Puchong

Today we spent the day at MFD reflecting on our teaching experience in Selangor making notes on how to improve for our next trip. Due to the huge cultural difference between Malaysia and America, we have to remember to be more sensitive and try to abide by their rules. I have struggled with two things so far: remembering to divide genders and trying to cover up as much skin as possible.

More than half of the students at Selangor are Muslim and this religion is beyond strict. Women must keep their hair hidden under a scarf and wear long pants. They are not allowed to be intimate with men and vice versa. So this definitely made an impact on the games we played because students are used to gender separation. They divide up in the cafeteria (boys at one end and girls on the other) and while playing games. We didn't realize this at first but after some time, we noticed how hard the boys tried to avoid the girls. One time while playing "Octopus" (where kids join hands after they are tagged by the original tagger) this boy refused to hold a girl's hand and decided to grab the end of her school shirt and hold on to it with just two fingers. Another boy got so desperate, he looked around on the ground for a leaf and made a girl hold on one end as he held the other end. This made me laugh and secretly applause him on his creativity but we decided we couldn't continue mixed gender games. One thing was interesting-- they never complained to us. Instead, they found other ways around it.

I was also surprised at how many times the children eat at the school cafeteria. There are a total of six trips made each day-- three meals and snacks in between! By the second day, I was so stuffed, I couldn't eat until the next morning. This was odd to me because other than an exception of two, the kids were so thin.

Food. I already knew that it was going to be different but nothing could have prepared me for how different. Malaysian food is so spicy and it is usually a mix of Chinese/Thailand/Japanese food which isn't good news for me because I don't usually eat that. I had to waste a lot of food because I just couldn't eat it. Their fish comes in whole and when I say whole-- the tail and head is still attached along with fish bone inside. I love seafood but not when the eyes are still intact. That goes for any kind of meat. I eat chicken but if chicken was served to me with its claws still on, I would never eat it. That's when I started to really notice the difference with American food and foreign food. In America, you don't find animal meat served to you whole. Americans try to avoid remembering the reality of eating an animal so we are served parts instead with eyes and legs removed. In Malaysia, they are not afraid to be honest.

As for the dress code, we were told to bring formal clothes to wear while we teach students. I brought along pants, long skirts and shirts and have no problem wearing them because in general, teachers in America don't wear shorts to work. But they also don't have to teach in 90plus degrees in a room without air conditioner. When they said it was humid-- they really meant it. I have never experienced this kind of continutious heat. All through teaching, all I could do was count down the minutes til I could race over to my room and peel off the thick polo shirt I had on. So this part is hard.

After Selangor, we finally got to visit the Petronas Twin Towers (KLCC)! This part was exciting because we had to use the metro to go into the city and since this skyscraper was something I came across while researching Malaysia before the trip-- it was so surreal to see it in person. It used to be the tallest building in the entire world until Dubai built their Burj Khalifa. So I've seen the second tallest building! There's an amazing mall inside the tower that would put Mall of America to shame. There are many American stores inside which helped ease our homesickness ;)

The metro system we used in Kuala Lumpur to get to the towers was impressive! Much more modern than DC's. Due to intensity of traffic on the highway, people use the bus often and there are a million motorcyclists on the road since they are allowed to pass cars in traffic. Riding the bus back to our apartment from Kuala Lumpur was so uncomfortable. Here-- all the hearing people stare. They don't even look away when we catch them looking. They have no regard for privacy-- we even caught them looking over shoulders reading others' text messages.

Our first week here is complete but we're still finding out new things about their culture!
Tomorrow, we have another day at the office before we leave for our weekend stay at Juhor and Singapore.