I was staying in an impersonal hotel, and set off wandering around Subang Jaya - my new home, and a suburb of the capital - looking for an internet cafe to write to my family and tell them the flight was fine, I had arrived, safe and sound. And, while wandering, I stepped in something sticky - you can probably guess what.
However, Malaysia has proved to be far from lonely. I quickly met fellow teachers, and they're good people. Everyone has an interesting story, and everyone is up for a cold tiger beer and spicy food.
On the first full day I headed down to the capital - Kuala Lumpur - with a few other teachers. We hit the aquarium, which had an very cool underwater glass tunnel, where snaggletoothed sharks swam a foot above my head - none, however, were very photogenic. To the right is a photo of some relatively tame fish.
We walked all over the city, saw Little India, the CN tower inspired KLCC, the Petronas Towers (below). Petronas Towers seem to be an appropriate symbol of Malaysia. They're new, huge and modern - and at the base is a mega-mall. Malaysia is an NIC (newly industrialized country), and that fact has been evident everywhere I've gone. The highways are growing like ivy and high-rise buildings are popping up like mushrooms. Moreover, consumerism seems to be big here. I feel that everyone who can afford a car has one. I look out off my balcony and there is always a steady flow of traffic - right through the night. Still, for the working class wages are low - somewhere around a dollar an hour, so I'm told.
The next week was spent apartment hunting and in meetings at my new school. The school is very different from what I'm used to. There are no formal extra-curriculars for the students - they are here to study and, for most of them, enjoy their first experience away from home. The majority are 17-18...some are older.I've just completed my first week of teaching, and am writing from the teacher's office (40 little cubicles in a florescent room). I should be lesson planning right now, so I'll have to cut this short. My students are exceedingly polite, and still rather quiet. I think/hope that will change as the semester goes on. As far as classroom issues, "classroom management" hardly even exists, but English language proficiency is going to be a bit of a problem. Additionally, only have few of these students have ever taken a literature course before, and for most of them rote learning and memorization have been the staple in their education.
I've clipped in a couple of photos of my new studio apartment below, as well as a view of sunrise over downtown Kuala Lumpur from my window.
While the place is beautiful, what you can't see is the noise coming from the highway and train tracks below (north side); and walls are thin in Malaysia. In a year a new highway is going to open on the east side of my building - it's under construction now - and the building will be hemmed in on three sides (there's a major road - 2 lanes in each direction - to the south of the building).
As for the heat that I was warned about: it has been oppressive when the sun is out during the day. I'm taking cold showers only, and I even sometimes ignore drying off afterwards - I simply put my clothes on while still wet. Fortunately, most places have AC. Still, because I'm on the 19th floor I haven't had to put on the AC in my yet; I'm only home at night and there seems to be an ever-present breeze in Subang Jaya. David Suzuki would be proud.
One last piece: the Malaysian people I have met have been wonderful. I know from my students that the family unit is strong. However, it seems to spill over beyond the family as people do their best to be kind and polite - even the 7/11 clerks. (I do, however, feel like I'm getting special treatment (sometimes bad, but usually good) because I'm white - I've heard and seen that race is still a big issue here.) Just today, walking back from a forest reserve a family picked me up off the side of the road and drove me to a main road where I could get a bus - I didn't even have my thumb out. I came home to find a bag on my doorknob; it was full of mangoes from my landlord.
