crisis averted

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

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

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

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.

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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.

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