to read. i enjoy the process, but it feels like a waste. i feel the muse moving away, pushed because she is impatient. she wants to get to the point, but it was never about getting to the point; it was seeing where the journey would take us. the muse has been driven away by the boredom and frustration of waiting and i remain on the wandering path.

i read a book a few weeks ago on a plane. the book started as a discussion of why talk therapy is a better solution to alternative psychological states than drugs. the basic premise was that talking allows people in need to get in touch with the deeper cause of their issues. when patients come in to discuss a recent tragedy, they tend to also discuss long ago events. they spend time passing through their lives one painful memory at a time. the author was advocating a culture of listening rather than medicating as a solution to finding solutions.

beginning to write was a way to talk things out. at a time when i was experiencing so many new things, and reconsidering many old, i found digital words to be therapeutic. capturing the moment, thinking through the entire thought, felt right. too many moments had simply passed away and were fading over time. it felt empowering to stop and remember, to realize that new moments were happening and would not just fade as easily into the past. events could be shared, if not immediately then someday in the future when someone took the time to listen.

but part of writing is about trust. trusting yourself to let go and allow yourself to open up, and trusting your readers to listen to your words and not filter then through their preconceptions. we all have cognitive structure bias, those thought patterns that allow us to skim along and make fast judgments in a chaotic world. we hear what we expect to hear, see what we expect to see and add or subtract as needed to fit the world into our comfortable pre-conceived forms.

the issues start when you realize that your readers do not have the same bias as your own. i had a college professor who did an exhibit the semester after i took his art appreciation class. i went to the exhibit with a friend and we stood in front of the work displaying willows on a snow covered field. my friend commented that the work was just about white trees, but i sensed something different. the professor had lost his wife and daughter in a car accident a year before, and as i looked at the center trees, i saw the blackness of the deep forest behind. the work was about the dark depth and the importance of the individual trees, two that i sensed to be missing from the stand on that cold winter day after a new snowfall.

other people’s biases impact our work, they stop them from seeing the truth, and after a while you wonder if there is any reason to keep talking. if they are just going to read their lives into the work, why do you keep making the effort? if you do work you may not publish; no risk of going public ruining it. you need to learn to stack your art in the corner and let it wait for a difference audience.

maybe i have been avoiding writing because i had nothing to say, or maybe because i didn’t trust myself to open up enough to make the process worthwhile. but it could also be that the thoughts are not ready to be added to the cornered pile.

then again, the real issue could be that sitting and doing nothing is easier than working on something that would be read through filters of bias.

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there is an old irish saying: "say nothing, till you hear more". sometimes, less really is more.

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