My Ramadhan

Just to remind you of my situation: a non-practicising Orthodox Christian Romanian thrown in the middle of a Muslim society, working in a all-Muslim company. I didnt know much about Islam before coming here, so I am taking it as a learning experience, no prejudice allowed

Ramadan (the 9th month in the Islamic calendar) is a fasting month that started on the 22nd of August and will end on the 20th of September. This means that during this month Muslims are not allowed to eat, smoke, drink or do anything ill-natured … from dawn until sunset. So, people wake up early in the morning (i.e. 4:30 am) to have breakfast, and after sunset (usually around 7:20 pm) they start eating and eating and eating in bazaars all over the city (this interruption of the fasting is called buka puasa and is usually enjoyed with friends and family). Restaurants run by Muslims close or are forced to close during the day as well, even the Iranian restaurant in JB. Exceptions? Sure! If you are really sick/ill, or you have your period or you’re pregnant (it doesnt apply to men ) you can skip a few days.

To make a short analogy, Ramadhan is like the Orthodox Christmas Fasting (ro. postul Craciunului); both of them end with the most important religious celebration of the year: Hari Raya and Christmas Day. On these days, in both religions, you go visit your relatives, have dinner with them or offer them sweets, gifts and money.

And yet we live in the 21st century when youngsters rebel against imposed rules, search their identity on the internet and want to have freedom of choice. What if some of them decide not to fast? and not respect Ramadhan? What would happen? Hehehe..and the answer came: if you are caught eating, you’ll be fined or taken to prison. And if you are Romanian, right now you’ll be thinking about ways around this rule Well, in Malaysia one’s religion is written in his/her ID…so you cannot lie about it. I guess you can still fake an illness I remember the times when crazy classmates from seconday school would eat chalk just to get a little bit sick so they could skip classes…

Strange happenings:

1. Model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was scheduled to be caned in public for drinking beer.

2. Muslims in Malaysia have been barred from attending a concert by the Black Eyed Peas because it is sponsored by Guinness.

As a foreigner, I find myself in the position of a spectator…no Islamic laws are appliable to me, I am not forced to do anything against my will (i can dress the way i want, i can behave as i want, i can eat, i can drink as much alcohol i can afford as it is very expensive). But this doesn’t mean I will also get the respect of the locals.

Although back home I was never succesful in fasting, I will try to fast for one day here in Malaysia. I’ll keep yo u posted when that will happen

Going Back to Europe

That’s how the trip to Perhentian Islands felt like. Armed with 2 Canons, 3 lenses, 1 flash, memory cards, batteries and other gizmos, I headed out for the first tropical islands i would see in my life, accompanied by Yasmin (colleague from work) and Alina, her trendy 25 year-old Muslim friend (see the coincidence?!). Because of the matching names, I ended up being called Ali (English pronounciation – eli) for the entire trip. I do believe it’s good for a person to give up their names for a while taking up some other one, as a way to explore your inner movements once you lose the one thing that synthesizes your personality.

Spent another 9 freezing  hours on the polar bus, from Johor Bahru to Kuala Besut, where I happily exchanged the bas for the fast boat who gave us the best rodeo ride of my life to Perhentian Besar (i.e. the Big one) and Arwana Resort – small, quiet family retreat. And thus I found myself amidst Germans, French, Italians and Dutch…quite comforting I might say but just as much disorienting as I was still in Malaysia.

Spent 4 days on the island, bathing in the clear water of the South China Sea, floating in the resorts swimming pool and rinsing under the hot shower in my room. Quite a good holiday And oh, yes…work! Took some hundreds of photos of which I made a quick selection for you to enjoy and help you day dream. Sweet dreams, my friends!

Learning … the language

Well, as you might know, or figured out, Malaysia is pretty multicultural which means people speak Hindi, Chinese (usually Mandarin) and Malay. English is the bridge that brings them together and makes this country work.

Thought about it and have officially decided to learn Malay This, after finding out it is quite a simple language considering it doesn’t make a gender distinction (same word for male or female), does not have a plural (usually the plural is expressed by context or by repeating the word), verbs don’t change neither for person or number, nor for tenses (it doesn’t have tenses!!). For example, if you’d like to say „The actress ate candies”, in Malay it would sound like „The actor eat candy-candy yesterday”. This makes French look like a monster language

Let me give you an insight into what I’ve learned until now:

how to count from 1 to 5 (6 to 10 is way too complicated, so I’m leaving that for the weeks to come) – satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima

hungry (I am rarely thirsty, so decided to skip that as well) – lapar

love – cinta

welcome – selamat datang

chicken rice – nasi ayam

fried rice – nasi goreng

lemon ice tea – teh o ais limau

good – sedap

what – apa

sun –matahari (combination of mata – eyes and hari – day)

I like – saya suka

Now, let’s see what I could say using the words I’ve learned: 1. I like four eyes. 2. Welcome to sun of fried rice. 3. I hungry for love. 4. I hungry so welcome chicken fried rice and lemon ice tea, love is good day, what sun i like in my eyes.

Of course, i had to learn some bad words. Would you guess what you call somebody you hate, considering you are in a Muslim country?? Think about it…it is related to non-halal food Yes, yes…you would call them a PIG (babi…thanks San for the spelling ). Thinking about Romanian, we call people all sorts of things, and all types of animals. But when we call somebody a pig, do we mean „I really like your meat, and would like to kill you for Christmas and feed you to my family in the form of sausages?” Romanians love their pigs , so this swearing does not qualify as a bad insult.

Shooting for space in Genting Highlands

After two weeks of getting used to the Malaysian way, i went to visit San San (sansquare.blogspot.com) in Kuala Lumpur and to go on a trip to Genting Highlands (some 50 km away from the capital). As I was promised fresh and cool air, mountains and forest, I didn’t hesitate to accept the offer…you should never refuse a chance to cool off in Malaysia.

Took a teksi and a bas on my own  - without getting ripped off (or at least that was my impression, and i like having this impression) – and reached Kuala Lumpur at around 23.15 after a four and a half hours lying on a bas chair. Have to mention that the night before we went to this club in Johor Bahru dancing on R’n'B rythms, drinking draft Carlsberg and watching highschool kids having fun. A question was obsessively coming to my mind: “What the f*** I am doing here?”, but then i closed my eyes and kept on dancing as this was the first and best exercise i got since in Malaysia. So, i was tired enough to sleep during half of the trip to KL.

Just as a great friend would, San was waiting for me in the bus station. Picked me up and drove straight to the Petronas Towers so that i could catch a glimpse of the second tallest building in the world (451.9 m), surpassed only by Taipei 101 (509.2 m). Looks incredible at night with all the lights on…so, a piece of advice, if ever in KL try to see the Twin Towers during the night as well…before midnight because the lights get turned off  :D We are all trying to save resources

As Romanians are everywhere, i had to meet one in KL, right?! So I did…Emil, ex-trainee, currently working for DHL in Singapore and has been living there for 3 years. It was quite conforting speaking Romanian and making Romanian jokes using the “so-not-(Malay)sian” sarcasm.

Next day, San San and 4 other AIESEC alumni friends and me were off for the Genting Highlands. We did stop to have dim sum (1st time in my life) and i must say it was quite delicious but can’t seem to remember any names of the stuff i ate…but, for sure, there was some chicken, some pork and some fish

Using the world’s fastest and South East Asia’s longest cable car called Genting Skyway (3.38km) we reached the top of the mountain resort  (about 1850 m) anxious to go to the theme park. In spite of the short showers of heavy rain that got us all soaked, we managed to do most of the attractions: the Spinner, the Cyclone, the Corkscrew, the Grand Prix Fun Kart, the Space Shot (twice), the Carusel (girly fuss, riding a pony) and the Crazy Space Lab. The Space Shot (rapid vertical ascent and descent amusement ride. It lifts up to 12 people into the air, providing an exciting G-force on the way up and a feeling of weightlessness on the way down) was the best one. I loved the feeling of helplessness…when falling, and panic as well…you find yourself screaming because your brain is telling you it’s a freaking long way down and you are basically going to die Great stuff!! You need to experience this! And the roller coaster as well as it deals with the same idea…only that you’re upside down.

Feeling hungry and wet but energized we headed towards the hotel where we had Steamboat…basically 2 hot plates on which you can fry almost everything (but usually seafood and chicken) and two bowls of TomYam (hot and sour flavored  soup). It’s a slow process meal which gives you the opportunity to cook and to have a chat at the same time with your friends, around the table. Really cool idea! But i think it would have taken me weeks to eat all that food!! Long live fish balls, corn, mushroom and prawns

Moving around

It’s been 7 days since i’ve arrived in Malaysia and have loads of thoughts to share. Just bare with me … i promise to keep it short and simple In today’s post i chose to deal with transportation!

If i were to describe the Malaysian environment i would pick one word: INTERACTIVITY. Unlike  in the USA where everything is user friendly, simplified to the basics so that you can get around without any help, such as buying food, using public transportation, or shopping, the Malaysian way is for sure not foreigner-friendly. Taking a bus is like picking a lottery ticket and taking a taxi (teksi in Malay) a fierce negociation. Allow me to be more explicit: there is no bus schedule or itinerary…so you just have to get on the bus, ask the driver if he goes to your station and pay him the amount of money he asks from you. As there is no possibility to check if the price is correct and obviously you dont speak the language in order to find out, you might get f***** a few times There are no ticket counters, so you have to rely on the driver. Kinda like the Romanian maxi-taxi sistem, only that fares differ from one bus to another, and from one stop to another. One time we ended up waiting for 1 h for bus no. 666 (yeah, u’ve got it … the Devil’s line). Even more fun stuff happens on buses…Trying to reach Desaru beach (http://www.myoutdoor.com/desaru/) we took a bus. A guy wearing white tennis shoes and a small backpack got in and sat next to Julio, the Mexican intern. At one point I found myself just staring at the guy thinking that he had very nice features for a Malay. Then all of a sudden i noticed he was sitting very close to Julio touching him with his leg and backpack…what was even more weird is that he had one hand fiddling with something under the backpack strangely positioned on his knees. My first thought: “What a perv!! Doing a handjob in public while touching Julio!!! Disgusting!!” Only after he got off the bus did I notice that one of Julio’s sidepockets was open. The “perv” guy proved to be a very slick pickpocketer who had actually manager to steal Julio’s digital camera from his own pocket with me watching the entire show!! And i thought he was a perv

As i said before, even taking a teksi becomes a 2 minute fierce negotiation. The thing is that gasoline here is pretty cheap (1.8 ringgits/litre = 0.3 €/litre = 1.5 RON/litre) so it doesn’t quite pay off to be a teksi driver. So they try to get double or triple the normal fare from you. Being a foreigner doesn’t help at all! So, before getting on a teksi you have to negotiate for every ringgit!! If you care about your money, of course.

Talking about cars and buses, i have to mention again that Malaysia is an ex-British colony and so they drive on the wrong side of the road!!! I still look at moving cars and freak out when i can’t see anybody in the driver’s seat. Not to mention the daily ordeal of crossing the street…it’s a miracle i haven’t been run over yet. Thank God I am an exotic creature and drivers slow down so that they can whistle at me, throw kisses at me, welcome me to Malaysia or just blankly stare at me. And no, i don’t walk naked on the street!

BTW, this teksi driver one time said he thought i was Chinese. This is me blending in

Hammock on the beach or hut in the jungle?

Contrary to what some of you might think, I actually live in an apartment And the address is Taman tampoi Indah 2, Jalan Mawar 4, 03-8B, Johor Bahru, Johor. Uau, it’s hard to believe i actually remembered it! Check it out…

What is unbelievable is that i do have my own room, double bed, big closet, mirror, air conditioning and fan! On the other hand, there’s no hot water, the kitchen is used as a drying room for clothes by the boys (interns with whom i’m sharing the apartment) and we have bars and locks at every window and exit doors.

So let me introduce you the guys i live with…

Ben, from Germany, studying in Holland.

Julio, from Mexico, has been everywhere in South Eastern Asia.

Peter, from Hong Kong, his family name is Peach (or at least the Cantonese version of that).

The trip

It was way too long for my taste, or for anybody’s taste, for that matter. I couldn’t sleep  the night before, so  i felt even more tired. The maxi-taxi ride from Galati to Bucharest was pretty enjoyable as I travelled with Alina – my roommate  from Erasmus in Italy – and we had quite a bit to catch up. So we went on chatting until we got to the airport. Btw, we took the train from Bucuresti Nord to  Otopeni…us and other  7 people!..just a 40 minute ride to the airport, air conditioning included so i totally recommend taking the train (runs every hour at 15 minutes past) rather than the 780 bus going from Gara de Nord or the 783 bus going from Piata Unirii

After saying goodbye to Alina who was travelling to Sicily for the holidays, I got on the Tarom plane heading for Istanbul. In less than 1 hour i could see the Bosphorus through my little airplane window. Right before landing we had to fill in a Health Card because of the A (H1N1) flu. I had to declare whether i was feeling ill, had recently travelled to South or North America, or had anything to declare. Later you will see how seriously they take it in Asia. Making my way through the airport, i met a retired Maths teacher from Bucuresti who was on her way to Australia. Obviously enough, she was traveling to Dubai as well so we ended up having a long and exciting conversation about her life (ok, i admit it was more of a monologue) and about my foolishness in choosing Malaysia for my internship. Oh well, at least we kept eachother company and gossiped about Muslim women….in an attempt to understand them…of course

On the way to Dubai i sat next to this nice 80 year old couple from Turkey…going to Australia to visit their daughter. They offered me biscuits and complimented me on my courage; they thought i was 19, but then again they were 80 and had forgotten their glasses at home. Food on the plane was extremely good and sufficient (salad + salmon + chicken + vegetables + biscuits + butter + cheese + cake + water/juice)…if you have the chance don’t hesitate to fly with Emirates, in spite of the weird girls acting as stewardesses coming from Eastern Europe, Central Europe and UK.

Smoothly landed in Dubai…huge modern airport, selling gold on the hallways and duty free shop expensive like hell. Oh, and of course the Muslim Arabic women completely covered by black clothes (black gloves included) with only their eyes visible. They all looked mysterious and beautiful to me, just as shadows would. Entirely depending on their men to handle tickets, questions, to carry luggage, to buy  food and water, they seemed like  fragile museum items that can’t be touched. It doesn’t sound bad at all…actually. No make up required, no combing hair, no painful hair-removing process, no exercising needed, no revealing clothes allowed,  not dealing with misoginistic or pornographic comments while walking down the street, not being treated as a piece of ass  that men wanna take to their beds, not having to work your ass off in a  company where men get better salaries and respect. Hmmm…we feel pity for this “mistreated women” while we should be worried about our own status!!

Coming back to my trip, i finally arrived to Kuala Lumpur after 24 hours of traveling…as luck, or unluck, would have it, there was nobody waiting for me at the airport. Thank God the British colonized the Malay Peninsula in 1786!! Dragging the 20 kilo bag, backpack on the back and laptop bag around my shoulder and neck, I found the Star Shuttle = bas (Malay word for bus…pretty easy, right?!) and in 1 hour was in the bus terminal of Kuala Lumpur, called Puduraya. Needless to say, Malaysian men are no gentlemen, as I had to put the above-mentioned heavy bag in the bus, take it out, carry it up what seemed to be 1000 steps to the bus station only to find out that after buying a ticket you go down the same Golgothic flight of stairs and put my luggage in another bus. But then again, neither are Romanian men!

Do you remember that saying “when hell freezes over”? Well, this sums up Malaysian weather. Is hot like hell, or shall I say humid as hell?! But once you get on a bus, go into a restaurant, a mall, a cinema, an office, you suddenly feel like in the South Pole only that you are not surrounded by black and white imperial penguins, but by short Asians who stare at you like you are some kind of an exotic animal on display. I hadn’t shaken so much with cold since last winter in Romania when my dad decided to save some money and turned off the heaters in the entire apartment. Survived that as well, and reached Johor Bahru (Romanian pronounciation: “gioor baru”) where an Indonesian guy, Faruq, was waiting for me in the bus stop. Jumped in a taxi and headed towards the apartment I would spend the next 6 months of my life in.