Archive for the 'East v. West' Category

I have been posting occasional posts by my father about his Memories of Malaya. He celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year and recently found time to write another piece for the family about our family traditions in the time of British rule over Malaya. He writes his memories as an email to our family, who are spread out all over the world, and I edit and share the ones which have a wider general interest here on Fusion View.

While my mother’s side of the family are staunch Methodist Christians, my father’s side of the family comes from a Buddhist tradition. I grew up going to Sunday School and reading Bible stories so it’s really interesting for me to learn more about the traditions from the other side of the family.

He writes:

British rule

I grew up in Malaysia and until I was in my late teens in 1957 the country was one of the many British colonial possessions. There were roughly two kinds of colonial possessions, one, a colony and the other a British protected possession. The first is ruled directly from Whitehall and the other is one where the local chieftain or sultan had entered into a treaty with the British Government where the former had asked for British protection usually against other local chieftains, sultans or neighbouring states. The British Government then sent a British Adviser to help in the administration of the local chieftain or sultan. He would also set up the administrative institutions and infrastructure not unlike those of a colony and for practical purpose the country was administered like that of a colony. Examples of a colony were Singapore, Penang, Malacca, Hong Kong etc. Malaya is an example of the second type. The empire had not only a vast mix of racial types who spoke their own languages practised their own customs and worshipped their own gods. In all these respects British colonial policy was benign. There was no compulsions of any kind: the natives and immigrants need not go to English language schools, worship the Christian god in the manner of the Anglicans nor eat with knife and forks nor dress in suites. They did interfere to do away with inhuman customs or practices like widow burning or slavery. The policy of generally not interfering with local family laws, customs and cultural practices prevailed. The British must have adopted these policies from the examples of the Romans in their dealings with their empire. There was therefore little serious social or political tension in the possessions they ruled.

Taoists

In our households like most Chinese household who were not Christians, we were actually Taoists although without very clear thinking we regarded and called ourselves Buddhists. We worshipped various gods and goddesses with an altar and little statuettes of each of them. I do not think we were even pure Taoist although to this day I do not know what Taoism is. A Buddhist generally means a person who follows Buddha’s teachings and there is no image or statuettes and no worship other then paying respect to a statuette or painting of Buddha in the usual eastern way of paying respect, by kneeling and the bowing to them. I will continue to refer to ourselves as Buddhists although by this it is really the kind of Taoism I have described above.

Daily rituals

There were certain daily rituals to be performed. In the morning after my Mother or the servant, Ah Hoe Chey (AHC) had done their morning toilet, they would place one joss stick for one deity into a bowl filled with a kind of grey powder which held the joss stick in upright position and would kneel with hands clasped bowed to each deity in turn.

The gods and goddesses were placed in a row on a long altar table and going from left to right they were the following:

1. the “Heavenly Emperor”: there is no image of Him. I think he rules the heaven;
2. the Warrior God (Kuan Kong): He was not a god to help people to fight wars like the Roman god, Mars. In his life on earth he was a warrior in the classical period of Chinese history; after his death, a cult arose in paying respect to him and sometimes people who did so also asked for favours and they were granted and he became deified like some Roman emperors although there is no record of a dead emperor granting any favours. There was a painting of him in his warrior robes famously with tucked up eye brows with a red face with two lieutenants standing beside him.
3. the Goddess of Mercy (Koong Yum): She was a human at one time who did a lot of good deeds and was known for her filial piety. Her life was portrayed in a film version with a famous Chinese star playing her part and there was a scene where she was shown to pluck out her own eyes to use them to cure her mother. Again she was deified after her death because she still performed good deeds in her answers to prayers. There was a small statuette of her made of white porcelain looking serene and benign, like a caring and loving mother.
4. next to her there was the Monkey God. There was a little statuette of him dressed in a yellow robe in the style of the classical Chinese time but with the face of a monkey. I do not know what his position is in the pantheon. I think it arose as follows: there is a Chinese legend that a Chinese monk traveled to India to receive the Buddhist scriptures and his traveling companions included two persons one with feature of a pig and the other a monkey and the legend is full of stories of their adventures in their journey to India. He must be the one with the features of a monkey. Because of this god in our house we would not use the ordinary word of monkey “ma lau” but a more polite word.

There was a small altar at the foot of the altar table. I do not know what god is represented there. There is the god of the kitchen who had a small altar over the kitchen stoves. He reports to the Heavenly Emperor at the end of each Chinese calendar year on the deeds of the household. On most mornings either Mother or AHC would chant prayers from a prayer book and this lasted about fifteen minutes.

First and fifteenth

On the first and fifteenth day of each Chinese calendar month the worship of these deities were a little more elaborate in that the appropriate temples must be visited and worship conducted there. The more religious minded, like Mother and AHC, would not eat meat for the two days. The temples would provide free vegetarian food for these two days for anyone who attended them whether they worshipped or not. In addition to joss sticks, joss papers were burnt.

Feast days

In addition to the daily prayers most Chinese also celebrate other feast days many of which were not religious but involved the cycles of the earth around the sun. The first major festival in the calendar is the Spring Festival or more usually known as Chinese New Year. Like all humanity it is a celebration of the beginning of new life - wearing of new clothes, cleaning house so that it looks new, wishing good fortune for the New Year. In our household we children wanted presents left near where we slept like on Christmas Eve. So we had Mother to give us presents in this manner. In one year Mother gave us a small magnifying glass to complement our stamp collection and packets of stamps and fountain pens. Father did not have relationship with his relatives except his elder brother. Mother was the only child. So we had no relatives to have to visit except Father’s elder brother and two ladies whom, like all Chinese, we call aunts although we were not related but were only Mother’s friends. We therefore received very few red packets and were impressed when some of school friends who related the amount they received. For the first day of the Chinese New Year even we children ate vegetarian and AHC made some delicious vegetarian food. When we grew up in secondary school Father would allow us to see any number of film shows for the two days of holidays. Normally we were allowed to see one film a week. So we packed as many as 3 shows into a day.

There was the mid-summer celebration which occurs on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar. This is a harvest festival and the moon is supposed to be at its biggest and brightest. Children would stroll around the garden of their houses holding lighted lanterns.

There is the day the winter solstice is celebrated when everyone eats little dough balls cooked in sugared water with ginger. I personally did not like them but Mother did very much.

There is All Souls Day where families go to the graves of parents or grandparents to pay their respects and render filial piety by cutting grass and sweeping away rubbish around the graves. About 14 days are given for this duty. I feel very touched when I see photographs of cemeteries filled with the Chinese doing this. I know of several persons who have travelled from as far as Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to perform this duty and I have just heard a few days ago that a friend traveled from Hong Kong where he worked to do this duty.

Cowherd and the weaver girl

There is one particularly romantic festival and it occurs on the seventh day of the seven month in the Chinese calendar. It is the festival of the “Cowherd and the weaver girl.” A long time ago there was a cowherd who tended the cows and a girl who weaved cloth. They were so enamoured and spent time mooning over each other that they neglected their chores. The gods became angry at this and separated them and permitted them only to meet for that one day in a year on the rainbow bridge and it is this that the earthlings now celebrate. I think this would make a splendid opera. Imagine the last scene where the young couple meets on a rainbow bridge singing duets of love and longing and below on earth the people dance and sing in celebration of the meeting. Opera composers have always included one scene where there is a lot of spirited music and vigorous dancing and this can be it and be a very fine one too.

There are other festivals but regrettably I cannot remember them.

Deity of little children

When we children celebrated our birthdays we had to worship a very old lady deity whose altar was at the end of our bed. She looks after little children. When I use the word “worship,” I mean that one would kneel put our palms together and bow three times to the altar and if Mother or Grandmother is standing beside us she will prompt us to say “make me a good and filial boy and help me to be successful in the examinations.” To celebrate I had a bowl of rice and as a treat I was given the thigh of a roasted duck all of it for myself. I remember eating it by myself holding it by the bone and it was a treat not to have to eat together as usual with the family. Even then the birthday was not celebrated every year - only when Mother, Grandmother or AHC remembered it.

Photo: thanks to limeydog on flickr.com

memmlya

My interview with Rob Mackenzie has been picked up by poet Andrew Philip on his blog TongueFire in a post called “What is Scottish Poetry?”. There is a lively discussion in the comments to that post about Scottish identity, which I’ve added to, asking what would the identity of a Chinese poet writing in Scotland be.

Andrew has responded with some interesting points:

There’s a poem called “Young, Chinese and Scottish” written in the voice of a young, Chinese-Scottish woman by Kevin Macneil, an obviously male Gaelic and English-language writer. How’s that for complex identity politics!

Googling the poem (which I can’t find online), I’ve just come across an online essay “Infinite Diversity in New Scottish Writing”, by the Scottish-Pakistani writer Suhayl Saadi, who was born in Yorkshire. I’ve not read it, but it might well be enlightening.

Thanks to Andrew, we have some really juicy diversity writing to go and explore!

I am reminded of the early days when I first came to the UK. Back then, I clumped all white people from the UK together as “the English”. When speaking to an Irish/ Scottish/ Welsh person, I sometimes referred to them as “English” - imagine their outrage! It was then that I started to see the differences between the various tribes that make up the UK. It still fascinates me and I feel I have a lot to learn.

While in Slovenia, I was chatting to one of the other IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) delegates who was from Doncaster. She has a mild but noticeable northern accent. She recounted a rather disturbing story that shows the boundaries that exist even between the tribes of England, let alone between the English and Welsh/ Scottish etc.

At Uni, she heard about a party that a group of friends was going to. “Great,” she said to the host, “Where is it?” He replied in stiff, Southern tones, “You don’t have the right accent to come.”

Wow.

But to end on a lighter note, my colleague told another more amusing story of the North-South divide. She was setting up a meeting room in her company’s sleek offices in Soho recently. The technical assistant was an East End bloke who asked her if she wanted “sand” for the meeting.

“Sand?” She couldn’t work out why she’d need sand in the room.

“Yeah, d’you want me to set up the sand system?”

“Ah, sound!” She cried, understanding at last….

Photo: thanks to Hamed Sabir from flickr.com

While we were on holiday in Crete recently, we spent many long, lazy dinners at the tavernas in our little mountain village. The tavernas spread their tables out in the open air under a light bamboo canopy or a shelter naturally woven from grape vines. Looking up at the stars beyond, we could see the nascent grapes begin to bulge on their tiny stems.

After the meal, we would sit back, stuffed on barbeque lamb or pork chops and baclava. They would then bring us a complimentary fruit basket and a small carafe of Raki on the house.

Raki is a clear colourless spirit, like vodka and seems to be a local speciality which the taverna proudly served us with a flourish. You pour it from the chilled carafe into small thimble shot glasses and knock it back. And feel the burn.

It made me think of arak, a clear colourless spirit, like vodka, that is drunk in Malaysia. I wonder whether how Raki found its way to Malaya (as it would have been back then in the past) from Crete to evolve into arak. Or perhaps it travelled from Malaya to Crete? Most likely, it would have been through the traders from the Middle East, just a short hop East from Crete and regular visitors to Malaya and Indonesia many centuries ago - and who still have a strong connection with modern Malaysia. And both Crete and Malaya in that distant time were hubs in major trading routes from East to West.

I savoured the strong aromatic alcohol burning my palate as I enjoyed this unexpected global connection. It was not my favourite taste - rather like medicine, or even methlyated spirits. Still, I toasted the ancient international adventurers and took another acrid sip.

Photo: thanks to AcornMan at virtualtourist.com

UPDATE 23 JUNE 2007: NICOLE HAS INFORMED ME THAT THIS SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED.

I received this email from Nicole Le Maire who is doing a survey of the expatriate experience for a study on The Hidden Depths of Global ambition. She is looking for people who have worked or are working in a country that is not their home country to do a short survey.

I started to do it and the questions made me think that I’m actually a local in the UK so I’m not sure I qualify. I came here as a child to school and stayed on for Uni and Law College, then got a job here. So I’m not sure I’m an expat (ie Malaysian expat) - am I?

Anyway, take a look for yourself (this survey is open to all genders, not just women):

Are you living or have you lived, studied or worked outside of your ‘home country’?

Has your organisation sent you abroad to complete an international assignment?

My name is Nicole Le Maire (Dutch) currently studying for a MBA qualification at TiasNimbas, The Netherlands. I am undertaking research on the topic of The Hidden Depths of Global Ambition, looking at the various ways how organisations and people decide to take the decision to work abroad. Do males/females receive the same opportunities to develop and work abroad? Is it nowadays standard that people accept localised terms and conditions?

This study will only take 10 minutes and the information received will be treated as strictly confidential. Its only purpose is to support this research.

To participate in my study, please click here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=372813890362

(If the link does not work, copy and paste the URL into your browser)

As a fellow ‘expatriate’, I hope you agree with me that learning more about the Hidden Depths of Global Ambition is important. I would be grateful if you could pass this along onto any ‘expatriates’ that you believe would be willing to take part in this study.

I would be very grateful for your participation.
Thank you for your time!

Nicole Le Maire
email: ndlemaire [at] hotmail.com
http://www.tiasnimbas.edu

Photo: thanks to fischerhuder from flickr.com

Here is a fabulous site to get you set for the weekend. It’s a site completely dedicated to cakes from around the world, called Cake Tourism. The bloggers there have this to say: “We are intrepid cake tourists, travelling the globe in search of amazing cake. Aghast at the lack of cake information in tour guides we will tell you the reader where to go for the best cake, wherever you are in the world. Obviously this may take some time but we’re willing to do what it takes: eating lots of cake.”

Every post is a review of a cake eaten somewhere in some part of the world and illustrated with the most mouth-watering photos you’ve ever seen of cakes, glorious cakes.

The site is also on the look out for Cake Submissions: “Got a cake tip? Send us a photo and a few words about the cake and where you ate it and we might feature it.”.

The best cakes I’ve had were in Austria. There’s something about the land of mountains and goatherds and music that also gives them the creativity and ingredients to create the fluffiest, creamiest, tastiest cakes in the world. They are like those classic images of ladies in white floating about the ballroom floor to the lilt of a Viennese waltz. In contrast, their savoury dishes don’t quite have the same pizzazz, in my view, being somewhat bland and heavy.

In contrast, the cakes in the UK tend to be quite stodgy and heavy - think fruit cakes and Victoria sponges. They are the sort of things to give you energy after a cold, bracing walk across the moors and eaten to the sound of Morris dancing, perhaps.

Asia doesn’t really do sweet cakes very well. The strength of Asian cuisine for me is in the savoury dishes that are tangy and aromatic and light. Without easy and cheap access to wheat flour, traditionally, sweet things are made from rice flour and the texture can take some getting used to for the Western palette.

What do you think? Am I being unfair to Asian cakes? Am I wrong about UK cakes? Or perhaps you have a view on Austrian dishes? Add a comment and share your views.

I’ve usually shown crazy and funny videos from YouTube on Film Mondays on Fusion View. This week’s video is more thought-provoking and serious, taking a look at Asian-American identities through a series of interviews with students with roots in the Indian subcontinent all the way eastwards to Japan. It’s just over ten minutes long and you’ll need to have sound to listen to what the different voices have to say.

In the US, the identity “Asian” generally refers to Orientals whereas in the UK, the term is used to denote people from the Indian subcontinent ie Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc are all lumped together. The Asians east of there are Orientals though there really aren’t enough of us to merit a catch-all identity so we’re generally allowed to be Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

One of the questions asked in the film is “What is your identity?”. Hmmm, now how would I answer that? I’d say: I’m a Malaysian-born British-Chinese ie my family are ethnic Chinese who migrated to Malaya (as it then was but is now Malaysia, following independence) and I am now British, having migrated from Malaysia to the UK. A bit of a mouthful. The best answer is the film is the guy who says that he identifies as the sexiest man alive. Simple!

Kickboxing Geishas. Wow, what a fab title for a book!

I found this book (by Veronica Chambers) via a review on Japundit called “How does change happen in Japan?”. It is a non-fiction book about modern Japanese women and how they are “breaking the bonds of tradition and dramatically transforming their culture”. This is a theme that is close to my heart - my two novels were about modern Malaysian women in business settings being intelligent, feisty and high-powered in contrast to the usual portrait of Chinese women as bound feet. long suffering wretches. It’s high time we had more portraits of modern kick-ass Asian women - from Madame Butterfly a century ago, pining for the love of a white man, and Memoirs of a Geisha (by a white man, incidentally) waiting to be rescued by a philandering, adulterous businessman portrayed as hero, it must be a relief for feisty Japanese women to see themselves portrayed in their real personas for a change.

Those of a sensitive nature should turn away now.

The one thing I’d always found challenging in Malaysia was the state of the public toilets. They used to be dank, damp, stinky and just plain traumatic. You’d only go if you were really desparate and would otherwise hold on for dear life until you got home. And if you did have to go, you’d try not to touch anything, look at anything and you’d hold your breath until stars flashed in your eyes.

This last trip I made back to Malaysia, I was completely captivated by the public loos. It began at KL International Airport (”The Best Airport in the World” according to the banners that greet you as you get off the plane - and I’m inclined to agree). The ladies room there were clean, sleek, bright and shiny with auto-flush toilets, lots of loo roll, soap and paper towels. Then in the malls where I was speaking at a number of book events, the toilets were lovely and sweet-smelling, with bright, clean surfaces and shiny tiles. And practically everywhere I went after that, the public toilets just exuded luxury and glamour.

Someone told me that these delights didn’t just happen on their own and that the Minister of Tourism issued an edict to the nation to get their toilets in order for Visit Malaysia Year. Can that be true? Or is it just an urban myth? At any rate, in my view, if anything tells you that Malaysia is a nation that’s achieved world-class success, it’s the state of its public toilets.

I was so horrified and appalled when I arrived back in the UK. The ladies toilets at Heathrow were the first to greet me and they were tatty, dirty, badly stocked and unkempt. Everywhere I go now in London, I find myself comparing the toilets to the joys of the Malaysian loos.

Pic: thanks to techno-impressionist.com

When I met Lydia Teh for lunch in Kuala Lumpur, we went to Delifrance in one of the many malls - a chain of cafes selling French-style pastries and coffee. In the UK, the equivalent is Delice de France and it sells croissants and chocalate or almond croissants with savoury flavours such as Chicken Feuillette or Ham and Cheese Croissant.

In the KL Delifrance, I was tickled and delighted to find Green Curry Feuillette and Beef Rendang Feuillette, the ultimate in fusion food. I had the Green Curry Feuillette and it was spicy and yummy, the combination of curry and flaky pastry reminding me of curry puffs.

If you know of any other fusion foods like this, do email me or add a comment!

When I was in Kuala Lumpur at the end of February, it was Chinese New Year and when my Mum and I popped into Standard Chartered Bank to get some cash, we found ourselves surrounded by lions dancing to a crashing, deafening beat of cymbals and drums.

The dance troupe were making their rounds of the KL city banks and financial institutions, their ritual intended to bestow luck and prosperity on their hosts. We watched with delight and amazement. I kept thinking how one would never see this in a UK bank!

.

Photos: thanks to Miss Sun Piu Yee of Standard Chartered Bank, Kuala Lumpur who kindly emailed me these pics.