Day 266 (March 14): Culture Shock
Happy Pi Day!
We've been in Malaysia for almost a week and I need to start by recording some context because this is so different from all of our previous stops. This might be a boring paragraph so feel free to skip it. First, "worldschooling" is the term we use to describe what we are doing, somewhat in contrast to "homeschooling." Our impression, though, is that a majority of people who identify as worldschoolers are on more indefinite adventures, whereas ours is a finite "gap year" from our life in Oregon.
Second, in early January we learned that there is a vast and sophisticated online community of worldschoolers (there are even factions!) and that there are in-person "meetups" of varying lengths and very diverse styles. Third, we decided that we would adjust our itinerary to join a worldschooling community in Asia instead of heading to Africa in early March, as planned.
Pretty easily we found the facebook group for a meetup at Legoland Malaysia. Some families got together and somehow picked this as a location and decided on March and April. The early adopters navigated the accommodation options and picked an apartment complex near the theme parks. We got to ride their coattails: made a reservation via booking.com, got advice on a van service that drove us from the Singapore Airport to the apartment; on and on.
So it was that we arrived here on Monday night after a 3 hour flight and 90 minute drive. We did an emergency shopping in the grocery store on the ground floor of our building, made cheese quesadillas and put the kids to bed. We are in the "A" block of this complex that includes two or three towers, each 35 floors high with, I think, a dozen apartments on each floor.
Ours is about 1500 square feet with a kitchen/living room, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a small balcony with a washing machine and drying rack. The daily temperature range is 75-90 so things dry quickly, except that there is a lot of humidity so "dry" is kind of relative. The apartment is minimally furnished, we've had to acquire a bunch of stuff for the kitchen (mixing bowls, sharp knife), but there's a big TV and excellent wifi. Every surface is hospital white, including the tile floor.
There's also reliable air conditioning. One big unit in the main room plus one in each of the bedrooms. One of the funny changes in my life is that at home our house would be kept around 70 degrees year round. I'd prefer 68 but Elise would prefer 74 so 70 is a balance. I've always had trouble sleeping in heat. (Sure, let's follow summer for a year, what could go wrong?) Now we keep the AC at 26 degrees celsius (79F) unless I"m really uncomfortable and then we cut it to 24 (75). I can't imagine setting it lower!
All of this (except for AC) is in sharp contrast to our recent stays in Vietnam. For our eight nights in Hanoi, for example, we shared two connecting rooms that had barely enough room for our beds. You might have been able to lay a small sleeping bag in the remaining floor space but it was tight AND we did school several times, literally crawling over kids to answer another student's question! There was definitely no grocery store on the first floor.
Culture shock has been a regular part of our lives in the last five months of international travel. Elise recited the big transitions last night as we talked about this:
And that brings us to Malaysia. We're in a province called Johor, which is across a channel from Singapore. There is a city, Johor Bahru, that identifies our location in rough terms, and a district, Nusajaya, that identifies it more specifically. But, really, we're at Legoland. This area seems to be privately developed in huge tracts. Ours is "Medini" and there are numerous complexes within it. Ours includes our apartment complex and an adjacent hotel complex.
Getting around is also surreal. The roads are empty. I mean empty. There are traffic signals but they appear to be optional. Yesterday our taxi ("Grab" is the equivalent of Lyft or Uber here) was actually stopped at a light and the transit bus blew right past! On our way back from the bookstore the other day a scooter carrying two adults and one child ran the red and T-boned our car in the rear corner. It was fairly low speed but it detached the plastic quarter panel on our car and put the scooter's passengers (including one child, who was the only rider not wearing a helmet) on the pavement. Nobody was especially upset and they stood in the middle of the intersection (four lanes wide) talking before and after the police showed up. Why not? In those ten minutes only a half dozen cars came by.
We've been in Malaysia for almost a week and I need to start by recording some context because this is so different from all of our previous stops. This might be a boring paragraph so feel free to skip it. First, "worldschooling" is the term we use to describe what we are doing, somewhat in contrast to "homeschooling." Our impression, though, is that a majority of people who identify as worldschoolers are on more indefinite adventures, whereas ours is a finite "gap year" from our life in Oregon.
Second, in early January we learned that there is a vast and sophisticated online community of worldschoolers (there are even factions!) and that there are in-person "meetups" of varying lengths and very diverse styles. Third, we decided that we would adjust our itinerary to join a worldschooling community in Asia instead of heading to Africa in early March, as planned.
Pretty easily we found the facebook group for a meetup at Legoland Malaysia. Some families got together and somehow picked this as a location and decided on March and April. The early adopters navigated the accommodation options and picked an apartment complex near the theme parks. We got to ride their coattails: made a reservation via booking.com, got advice on a van service that drove us from the Singapore Airport to the apartment; on and on.
So it was that we arrived here on Monday night after a 3 hour flight and 90 minute drive. We did an emergency shopping in the grocery store on the ground floor of our building, made cheese quesadillas and put the kids to bed. We are in the "A" block of this complex that includes two or three towers, each 35 floors high with, I think, a dozen apartments on each floor.
Ours is about 1500 square feet with a kitchen/living room, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a small balcony with a washing machine and drying rack. The daily temperature range is 75-90 so things dry quickly, except that there is a lot of humidity so "dry" is kind of relative. The apartment is minimally furnished, we've had to acquire a bunch of stuff for the kitchen (mixing bowls, sharp knife), but there's a big TV and excellent wifi. Every surface is hospital white, including the tile floor.
There's also reliable air conditioning. One big unit in the main room plus one in each of the bedrooms. One of the funny changes in my life is that at home our house would be kept around 70 degrees year round. I'd prefer 68 but Elise would prefer 74 so 70 is a balance. I've always had trouble sleeping in heat. (Sure, let's follow summer for a year, what could go wrong?) Now we keep the AC at 26 degrees celsius (79F) unless I"m really uncomfortable and then we cut it to 24 (75). I can't imagine setting it lower!
All of this (except for AC) is in sharp contrast to our recent stays in Vietnam. For our eight nights in Hanoi, for example, we shared two connecting rooms that had barely enough room for our beds. You might have been able to lay a small sleeping bag in the remaining floor space but it was tight AND we did school several times, literally crawling over kids to answer another student's question! There was definitely no grocery store on the first floor.
Culture shock has been a regular part of our lives in the last five months of international travel. Elise recited the big transitions last night as we talked about this:
- From Costa Rica, where we barely left the beach and had all of our meals available on site in a community that spoke tourist English, to Buenos Aires, where it took us 3 days to figure out how to get cash out of an ATM and longer to figure out taxis and basically nobody spoke English.
- From South America to Australia, where we started our visit in a luxury resort
- Among the cities in Australia: Perth was empty, Melbourne was social and Sydney was massive!
- From Australia to New Zealand, where we moved into compact RV's and then spent two months in constant motion visiting a beautiful landscape devoid of humans.
- From NZ to Singapore, which is like flying from an unpopulated 20th century to an overpopulated 22nd century.
- From Singapore to Cambodia, which is like go back in time culturally (ancient Hindu/Buddhist temples) and technologically (dirt roads, tuk tuks)
- To Vietnam, which is the densest, loudest, most chaotic place I've ever been.
And that brings us to Malaysia. We're in a province called Johor, which is across a channel from Singapore. There is a city, Johor Bahru, that identifies our location in rough terms, and a district, Nusajaya, that identifies it more specifically. But, really, we're at Legoland. This area seems to be privately developed in huge tracts. Ours is "Medini" and there are numerous complexes within it. Ours includes our apartment complex and an adjacent hotel complex.
It takes about 10 minutes to walk to Legloland itself, which we can see when we wait for the elevator (on the 18th floor). There's a small mall in the resort complex and another apartment across the street from there. We can see other similar complexes, one as close as a quarter mile away and others dot the horizon. Some complexes are much larger, with dozens of towers and enormous malls attached. We went to one because it includes an English-language bookstore (that was a disaster).
 |
| On our walk to the medium-sized grocery (which is called BIG) |
Getting around is also surreal. The roads are empty. I mean empty. There are traffic signals but they appear to be optional. Yesterday our taxi ("Grab" is the equivalent of Lyft or Uber here) was actually stopped at a light and the transit bus blew right past! On our way back from the bookstore the other day a scooter carrying two adults and one child ran the red and T-boned our car in the rear corner. It was fairly low speed but it detached the plastic quarter panel on our car and put the scooter's passengers (including one child, who was the only rider not wearing a helmet) on the pavement. Nobody was especially upset and they stood in the middle of the intersection (four lanes wide) talking before and after the police showed up. Why not? In those ten minutes only a half dozen cars came by.
But the most surreal is Legoland itself. It's empty. The park includes three parks: the theme park, the water park and an aquarium. Our first trip was to the theme park with a dozen of our worldschooling friends/neighbors. There were literally no lines. Elise and the kids rode a rollercoaster three times without getting out of the car. The "regular" lines were roped off and all guests directed to the "hero queue." Most of the food and beverage is closed. The live shows are cancelled. The staffing level is still significant, though.
 |
| Henry was socially un-distanced from a buddy who was visiting from Utah and also excited about building and racing cars. |
Our second visit was to the waterpark. There were more people this time but still no lines. Our favorite part was when we sat in the wave pool and it really felt like we were the only people in the world. The pool is the size of a football field and there was one family by the "goal" at other end of the field. Again, most of the F&B was closed but who cares?!
 |
| A bus, which we later saw running a red light, stopped to pick us up as we walked to Legoland |
 |
| 1:1 ratio of lifeguards to lazy river occupants |
So, culture shock but in a very different way than before. We know we are in a Muslim country. I'd guess that about half the women we see are in burkas. Elise noticed that a swimwear store near the waterpark had a whole wall of burkinis. The grocery stores are also fascinating. Most have a separate Halal section and the shopper does separate checkout so that the cashiers don't have to handle non-Halal food.
Moreover, the switch from the hustle and bustle of Hanoi to the eerie quiet of Johor is just weird. I think that even without COVID this place would be quiet, simply because everybody is spread out and all in their cars. We haven't seen anything resembling a playground but with weather that our phones say is "85 feels like 105," I guess nobody would go anyway.
Also, it's a big change that we spent a month visiting Cambodia/Vietnam specifically to absorb the historical and contemporary culture of those places. Even though we've come to Malaysia to be with fellow worldschoolers and to play at Legoland, I still expected to experience Malaysian culture. I was excited to expose the kids to Muslim culture and some aspects of Islam but, aside from the fashion and the groceries, it's not visible. Our complex has prayer rooms (for men and women) but there is no audible call to prayer.
One of our comrades has found a Malaysian cultural center in downtown Johor Bahru and is arranging a "field trip" for us to visit. I'm hoping that will open some opportunities. I've started looking for youtube videos to teach the kids a bit about Islam but mostly I'm finding the kinds of videos you might use for religious education at the kindergarten level. (Incidentally, they are really cool! Some very clever animated series with characters who go through the traditional stories.)
Our initial reservation here was for two weeks (March 9-23), leaving us the option to stay here or go wandering for another two weeks before flights we bought to meet friends in Maldives for "spring break." Those friends have now had to cancel their plans so we're probably canceling ours. We've decided to stay put here for the whole time, rather than heading out.
I would be remiss not to mention COVID in this post. In short, we are have unintentionally achieved "social distancing" by arriving here. Seriously, there's nobody here. I couldn't get within two meters of another human if I tried! About half of the Grab drivers wear masks but very few others. With a grocery store on the first floor and a community of friends, we feel this is about the best place to be in case we need to seek medical assistance or quarantine ourselves (more than we already are). It's also nice to be so close to Singapore, which seems to be as on top of this situation as anywhere. In other words, we're doing well.
Comments
Post a Comment