asian quietness

i have been in asia for 4 years. four years is enough time to graduate high school, it is enough time to graduate college, its more than enough time to graduate a masters program. but, i am not sure if four years is long enough to watch a culture and try to figure it out. it’s never really the big things, but the little ones that make me wonder like this. i am not saying i have not learned to read a situation, but sometimes i wonder if i will ever really understand.

last week i was reading a contract and discussing modifications. most of the language was completely boilerplate, and could have been written by anyone who had globally been educated to write the boringly board language of legalese. some of the language was definitely not standard, it was identifying. it had clearly been written by a dry member of one asian group. i made a comment, and with a telling smile the nicely mixed vendor told me i had read it correctly. reading between the lines has become simple.

seeing in line is also simple. this afternoon i was driving to a drink and took a side road to avoid jalan bangsar rush hour jam. a little left, right, left move that can avoid 15 minutes of creeping. as i approached the last turn i saw a small car ready to make the same left move. i took my foot off the accelerator, expecting to simply slow and swing around the corner. but the car in front came to a complete stop, and then hesitantly waited, and waited, and waited for a wide open opportunity to continue.

other than guessing gender by pony tail, i could not see the driver. but i did not need that to know that she was brought up in another malaysian group. there was no sense of absent-minded privilege or needless drive to prove direction, there was only the ability to sit and wait for the safe next move. i considered swinging around at the first and second option to move, but i waited until my predecessor crept out so i could quickly move forward and past.

these situations happen all the time. i am able to anticipate and accept situations as they come up. but this past weekend i was in a situation that i could not come to terms with. as i quietly sat and considered it, i bubbled with a need for explanation. finally i burst all self control and stood up demanding, “why are you people so quiet. don’t you understand this is supposed to be fun?”

i was in the office on a saturday night, finishing months of work which i had not been involved in. we were releasing to the internet and had staff globally ensuring we were stable. this is a bi-monthly exercise in tension, it’s the time you need to move the fastest, but it started with bags of food and snacks; something to keep the energy up. but the asians (from malaysia, india, iran and egypt (not asian but on the border)) sitting with me did not seem to be enjoying it, they were sitting as quietly as any other day showing no visible sign of enjoyment.

my solution was simple, i found music on my portable drive, copied to my sadly tunes absent laptop and began to play it as loud as possible. the weak dell speakers were adding to my sadness when i realized a set of speakers passed down through three moves back to the US were sitting in an empty office. i went to hunt them down and plugged them in. garbage, offspring, lenny kravitz and radiohead were my bass pulse for the next few hours, it helped my spirits and made me feel like i was sitting in a US development group, where people enjoy success and loudly wait for opportunities to work, something i don’t experience here.

most of them appeared to ignore the night’s soundtrack; i saw one guy open up a little and smile, but no one swayed to the music, sang or even discussed the bands. one near-westerner did say “cool” on an IM, a suppressed support for the chance to find enjoyment in life; quietly hidden in the need to be proper.

maybe i should have found a way to understand this by now, but i just can’t do it. life needs a soundtrack, death is quiet. i still don’t understand how this can be confused.

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

at least i would have thought someone picked up on the fact that each person who owns these speakers ends up getting moved to the US to work... now let's see who is next. but, then again none of those people were ever quiet.

*** and ***

the only workplace i can think of that has the beat of life i miss from us development communities is the borneo ink shop of my recent scaring. no wonder i keep thinking about going back, they have the life i am missing.

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barber school

one of the reasons i love my job is that its not really a job, it’s a career.  this might be a subtle distinction for some, but for me it is a clarifying element to every day i spend working.  it helps me take the long view on the daily grind, and allows me to see that even when i am doing things i don’t enjoy, there is an upside.  that is, i can learn something from the experience, every experience even the ones that are no fun as they are happening.  as i continue to learn, i am better prepared for the next thing that comes down the pike.

but at moments, i do question the worth of it all.  when i was a developer i knew i could always go and find another job, or even another career.  it might not require the long days and nights, might not have as heavy stress and could allow me time to focus on life not work.  when i thought about this, i was normally under serious stress; deadlines looming with worried clients and code not working as expected.  in these moments, i had visions of goose, asking maverick for the number to that truck driving school, so they could drive the big rigs.  the idea of a less stressful life, one without a high speed pass on the tower just for the hell of it, was appealing.

but unlike goose, driving the big rigs was never for me.  driving would get me to work, not be work itself.  i always had monster drives, with clients who were 100 mi away from home, and who required serious face-time.  that meant long cycles of living in hotels and commuting in all weather.  NPR and mobile phones were the two saving graces of this, both allowing me to stay connected while mellowing on the move.  but driving eliminated the two things i wanted to be spending my personal time on, learning an instrument and reading.  i knew both where possible, i have a friend who kept a keyboard next to him as he commuted.  he could practice one handed scales while he drove.  i had other friends who listened to books on tape, but my books never seemed to be available.  there was never a large enough market for the books i read, to be able to pay someone to read them to me.

i now live 20 minutes from the office, with a mostly empty road that allows me to drive twice the posted speed limit.  this is my shortest commute since riding my bike to the beach, something i did because it gave me a total of 5 workouts a day.   but, there are downsides, first NPR takes longer than 20 minutes for a full summary of the news and worse there is no NPR to listen to in malaysia.  this is the country of no real news is the news; where a weather report is one worded as “hazy”.

other downsides are that i still don’t have time to learn an instrument or to read as much as i buy on frequent bookstore trips.  the office has a collection of wanna-be guitarists and a wanna-be instructor.  it also has very little time to move from talking about lessons to the actual lessons themselves.  we keep threatening each other that now is the time to begin, yet-another-deadline is the only thing stopping us. 

unfortunately, my reading habits are also still too eccentric for commercial recordings so i can read and drive at the same time.  with the exception of david sedaris’ “santaland diaries” that i drove through a few months ago.  they were the notebooks of a gay elf-with-attitude suffering through a holiday season in a department store.  i loved listening to them, i am sure you can see the commercial appeal they would have.  it was felt good to enjoy mainstream material.

there are moments when i think about doing other things.  as i was driving to work last week i considered all the skills i have mastered over the years and how they would serve me well if i did what i have always threatened to do.  as i said, i was never driven to drive the big rigs.  the school of choice for me was barber school, where i would learn to cut hair and give a shave.  barber school would allow me to run my own business, providing a service to customers, customers who continue to grow hair that needs to be cut.  the worst mistakes could be corrected by waiting 8 weeks to allow it grow out.  

other than the crying child, there for his first big boy haircut, there is little stress in the barber shop.  it’s a place for men to hang out, listen to the news on the radio or a game on a small tv in the corner.  it’s a place for men to socialize while waiting their turn for the chair; where everyone as equal as the egalitarian “regular boys haircut”.

it’s also a place where long gaps of time pass with little or nothing to do.  which sounds like a great retirement gig for me.  no nighttime conference calls, no stressful meetings where business people and lawyers discuss direction from 4 continents, no KPI for staff, no requirements harder than asking if it should be “tapered in back”.  barber school has always been something i would pull out of my pocket like a set of worry beads.  i would roll it around in my hand for a second, and realize that if i am too busy to read or pick up a guitar, then there is no way i have time for a two year training program that allows me to hang a red and white pole outside a storefront.

i love my job, there is still so much to do and learn.  barber school just needs to wait until i retire, which will could be sometime after i have read the books waiting on two continents.  besides, the days of the barber surgeon are sadly past. that was the job i would have enjoyed, it was when barbers were allowed to pull teeth and amputate body parts.  my day-and-night career allows me to symbolically do both of those. 

i already aggressively cut hair every day, what else could i want?  other than NPR during my drive.

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

can you image a barbershop i designed?  pictures from around the world, bookshelves full of books to be shared, nice couches, good coffee and a wall mounted TV tuned to CNN or an EPL game.  we would have open wi-fi and a PC in the corner so people could google, wiki or imdb answers to debates between patrons.  clearly, the proprieties must be observed.

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masked man

i have been sick for two weeks. last week was a migraine that my doctor told me today was not a migraine, but was the first step of infection by a virus. the blood work has come back and for the 5th time in as many years i still am not a diabetic, and the current cold is not a cold but allergies or asthma brought on by the double whammy of the virus i appear to have conquered and the KL haze which has settled over the city just in time to irritate my weakened system.

all of this brings me back to the use of two different anti-histamines a-day. one for the lungs in the morning, the other for food irritants at night. i am also adding in a strong drag of steroids to start my day. smokers wake up and take a puff to start their day with the smoke they crave. i am puffing on a plastic tube filled with corticosteroids to manage my immune response, calming the bronchial irritation that flares because of simple dust. all of these meds do nothing more than allow me to catch a full breath, letting me walk around the office without needing to grab onto furniture to stop from falling over from the lack of oxygen. without the meds my lungs close and i struggle with limited lung capacity.

i almost hate this quality of life medical condition i have come to accept. auto-immune disease is in the family, a sister has lupis and a niece has alopecia universalis. so, on the scale of overactive immune responses, i think i have gotten off lucky. i have a system that reacts to dust and smoke, and considers consumption of carbohydrates as an invasion by foreign troops. it is not a surprise that a few beers in a bar with co-workers, one who was smoking, on a friday night tied in tightly with the latest burst of immune response. being run-down from the flu, sleeping in air-con and eating other carbs all at the same time appeared to be just too much, but the beers were the right choice at the wrong time.

so i have come to accept that i have to rely on self control, avoiding the things that i enjoy and crave and a healthy dose of meds to help lower the body’s response to simple things that most tolerate with ease. i don’t mind the inhaler, it’s simple to get up in the morning, open a cap and take a deep cleaning breath. i don’t mind the meds, although the ones that work for me are only sold in the US and i need to have them imported by traveling family and staff; smuggling over-the-counter drugs that allow me to breathe. these things are simple and invisible; no one notices what i am doing. it’s a quiet and personal battle.

it is visible, the steroids cause weight gain, but they also allow me to exercise, so if i can balance the breath-in and sweat-out, than even this can be hidden. laziness of not taking the meds or not exercising the weight off is the risk i am now facing. but it is not the most visible of the humiliations i am now faced with. my doctor has prescribed a new weapon in my arsenal of protection. she suggested i go to the pharmacy and ask for a filter to keep the dust of the hazy KL weather from entering my lungs and causing me to become irritated in the first place. 

i am now walking around town with a micro-pore filter mask, a respiratory valved face mask; it is white with a large 3M printed on the front. as i walked from the pharmacy to the car i received a new type of smile. the people of KL are now presented with a large, white, bald man in brightly colored shirts who appears to be over-reacting to h1n1, the halal name for swine flu, which was declared by the local newspapers this morning as a pandemic. how little they know that i am not worried about flu at all, i simply can’t breathe the hazy air in this city.

i am sure i look dumb, i am sure they have no idea why i am really wearing the mask, and i am sure i don’t care. taking a deep breath is much more important to me than how silly i look walking around town. following the lesson i learned from my 10th grade science teacher, while sitting in a lifeguard tower years later, “form follows function”. the odd haircut and the bright colors are choice, but breathing is a non-optional requirement. if the people think i am over-reacting, they at least have it half right. i have been told i need filters for years, i finally have one.

i am now a masked man; let the breathing return.

speak slowly

after living in asia for three years, after buying numerous language and phrase books it has become clear that i will always communicate the best in english.  being fluent in another language has not been a goal since college spanish showed me that i had a lack of talent, or focus, to get a new language.  i had hoped to be able to find a second language in asia which i could become functional in.  functional is not fluent, but it would allow me to interact in a polite way, and be culturally sensitive.

i have been improving lately.  i have a dictionary i have been carrying, i am trying to read road signs rather than just looking at the pictures and scanning for english subtitles, i have sat and watched malay shows when the television is mysteriously set to those stations on clean sheet day.  i don't understand it all, but i don't think i would even if i understood all the words.  i do notice that the shows seem more like "father knows best" then "boston legal".

but, no matter how much i improve i still find that at times, speaking and speaking slowly are two different things.  i have been lulled into a comfort zone, one of my own creation.  a few weeks ago i ordered a meal in at KFC, but for the first time i did the complete transaction in malay; and for the first time i got what i wanted without the looks of confusion i am accustomed to.  i have to admit, there were a few words in there that i had no idea on, but i smiled and confidently guessed at the meaning of the words, surprisingly i guessed right and got the meal.

this was on my mind while i drove to the office and after passing my first tool booth with a solid "selamat pagi" i looked down to see the gas gauge on E and the dummy light brightly lit.  the fact that malaysian roads are geared to collecting taxes rather than enabling the driver to stop for gas or caffeine on the way into the office was one of the constant reminders that the US does make life easier than malaysia.  i did the math and decided i could get to the most convenient gas station, the one 20 minutes away in the same town as the office.

as i got to town, doing my favorite U-turn off the high way (that's the design, this country loves it's U-turns they way my home town loves its rotaries) and made the choice to get gas before work so i would not forget and be in the same situation of need on the drive home.  i pulled into the station and walked into pay before pump.  the malay girl in her petronas green and white looked at me as i handed her my RM 100 and said, "sepalau pam".  she looked at me strangely.  damn, i had done it again.  i was trying to say pump 11, and i had said pump ten... ten... sepuluh what did i say?  palau is island, i just asked her to pump one island.  okay do the math, quick she is watching... belas not  puluh.  i looked out the window again to see the number and said, "sebelas, pam sebelas".

the nice girl behind the counter smiled at me and asked me in malay, "awak cakap [something] bahasa malayu [something]?".  i replied "saya cakap bahasa sekit-sekit", opps... another mistake i have made before, i just said "i speak the language very sick, rather than very little.  "ahhh, maaf, cakap sedekit-sedekit".  she smiled again and kept going in malay, this time picking up the pace and going faster.  "[something] [something] berapa lagi malaysia" 

this one i had to take from context, i was struggling to keep up with the early part and was tossing words away as i failed to understand their meaning, but the last part was how long in malaysia, i was sure of that so i replied as quickly as i could.  "tiga hari".  she was moving behind the counter as i said it, she came to a stop to turn and look at me, the other girl turned also with a quizzical look on her face.  i knew i had made a mistake, the first girl switched to english, "three days"?

this time i was embarrassed, i searched for the word.  how often do i say year, it's not really part of my bahasa pasar (market language) vocabulary.  'jam', no that's hours, oh i have it, "tiga tahun".  both expressions changed to understanding.  i was slow but i was trying.  she shockingly started speaking in malay again, but i had lost all confidence.  too many mistakes for one stop at the gas station.  in english i asked her to speak more slowly.  i remembered all the times i have had non-native english speakers tell me i speak to quickly, and i realized that we need the ability to modulate our pace to the skills of the listener.  this must be the skill we have naturally for children, we go slower and use easier words to help them get the new language skills.

they say it's easier to pick up a language when you are a child than as an adult.  i don't think its a natural ability of youth.  it could be the effect of not having a primary language to confuse you with the assumptions you carry from it.  it could also be the lack of another language to fall back on when in need.  this simple conversation would have been learned long ago if no one in malaysia spoke english.  most times even when i start in bahasa, people switch to english so they can practice.  i am left wondering if being polite and functional is a goal at all.

it has been "tiga tahun", and i have not learned bahasa malayu.  but, i have learned that if people wanted me to learn it they would speak it to me slowly enough for me to have a chance.  and if i want to be understood, i should take a second or two more and think about what i am saying.  asking to put money on pump one island rather than pump eleven does confuse things at the gas station. 

so, let's try this again and see if we can all just speak a bit more slowly, regardless of what language we are using.