Rambling on!

Sometimes I wake up briefly at early hours of the morning (6/7 am) and look out of my window (I sleep with my curtains open expressly to do this). And then I see beautiful things, and if I have presence of mind enough, I photograph them. This is sunrise in KL.

Today I am leaving city skyline views for mustyfusty……

View from the library!

….LIBRARIES! And library-views, of course.

Leaving is always weird. I’ve done it so many times now you’d think I’m alright with the whole business – and I am, by & large, but – I miss home intensely at the same time I’m desperate to be back! Last night I was struck by a desperate urge to run to Dutamas and flop down their with shisha (because it is the most chilled out, laid back thing/place ever?!). But of course I had to pack. In the UK, pubs will replace mamaks.

But – ONWARDS HO! I have done NO WORK these holidays, I am going back obscenely late (I know the libraries will be missing me) and I need to start work ASAP!!! Ahharhghg!! I know holidays are for chilling, and I have, so I’m very grateful… but I still feel guilty!

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I am going back late because driving tests in Malaysia are only administered on Mondays, and I was desperate to take mine. KL is a city which was not built (with any conceivable plan, it’s true, but also) for walking. To get from Point A to Point B can be the most painful experience ever for the transportationally-challenged, because it would be too long and dangerous a distance to walk but too embarrassingly short a distance to take a cab, etc etc. I haven’t seen buses in a long time (although I am assured they exist). Miles asked me if there were buses to my area, and I didn’t know what to say: I don’t think so? I’ve never seen any? And he didn’t understand it either, which explains the unique conundrum that one finds oneself in.

Having attempted to take it in September, and failing because my front wheels didn’t touch a yellow line of some sort (bah), I felt I had to get it yesterday! Otherwise I knew my driving plans would be shelved forever (I can’t conceive bothering to drive in the UK, at present anyways – who would give me a car?!).

My driving school is most wonderful an encapsulation of Malaysia and Malaysian life. The place I had to sit waiting in was next to a miniature city-jungle of sorts, hastily fenced off from civilization/the driving school – but the smells of the forest still wafted over. It reminded me of Duke of Edinburgh trips to Belum, and school trips to FRIM.

There was also the most wonderful little old man who would “look after” the test-takers and send them to their first test (the hill-test). He was tiny, and shouted perpetually at the candidates (only ever in Malay, so I didn’t understand much); although he was mostly only shouting numbers, sometimes his face would crinkle up into a mesmerizing mixture of malevolence/benevolence, and he would lean forward and utter (shout) words like “TAI-TAI!!!” confidentially. (I am VERY eager to know what “Tai tai”, phonetically rendered here, could possibly mean. If you know: get in touch.)

His other job, besides seeing that candidates kept going to the cars as they were available, was to bring back the cars of failed candidates (stopped unceremoniously then and there, upon committing the fallacy) to the next candidate. It was the smallest distance imaginable; about a 15 second drive at a slow speed. He would drive it at insane speeds (60? 80?), and take sharp turns at insane speeds also – the tyres would scream, the small Kancil would look as if it were either about to turn over or be driven on two wheels only. This scandalized all the test-takers, who would gasp, whimper, or shriek, according to their diverse temperaments. Some would hiss, “Aiyohhh!!” – the traditional Malaysian/Singaporean exclamation of dismay, despair and disapproval (“Oh no!” would be a reductive but appropriate translation). Others nudged each other, and condemned the little old man roundly: “REMPITNYAAA!!”

It made me laugh A LOT.

(It would be difficult to translate ‘Rempit’ also: I am assuming that it is shorthand for ‘Mat Rempit’, which – though it originally meant a very particular brand of streetracing motorbikers – has, I think, become shorthand for any kind of dangerous street-driving. See ‘Mat Rempit‘, an article as amusing as my little old man and his scandalized audiences.)

Edit: My friend Sara has clarified one thing “Tai tai” means (in Mandarin, I think): ”a lady who enjoys life, one who marries a rich husband, dresses well, only goes shopping at Gucci/Prada, does nothing but that” (Sara). It seems a bit out of place in the context of a driving test, but I wouldn’t be surprised…maybe knowing how to drive makes it easier to be the aforementioned ‘tai tai’? Or maybe no ‘tai tai’ would ever drive (because they would have chauffeurs, of course!), so he was congratulating us on not being one? Your guess is as good as mine!

‘Learned helplessness’

I think the West missed a trick, because it adopted — certainly in Africa and many of the poor emerging economies — an attitude of “do what we say and not what we do.” The whole idea of incentives, which has been the backbone of the success in Western economies, is not something the West transplanted into places like Africa. The approach to economic development in Africa has been focused on aid; it’s been focused on what someone called “learned helplessness.”

From article, ‘The Seesaw of Power‘ (Dambisa Moyo in the NYT. May I add – she is so beautiful!)

Fascinating.

I have always been a believer in that pithy statement on the subject (whose statement, I don’t know!) – “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Aid is like a dumping a boatload of fishes in the man’s village. Necessary of course, at times of pandemic and natural disaster – but I don’t feel it is really viable in the long term. Certainly in places like India, aid is horribly misused, and very little (if any) of it actually trickles down to the impoverished masses who need it.

I wonder if it makes more sense for people to invest directly in infrastructural development &/or institutions, instead of relying on governments to do it or doling out lots of money without really looking at what ends it is used for, to whom and where it goes.

My parents (and wider family generally) have an interesting way of dealing with the whole business of charity, one that I admire significantly (not only because it appears to make vast amounts of sense, but also because it has shown results).

That poverty and suffering will not be eradicated through a momentary dumping of money somewhere-or-other is evident. India, and various parts of Asia generally, are highly unequal societies: in Malaysia (for example) people have “maids”, who live sometimes a very cloistered life, and India anyone from the middle-middle to upper-middle class probably has maids, drivers, cooks & cleaners. Vast amounts of serving-people, and a stark domestically-concentrated juxtaposition between the have and have-nots. The terms in which the latter are viewed by the former are often disturbing and sometimes, disgusting – the paradigms of possession, class superiority, etc. all play into it.

But this is an issue stemming from some wider social malaise – the means of alleviating it lie not in said individual family’s hands, but really, the country’s hands generally. My parents, however, seem to have found a really inspiring and effective way of doing their bit – they pay for the education of their workers’ children. My mother put it this way; “we can’t really change the first generation, but what we can do is ensure that future generations have the skills & abilities to live a better life, & bring up their children with better opportunities.” And of course look after their parents in their old-age, as is demanded by many of Asia’s cultures.

The stories of laundrymen’s sons in boardrooms and the cook’s daughters in software companies at the end of the day really is very inspiring. Education has the potential to change the future of generations to come; material gifts would have helped perhaps one or two people, if anybody at all.

Image via Wikipedia