Goodbye Malaysia

Breakfasting on roti canai, kayaking on the lake in Shah Alam, squeezing into train compartments at rush hour, and saying “lah” at the end of every sentence.

These are just a few of the things that come to mind as we reflect on our two months of work and play in Malaysia. Driving to the airport to go back home to Dubai, Nour realized with a start that she had been living in this Southeast Asian country for one-sixth of a year. She was far beyond the status of tourist and had started settling into the comfortable and quirky role of expat – Malaysia was, surprisingly, becoming home. She’d made different groups of friends, fallen in love with the local cuisine, started picking up the language, and even established a family base through Khalisah. But as the cliché goes, all good things come to an end, and it was soon time to leave. It had been two months of unexpected self-discovery, for both Nour the newcomer and Khalisah the returning resident. And they had their time with MERCY Malaysia and the Malaysian social scene to thank for it.

When we started our internship with MERCY Malaysia, we didn’t know what to expect. What greeted us at the office in downtown KL was a group of the friendliest staff members you could find in a 6000 mile radius. We were enthusiastically shown the ropes by the HR department, and gently nudged in the right direction whenever we went astray with the work we were given. We found that MERCY Malaysia is at the crux of the Malaysian humanitarian field. Donations from big companies like Patronas and collaborations with the likes of award-winning film director Yasmin Ahmad not only kept this small but powerful NGO going, but also powered the medical relief missions to places like Palestine and Bandar Aceh. Talking to fellow passengers at train stations or bus stops, they only had positive things to say about what they consider their national NGO. Supported by the donations of thousands of individuals and companies as well as being run by big-hearted professionals, we saw that MERCY Malaysia is truly aid delivered with care.

Work wasn’t all we did in Malaysia, of course. We tried packing in as much fun as we could into the precious few hours we had off each week. We made new friends, connecting with a group of local activists in the Young Muslims Project, and attending the Knowledge and Arts Tour that they put together for the summer. We also met up with Khalisah’s older friends from Sunway University College, and attended local gigs and scenes as well as doing what Malaysians do best—hang out at Mamak stalls. For Khalisah, this time was well spent on catching up with local pop culture. Like most third-culture kids, she suffers from the guilt of knowing all the intimate details of American pop singers and their second husbands and illegitimate children, but draws a blank when it comes to naming any popular Malaysian song.

This neglect of her other cultural identity was something she intended to correct, and this summer’s SHOUT! Awards and the kids from Sunway managed to correct that. Malaysia, she discovered, has a vibrant music scene that isn’t garnering the attention it deserves. From soul jazz singers like Zee Avi to indie-rock bands like Estranged to R&B masters like Joe Flizzow, Khalisah found herself spoilt for choice amongst the range of talent that came from her motherland. Her wallet could barely keep up with the CD’s she purchased in her last weeks.

Blazing through a whirlwind of music, mamak dinners and train rides, our time in Malaysia ended much earlier than we would have liked it to. Just as we were getting comfortable in our roles as Malaysian residents, our internship came to a swift end. Nour was surprised at how quickly this country, so different from what she’s known between America and the Middle East, welcomed her into the fold, while Khalisah was happy to find her weak Malay language skills flourish and grow alongside her appreciation of Malaysian pop culture.

Leaving Malaysia and its mamaks, where we spent our time discovering different ways of viewing and living in the world, is difficult. But we leave knowing that we have a road back there, and Malaysian experiences that we will take with us, wherever else we may go.

A Day in Shah Alam

No matter how much you love your job, after days of an endless cycle of work, traffic and failed attempts at getting enough sleep, you need your day off on the weekends. A day without working overtime or worrying about cleaning the house or making appointments with important contacts. That’s why this week, we had our day off by leaving the busy neighborhood of Subung Jaya for the sleepy suburb of Shah Alam. There, we alternated between the doting comfort of grandparents and joining the homey bustle of morning markets and Malay weddings. It was a day far removed from our rush of aid work, and we needed it. But it was also a day that opened our eyes to an aspect of Malaysia that we were too busy to pay attention to before: the globalization, or perhaps Westernization, of Malaysian culture – especially outside the cosmopolitan capital of Kuala Lumpur.

At about nine in the morning, we stepped out of the car and into the parking lot that led to the Pasar Tani, or the Farmer’s Market. This Sunday morning tradition involves people setting up stalls with items as varied as traditional Malaysian clothes and shower curtains. Row after row of stalls led us through worlds of second-hand t-shirts, bright red prayer rugs, fake Guess jeans and traditional batik cloth in every color imaginable. The stalls reminded Khalisah a little bit of Iowan farmer’s markets, except instead of apples there were guavas, and instead of deep-fried ice-cream there were fried noodles. It’s amazing how two different markets – from Iowa to Shah Alam—can be equally unhealthy for the under prepared stomach.

The rest of the food in the stalls, like just about everything else in the market, completely fascinated Nour. There was kuih, a word that encompasses just about any sort of local sweet that involves coconut made gooey; durian, the overwhelmingly strong-scented fruit that should be made the symbol of Malaysia; and all sorts of rotis, the Indian word for bread. One of the most interesting rotis we came across was Roti John, which is the Malaysian version of a chicken sub. According to Khalisah, this particular food specimen was an attempt at copying “Western” cuisine, but with all the sauces and spices that were added to it over the years, it is now a fiery chicken sandwich that few Western palates can handle.

Although Pasar Tani is a typical Malaysian tradition, it was interesting to see how much non-Malaysian culture has seeped into it. We made a similar realization at the Malay wedding we attended later in the day.

We had hustled into the banquet hall just in time to hear the drums beat, a signal that the wedding couple are ready to walk together to the persandingan, a raised dais with two gilded chairs and a cloth canopy. Two little girls dressed in white with small green wreathes propped up on their white hijabs took the fore of the procession, scattering flower petals on the floor. This was a little surprising to Khalisah, whose previous exposure to Malay weddings assured her that these affairs don’t usually include flower girls.

But then the crowd parted and the wedding couple took a step forward in true Malay style. The theme of this Malay wedding was a soft peach beige, and though it sounds decidedly unmanly, the groom looked impressive in his delicately patterned pants and shirt, with an intricately sewn samping wrapped around his middle like a sarong and a kris knife secured on his hip. As each couple is celebrated as king and queen on their wedding day, the groom adorned his head with a Tengkolok, a folded piece of cloth that serves as a crown. The bride wore a crystal tiara over her beige hijab, and lace cloth flecked with gold thread cascaded down the sides of her peach wedding outfit, a baju kebaya.

A voice over the loudspeaker soon distracted us from the bride’s and groom’s outfits. “Salla allahu ala Muhammad,” the speaker said as he began to read a few select pieces from the Quran. Then the couple walked forward towards the dais, with the flower girls tossing their petals all over the floor (much to Khalisah’s annoyance). By the time the couple made it to their “thrones,” the speaker completed his reading and proceeded to recite different prayers to bless the couple and the new life they would share together. Later, the drum procession had settled down at the foot of the dais and began to play traditional Javanese music where lots of gamelans (brass chiming instruments) came into play. Khalisah pointed out that this isn’t a traditional aspect of the wedding, just like the flower girls, and Nour accused her of being a purist.

Being new to the experience, Nour enjoyed the Malay wedding and the slightly fermented rice served as a dessert. For Khalisah, the experience was pock-marked with adages from a western wedding: the flower girls, the alien-sounding gamelan dinner music, and the division of the hall into a groom-side and a bride-side (something she later discovered from her grandparents). It took away the more homey feeling of tradition Malay weddings used to evoke. These weddings were held at either the groom’s or bride’s driveway just outside their house, and tents would protect the buffet and the guests that pattered in off the streets. The drums would beat in tune with Malay wedding songs that were interspersed with Quranic verses and kids would run in between (and sometimes under) the tables throughout the whole ordeal.

Maybe the banquet hall wedding was a sign of shifting local culture, where the basics are given a new twist to keep the event from being another day in someone’s driveway, making it a truly unique affair. The same could be said of the “Western” products that were making their way into the Sunday morning market. What was boring and ordinary to Westerners was exciting and exotic to the people who lived here. We decided that as long as the batik cloth in the pasars and the kris and tiara in the weddings stay untouched, we can be comfortable with this changing culture that is emerging to accommodate a new generation of Malaysians. With this bizarre mix of new and old, local and “other,” who knows what will identify Malaysian culture in a few years’ time.

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The Mamak Chronicles documents the Malaysian summer of Nour Merza and Khalisah Stevens. With the convenient excuse of an internship, these two half Americans find their way into the heart of Kuala Lumpur, where, in between haggling over souvenirs and missing buses, they sustain themselves by frequenting the food stalls that line the streets of the city. It is in these Mamaks that they discover the lifeblood of all that is Malaysian.