Heading Off

We're outta here!

A few things at home I’m excited for:

• My bed
• Crosswalks / General acknowledgment of pedestrian rights
• A long hot shower
• My toaster oven
• An Italian sausage with peppers and onions (random craving!)
• Seeing some awesome movies
• Roads on which a driver picks a lane and sticks to it rather than driftng side to side sporadically. Drivers who look behind them and to the side at times.
• Happy to take a break from the motorbikes. Also happy to take a break from the tiny ants that march around our condo like they own the place.
• Our backyard
• A great burger
• Sleeping without the pounding of feet in the apartment above us at 1:00 am
• A reliably speedy Internet connection
• The annual girlfriends' Christmas lunch at Va Bene
• A facial
• My family, especially the nieces and nephews!
• A prosciutto and cheese platter
• The contents of our wine fridge
• Cooler weather / Not sweating
• NPR
• The Whole Foods salad bar!!!!

As you can see from the below pix, the Christmas spirit is alive and well in Penang.

Peace out, everyone! Happy holidays to my fellow citizens of the world.

In the lobby of the Eastern & Oriental Hotel.

Outside the G Hotel on Gurney Drive (down the street from where we live) - they usually put a hat on the "G" sign for every major holiday. With four religions going here, that's a lot of hats - Hari Raya Aidilfitri (end of Ramadan), Deepavali (big day for Hindus), Chinese New Year, etc.

Jo's Christmas lunch extravaganza - this New Zealander can seriously cook

The great Penang Santa Hunt 2008

Below - out on the hunt with our teammates, Chad and Jessica, (also Intel expats). One task was to have a teammate pedal the rest of us on a trishaw.

Merry Merry!

The USA beckons

Returning soon for Christmas and some time back home. It’s been almost 7 months since I left US soil. That’s definitely long enough to get me wondering what kind of reverse “culture shock” I may encounter.

Similar to many expats, I experienced the initial thrill of arrival and discovery in the cool place that is Penang. Then I dipped down to the bottom of the “V.” A lot of things began to chafe – things that were not bad or worse, just different, and dealing with the differences was tiring me out and leaving me cranky.

Then, for the month of November, I toured more of Malaysia than ever before, and it reinvigorated me. My love of Penang is now more present than ever. I will fly back to US leaving a place I admire and enjoy.

Dreading the flight by the way. I’m excited for a dose home though.

Here’s what two friends of mine said they've noticed when they return to the US (they’ve both lived in Asia over 4 years).

Ramona from Florida

• Cravings for random foods – she doesn’t really like deli meat, yet she craves a big ol’ pastrami on rye whenever she goes home. It’s the access to previously unavailable foods that gets you all excited
  
• The road rage – people in Penang can drive like maniacs, but not many people get really angry on the road. In the US, they do.
  

Sue from Ohio

• Everything seems big – from the roads to the cars to the stores to the people.
  
  
• Not all flight attendants are petite, gorgeous and incredibly helpful. (Traveling via Malaysia Air and Singapore Air leaves you way spoiled.)



• People seem to be talking really loud.
  

We’ll see what my reactions are!

On a serious note: I won’t lie to you – the attacks in Mumbai shook me. But not enough to pull the plug and move home. What I can vouch for after living abroad for almost 7 months is this: the vast majority of the people in this world don't carry an intense grudge and wish people no harm. It will be the test of our time that that the tiny percentage of people who think otherwise can wreak such havoc.


As I prep to go, I'm realizing how much I will miss my friends here. A few are pictured below.

Ruchi Bhargava - she and her husband are expats with Intel as well, originally from India, though they'd lived in the US for years prior to moving here

My tennis coach Albert Cheah (here with Ton) - a Penang native




My pal Z (short for Tze) -
originally from Singapore, though she's lived in Penang most her adult life

Gillian and her daughter Naomi - Gillian and her hubby are from Scotland, but came here by way of Hong Kong. Both their kids were born abroad.

I went to Naomi's first birthday party this weekend.

Marsha in Malaysia, Part 3

After a month in Malaysia, Marsha departed last Tuesday. We explored Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Malacca as well as relaxed on the island of Langkawi. The day she left, she said "I could easily live in Penang." She's hooked.

Below are some photos from our various outings.

Ancestral tablets in a temple in Malacca. These commemorate loved ones who have passed away.

At night, the famed Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur sparkle like an ice sculpture.

A Dutch gravestone in Malacca from the 1600s. The Portugese, Dutch and British all had control over Malacca during different periods. It was a key center for the spice trade.

Above are two pix from the Kek Lok Si temple in Penang - the largest Budhhist temple in SouthEast Asia, it's set into a hillside on the edge of town (really it's a complex of multiple temples and dormitories for monks). They are adding on to it and, as a fundraiser, ceiling tiles are for sale. You pay for a tile, write a message on it and give it back. It will then be placed on the roof with thousands of other tiles once the new building is complete. Mom and I had a woman write our names in Chinese. People from all over the world are represented on the tiles.

The other picture is in one of the oldest sections of the temple - these are prayer stools on a floor tiled with the design of lotus flowers.

At this altar, we noticed that someone had left a massive bag of rice as an offering. Now that's a statement!

Marsha at Penang's Botanical Garden. Note the monkey on the path!

Marsha in Malaysia, Part 2

We are now in Kuala Lumpur, exploring the sights. More updates to come on that. Last Thursday, we explored a number of Chinese Buddhist temples in the old section of Penang's city of Georgetown. Pix are below.

Here are more Marsha impressions of Penang so far:

• The lushness of the tropical landscape, the Straits of Malacca right outside my building, the multicultural population, the colonial architecture, the vibrant colors in Little India, the veggie & fruit stands at the wet market, buildings associated with 4 different religions sprinkled all over town (Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian)
  
  
• The feel of beautiful silk fabrics and cotton batik sarongs, the refreshing taste of nutmeg juice and an Indian yogurt shake called Mango Lassi

Above is an offering area at a Chinese temple on Armenian Street - note the offering of three cups of tea and incense sticks.

The stunning entrance to Khoo Khongsi - a Chinese clanhouse and temple. Per my Eyewitness Travel guidebook, "kongsis are designed to function as places of worship and community centers for members of the clan that built them. This kongsi however became a center not just for the Khoos, but for four other powerful families, the Cheah, Lim, Tan and Yeoh clans, who ran an influential secret society." The clanhouse was recently renovated. The original structure had secret passageways and tunnels.

Mom at Khoo Kongsi with the happy buddha. Note the cool signboards behind her. Red and gold are very significant colors to the Chinese. We later visited the tradesman who handcrafts these.

Above is the signboard maker. He treats the wood panel with a base coat and carves the letters into the wood. Then, he paints the sign. Unfortunately, it's a dying art.


The Goddess of Mercy temple, one of the oldest in Penang - this is a public temple, open to all. This place is always hopping - it's located on a main street and people are in and out all day. The woman above is offering a candle. People offer fruit, flowers, and oil as well.

Outside the temple, people can buy a bird or birds, which they then release after saying a prayer. The gesture symbolizes a good deed, putting magnamous energy out to the universe. We were there around lunchtime, and we saw a forty-ish woman in business clothes buy a bird. The seller gave it to her in a little cage. She walked to the entrance of the temple, said a soft prayer, then opened the cage and watched the bird fly free.

Marsha in Malaysia, Part 1

Yep, Marsha (aka my mom) has touched down on Penang soil! On this blog, you’ve seen many of my observations over the past months. Now, here are some of hers along with some pix from the past week as we explored the city of Georgetown.

• The smell of incense and joss sticks in temples, the smell of the storm drains (use your imagination), the aroma of spices - particularly in Indian curries
  
• The sound of motorbikes zipping down the roads, the local Hindu temple roosters making their presence known amazingly loudly, the mosque’s call to prayer (it’s sung through the air for a few minutes a number of times daily), all the different languages being spoken at once as we walk the streets – Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese dialects, Indian dialects, English
  

Above is a detail picture of the tiered entrance gateway to the Sri Mariamman Hindu temple. Note the 5 cobras above the goddess's head, providing protection. Indians consider cobras sacred and will not kill them.

At the Pinang Peranakan Museum - an old home that's been beautifully restored. It now houses a vast antique collection.

Mom at the famed Eastern & Oriental Hotel, where Rita Hayworth, Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham stayed back in the day.

Strolling the old Protestant Cemetery, which houses graves from the 17 & 1800s. It woud take a mighty steady temperament to walk around here at night.


Mom walking the streets of Little India with a hibiscus, Malaysia's national flower, pinned in her hair.

"Wherever We Move Next... We Bowl"

Last Saturday, we spent an evening at Penang Bowl!

My main man in action. By the way... yes, bowling shoes are still as geeky in Malaysia as they are in the USA.




Looking at this shot, you'd actually think I was good. Don't be deceived.

This is my good buddy, Jocelyn. She's from Boston! She's happy with the frame she just played, so she's kissing her pipes. We all do that, right?

She and her husband Mike were in a bowling league back in Beantown. Halfway through the night, she announced to her hubby in no uncertain terms - "Wherever we move next, we BOWL."

Mike won the pool. He was the first to bowl a strike, so he cleaned up the dough!

There's nothing like the feeling of a job well done. If you look closely, you'll see I'm celebrating because I was able to knock over 4 pins.

High Buildings & Halloween

I received the below questions from my friend Jill’s daughters- Shea, 7, to the left, and Sloan, 5, to the right. Stella,3, is their younger sister, and she will only whisper her question into my ear. So, I’ll get that one when I return home for the holidays.

Miss Dana,I would like to know if there are tall building there or neighborhoods with lots of houses like there are here.

Love,Shea

Dear Shea,

There are both. What you see depends where you are on Penang island. The area where we live has many supertall buildings. Here’s a picture outside my window. If you look closely, you’ll see a rainbow!

This is the view out my bedroom window – the buildings aren’t as tall this way.

There’s lots of development going on right now, so I expect more tall buildings will appear in Penang over the next few years. Some people think all the new building should stop so that we can preserve the history and old feel of the island. We’ll see how that turns out. Only time will tell!

I also have friends that live in neighborhoods with houses like the one you live in.

Miss you! I want to order more Girl Scout cookies. - Miss Dana

Dear Miss Dana,
I would like to know if they have Halloween there, and what you are going to dress up as. Love, Sloan

Hi Sloan!

Halloween is not a holiday that the people of Malaysia celebrate. However, lots of families live here who are from places like the US and Europe. Here’s a picture of some of my friends.

Their kids go to international schools that often hold Halloween parties, so you’d still get a chance to dress up in a costume if you lived here!

I don’t think I’m going to a Halloween party this year, but if I did, I’d dress up as a princess.

Happy Halloween! Send me a picture of your costume. - Miss Dana

To Ms Lauren, part II

I now have a picture of Ms. Lauren herself - one of my aboslute favorite people under the age of 16. Keep sending those questions!

To Lauren, from Ms. Dana

I'm a postcard fan. Even in the days of email and Internet phone lines, I still think it's fun to send and receive things via the good ol' Postal Service. So I've been sending lots of postcards since I've been over here - both from Malaysia and from China.

I received a question about a postcard from Lauren Schooler, my friend Rose's 9-year old daughter. Lauren's picture is above.

The Question

"To Ms Dana....From Lauren...So were the caves you visited really as colorful as the postcard you sent me? "

This photo is similar to Lauren's postcard. I took it in the Reed Flute Cave which is about 5km outside the city of Guilin in China. It's a stunning maze - 240 meters long - of enormous and intricate stalactite and stalagmite formations.

The Answer Is...

Yes! but not naturally :-) The scene above is the "masterpiece" of the Reed Flute Cave - a rock formation set at the back of a lake that naturally formed inside the cave. The formation seems to resemble a city skyline and the lake reflects the formation as perfectly as a mirror. The top half of the above picture is the actual rock and the bottom half is its reflection in the lake.

When this site became a tourist attraction, the goverment installed lights to enable people to walk easily through the cave. Some of these lights are in fact colored to enhance the formations.

So there you have it Lauren! Send more questions if you have them - about China or Malaysia. I miss you VERY much. Love, Ms. Dana

PS

I encourage all my friends' and family's kids to post a question to me. Bring it! Even if you're an reader of this blog and we haven't yet met face to face - if you're little one has a question about my expat experience or the US, please send. I'll be sure to answer. Kids often have the most interesting questions of all of us!

Until next time, peace out my fellow citizens of the world.

Food Snaps

To follow my recent food update, I present the following snapshots. And I share a chicken story.

Below is Egg Prata, a breakfast dish. It's a super thin scrambled egg, wrapped in roti, a super thin local bread specialty. It comes with a curry sauce on the side for dipping. This makes a perfect brunch. And it costs 50 cents US.

Fishball soup from a Chinese place down the street from us. The soup was fine, but I found the fish ball quite bland.

The below meal comes steamed in a banana leaf, which you remove to find a yummy pork and rice concoction. It's rich and filling - comfort food. You can dip it in chili sauce to add some zing.

At the wet market, you can get fresh chicken to bring home for your dinner. And I mean fresh - they kill it right there. I told myself to toughen up and deal - I eat chicken, so I should be able to watch how the bird meets its demise. I position myself in the chicken area and watch the guy pull a chicken by its wings from one of the cages. The bird is squawking up a storm. The man raises his knife to the chicken's neck, stretched and exposed, and... I fled the area like I was escaping a raging wildfire. Perhaps I'll work up my courage another day. :-)

News from the Eats

In my first month here, my pal Christine, who knows this patch of the world quite well, challenged me on this very blog to eat a number of adventurous things. As I noted in my early August post, I’ve tried to rise to the challenge – rambutans, Hokkien Mee, Murtabak. Delicious all.

Well, we’ve been here four months now, and things are at a whole new level. I have a local friend, Z (real name: Tze), who takes me to all kinds of places that only a local would know about. She knows I’m an adventurous eater (as long as the food is not mega-spicy hot), so she makes bold menu suggestions. I have now eaten:

-- soup with clear brown broth, mushrooms, gingko nuts, and wait for it… pig stomach
-- lightly fried pig liver served in a black sweet sauce

Both tasted fine, though I stopped at a few bites and wouldn’t order again. Not because I found them awful, but because I didn’t find them super-good. I think your tastes are all about what you grow up eating. I would love the black sauce on regular pork however.

Local Food Homeruns
One local food that I adore is Kerabu, a salad-type dish made with, among other things, a medium-spicy chili sauce, crushed nuts, lime juice and fresh herbs like cilantro. I’d love to find the recipe (for the one made with raw, crunchy cucumbers, not chicken feet).

As I shared in my food “fook” blogpost, I dig Otak-otak, a fish dish. I also enjoy a Nonya dish of sautéed bean sprouts, sprinkled with crushed tiny fried fish. Nonya is a type of local cuisine that blends Malay and Chinese cooking methods.

So there you have it! I look forward to the arrival of !Marsha! in November to whom I will introduce all these foods (not the pig stomach).

Below: Ton eating dragon fruit. Note the color in the bowl below - white gray with black seeds. Funky!

Rookie Move
I forgot my tote bag the other day when I went to the wet market. So I had to carry masses of little plastic bags around. As the bags increased in number and weight, they began to cut into my fingers and became a general pain.

Don’t forget that tote bag. There are no grocery carts at the ol’ wet market!

What I Miss
(it’s the little things that get ya)
-- A disposal
-- Frozen broccoli / frozen spinach
-- Frozen wild blueberries
-- A long hot shower

I finally found PAM Olive Oil Cooking spray and that makes me very happy.

Ricotta cheese proved elusive until just recently, when I found a store that will special-order it for me

What I’m Digging
-- A new era of cooking. Many mornings as I sip my tea, I peruse my cookbooks eagerly, pondering my next cooking attempt. I’ve made:

• a great Chinese soup in a light broth with noodles, soy sauce and mushrooms
• an Indonesian sweet potato/peanut soup with cabbage
• an awesome garam masala sauce for roasted veggies
• a kickass Mexican lasagna and lime-cumin cucumber, orange & red onion salad

I had an unfortunate frittata crash and burn however.

-- I continue to meet interesting people. I’m consistently amazed at the vastness and diversity of Penang’s expat community.

-- I love the smell of Indian spices which wafts towards me every time I open my kitchen cabinet.

How I Know I’m Not in Kansas Anymore
I decided to make a braised chicken recipe which required:
-- 2 sprigs fresh curry leaves (leaves removed from stems)
-- 10 whole cloves

Back home, I’d have tracked down the cloves, but the curry leaves would have stumped me.

Here in Penang, I just thought, “I’ll stop by the wet market and pick some up.” I know exactly where to find the dude that sells the curry leaves, and the Indian spice guy hooked me up with the cloves. I also bought fresh coconut milk (right-out-of-the-fruit-that-day fresh) for the sauce. Gotta love it!

Misc Food Learnings
-- Curry leaves are not spicy; in fact, they have a pleasant, soothing smell. It’s the chilies that make curry dishes hot.
-- Dried chilies are hotter than fresh.
-- Freshly-squeezed coconut milk doesn’t keep in the fridge. You must use it that same day, or it will separate and be generally icky.

China – A Visit to the Dragon

The Old & New Mingled Together

As I waited in the shiny hopping Hong Kong airport for my flight back to Penang on Sept. 3, I saw 5 monks in butterscotch-colored robes walking down the corridor. They carried black backpacks, maybe with a few laptops inside? This mixture of ancient tradition and modernity was an apt final image for me. Over 4 days in Shanghai, 3 in Guilin (a medium-sized city in the southwest) and 2 in Hong Kong, I got a good look at this country that many once referred to as the sleeping dragon.

Key Observation/Learning

I knew before my trip that China wasn’t remotely a backwards country, but now that I’ve visited, I can say I really know. Certainly, the Olympics impressed me and the rest of the world. Yet, I still expected a bit of a Communist-bloc feeling about the place – like Eastern Europe prior to the end of the Iron Curtain. Not at all. While the citizens surely are crystal clear on what can/cannot be done or said, the general feel on the streets is not one of fear or anxiety.

Things I enjoyed about Chinese culture
- The custom of spending time outdoors and the focus on daily exercise – tai chi, walking, dancing, etc.
- The reverence for ancestors and respect for the elderly
- The penchant for celebrations and festivals (though they are based on some darn sad and disturbing legends)
- Almost every element of design and decoration has a symbolic link to good fortune, longevity, prosperity, and happiness or some other positive concept. The US has its iconic images to be sure, but not nearly to the extent of China, with these images, as well as feng shui, embedded into almost every aspect of daily life it seems

Memorable moments/images
- The Shanghai Museum's architecture – a circle on top symbolizing heaven, a square design on the bottom which represented earth.
- The prices in Shanghai – great deals everywhere, from the museum bookstore to the clothing boutiques.
- At the animal sanctuary outside Guilin, the tigers lounging in the hot, humid weather like frat boys sleeping off a hangover. The bears at the same place frolicking about – charming furry balls of fun wacky on the junk.
- The local fresh market in a Shanghai residential neighborhood – more orderly than the one in Penang, but still far different from anything we have in the US – the buckets of crabs and eels on display, the massive winter melons, the jugs of Chinese wine, the piles of hundreds of watermelons.
- Olympics highlights were still being played on TVs all over.
- The slurping of noodles and soup is common and perfectly acceptable manners.
- The hip women in Shanghai look great in flats. A woman with a chic pixie haircut wearing a sleeveless ruffled white cotton shirt and black flowing pants comes to mind.
- The traffic in Guilin – pedestrians walking headlong into traffic seemingly fearless of being hit, pedestrians milled everywhere on the roads.
- In the city of Suzhou outside Shanghai, there’s a million people and 600,000 bikes. It was raining on the day we visited. Bikers in long bright-colored rain ponchos – green, yellow, blue, red, purple, raspberry – populated the streets. People walking with umbrellas speckled the sidewalks with similar colors.
- The young waiter in Guilin who so clearly wanted to chat with us, practicing his English. He had a sweet handsome face with high cheekbones and spoke, among other things, of his adoration of Yao Ming, the basketball player – “he’s a hero here.” I wish I’d taken his picture.

Below are a few pix from my journey. I am thrilled to add this country to my life list of places visited.

At the market

The French Concession section of Shanghai

A scene from the Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai

The stunning karst rock formations outside Guilin

A herd of cows on a tea plantation outside Guilin