20090419-26
Back at Dave’s in KL I spend a few days computer contracting while looking at flight options to get to Paris for a close friend’s wedding. With the aim of spending a couple of months in the UK to earn some dosh and seeing Abi. I manage to sort out a route to Europe and back which does not cost too much - though I maybe could have earned more than I saved given it took nearly an entire day searching all the flight sites.
But all work and no play would make Paul very bored. So I plan a few pieces of entertainment. The first is to visit the Sepang race circuit where Kelvin and Roy take their home built Caterman 7 look-a-like race car. It was fun being in a race paddock again even though the car only managed one lap due too a problem with the head gasket and to see the pit babes and pretty young Asian wives and girlfriends of the more mature expats was a delight.
Later on I meet up with my old university friends Felican and Wendy Teo who live and work in KL. It had been more than twenty years since I last saw them. With three grown up children and a pre-school business their lives had taken a very different course to mine. We go out to a hawker stall restaurant called Ming Tien, it is so busy that the tables have door bell push buttons on them to call the waiters over. As is usual in Malaysia it is chopsticks or more commonly a fork and only a spoon as there seems to be a national shortage of knives.
Wendy and Felican’s pre-school as only 30 children these are aged from two to six years old. I am told a few snippets about the children’s parents. One of the Chinese parents is so keen that her son does have dark skin from being in the sun she whips him away from the school before the rest of the school get changed to go swimming. All of the parents seem very pushy for their children to learn as much mathematics and English that many consider computer, craft work and games as a waste of time. Luckily the swimming pool is only used once a week so I am able to make use of it a couple of times over the following days.
I offer to talk to the kids about my trip and try to select 30 photos which will entertain them, in the end I can only get it down to 55 and so over run my slot, something I personally detest when watching presentations. The 7 or 8 older children say ’wow’ for the first 5 or 6 pictures which really warms me but by the 40th I see some are yawning. I mainly showed the pictures of children from other lands ether those in schools I have met or those that were working e.g. the monks in Thailand and the brick turners in India. Trying to get over to the school kids that they are lucky not to be at school rather than working. They have many questions and all want to talk at the same time so I struggled to keep up with the bombardment but it was still fun.
I also arrange to meet up with some of the local Horizons Unlimited members. Firstly Kenneth who takes me to probably the best Japanese restaurant I have ever been too where the beef was astounding. Then John Brown, who also has a VFR 750, with whom I enjoy time swimming in his condo’s outdoor pool in front of the KL towers. His Sikh wife, Sharon, is a bundle of laughs and after she retires to bed we carry on discussing their life in the expat community and of their plans to go travelling on a GS1200. Upstairs in their apartment I am mighty impressed to see a whole wall in the kitchen has been devoted to their trip planning. They will ride down through Africa and then onto South America. John also says he can look after Vafa while I’m back in Europe which will help Dave’s wife Amudha enjoy her garden again rather than looking at endless bikes as she enjoys her nightly cigarettes.
Another night I meet up with Patrick Lee from Couch Surfing. Pat is a young Chinese Catholic guy who used to be a lawyer but now sells investment advice. He is a laugh too but very efeminet
with it. I take him for a ride into town so he can show me the big mall.
Before Patrick had got onto Vafa I warned him that he must not get on or off before I am ready. Unfortunately as I prepare to position my feet securely so he can alight at the end of the evening from the pillion seat he starts to climb off in such away that all his weight is on the left hand rear peg and without my legs positioned correctly I do not have the strength to hold the bike up and down we go. More unfortunately I had parked near a big kerb and the body work touches down before the crash bungs. I hear a nasty crack but can not see anything obvious when we lift the bike back up so thank him for the meal out and retire to Dave’s to investigate further. There I find two cracks and a small bit of bodywork missing around the front right air intake. Luckily for me, thanks again to the Jammy Wizard, Dave has been the only guy I have met on my trip who has a plastic welding kit and within a couple of days he has the cracks welded from the inside so they do not look so bad and will not spread further and the missing chip is not so noticeable. I meet up again with Patrick so he can sign the damage and with Dave signing the repair it is nearly impossible to see the cracks.
Over the two dinners Patrick and I had together (off which one at a hawker stall in China town was simply called "Claypot Chicken Rice" but the name was not really descriptive in my mind "Claypot Chicken Rice at Red Plastic Table in the Street" would have been more adapt - ether way it was very tasty) I learned about the race and religious issues in Malaysia. Patrick explained that even though the Malaysian are not the true locals, the Orang Asli people of the forests are, there was a strong positive discrimation process in place even though the Mala people are the majority. This deals to situations where Chinese or India students with perfect grades would be denied University places so that Malayian students with poorer grades could enrol to ensure the minimum 30% Malayan mix was achieved. The government act that enabled all this was brought in 40 years ago when it was realized the hardworking Chinese had all the successful businesses and power. On the ground today there is a desire to get rid of the act by all communities as if a Malaysian is successful today he is not considered to have achieved this through his own merit but merely by the fact that the state helped him so much.
From Patrick I also learned more about the Islamic rule of Malaysia for this is the official state religion. For instance a person’s birth certificate will state Muslim on it if born to a Islamic family, even though the baby has no clue or has made no decision on the religion, if any, it wants to follow. Once you are a Muslim it is a grave crime to leave it, which in Malaysia is a criminal offence with stiff penalties. There are also two court systems one for general crime and one dealing with any religious issues. It used to possible to leave the Islamic faith via completing an affidavit to say you had left the faith but now you must apply to the religious courts who very rarely give permission for anyone to leave the faith with some people resorting to leave the country to escape the faith.
To marry a Muslim girl requires the man to also become Muslim, since it is impossible for the girl to exit her Islamic religion. It is not unknown for a man to become a Muslim but not tell his family and then on his death the religious police will turn up at the family home with a warrant to claim the body to prevent it being incinerated. Another issue is that if the man has children from a previous marriage and converts his children can become Muslim’s meaning that the ex-wife can not claim the children for the religious courts will not allow the children to leave the faith. It is no wonder the Islamic faith is the fastest growing religion when it locks in not only the person converting but his/her offspring for ever after.
Patrick also explained about the Islamic banking system. Charging interest is considered immoral by the Kuran so for the banks to function and make money the borrower signs a contract saying at the end of the term of borrowing, say for a house, he will buy the property from the bank for more than he borrowed. If that is not exactly the same as an interest payment it beats me.
Another hypocritical aspect of Islam I read in the local paper that a drink based on the Dragon Fruit and called Pitacacti Delight was suppose to do wonders and had a 3.5% alcoholic content. Although not halal (acceptable by religion/pure/clean), as it contained more than the 0.5% limit that Islamic law permits, it was approved by the Malaysia Islamic board for Muslim’s to drink as the alcohol was a side effect of the enzyme used to make the drink and not caused by fermentation as in the case of wine, beer and spirits. It even came in a dark red colour or a white colour in wine shaped bottles. From my experiences in Oman there was a potentially huge market from an alcoholic beverage that Muslim’s could drink legally rather behind closed doors. It tasted ok from the quick sip I had in a shop but I was not sure about ordering a lorry load to be delivered to Iran, Oman and Dubai without further research so I brought a bottle for Dave and Amudha as a gift to see what they thought of it.