Malaysian Reflections

Bribes
This country is full of interesting people and different cultures. Things are different here.
Especially when you look at a country rich in colonial history and immigration

After having a drink or two with a meal in a group of ex-pats we discussed the local drinking and driving laws. Nobody could tell me what the allowed blood alcohol level was. So we had to do some research. We asked some locals and none of them knew what the allowable blood alcohol limit was. These were the answers I collected:

"Normally when you are talking on the phone, it is 20 or 30 Rm bribe"
"What is the allowable limit? Umm, 50 Rm"
"Depends how drunk you are, normally 50 Rm though"
and,
"Oh, that is very serious... you must pay a 50 ringgit bribe."

So in short I have discovered that the allowable blood alcohol level is 50 Ringgit.

Foolishly, I wondered that night why I have been here for almost 9 months and not been asked for a bribe. The Law of Attraction states quite simply "You get what you wish for."

The next day was pulled over for some complete bullshit reason but had to drop him a bribe 'cause he could find some dirt on me if he wanted to badly enough. I only had a 5 and a bunch of 50's on me. The normal bribe for something like this is about 20-30 Ringgit, I couldn't offend him with the 5, so instead I offered him the 50. He pretended to think about it for a few seconds and then said "Ok, I think better not I write you a summons. Good day."

Snipped
Just yesterday I was at the pool with a friend. After swimming, I went to the change room to get changed and rinse the chlorine off with a hot shower. When I got in there were two people, a little Southern Indian guy and a Malay woman. They were the janitors and doing some end of the night cleaning. She saw me and split fast realising I must have wanted to get changed. He however, stayed in and kept cleaning.
I took my towel into the shower and rinsed off when I came back to the locker and dried off and started to get changed. The little Indian dude called from the end of the room.

"Hello! You from where?" (a question I get a lot).
I told him Canada.
He said "Ohhhhh, You are Muslim?" and he pointed to Claudius Jr.
"No,I am christian"
"Ohhhh! Christian same like Muslim" This this time I was understanding that he was talking about the fact that I am circumcised (I gathered this by his snip snip gesture)

For me it was a little more than a little awkward but I realised that it was more a cultural learning thing for this guy and by no means a pick up attempt. Regardless, I got dressed as quickly as I could to avoid further gawking and to minimise my discomfort.

The conversation never finished there either. I got into the rest of my clothes and he came closer and asked me, "So how long in Malaysia?" and "How much, one plane ticket your country?" Then he asked me again if all Christians are snipped. I told him the truth. In North America it is very rare not to be snipped but it isn't a rule for Christians.
I have heard of people getting it done when they are teenagers and into early adulthood in Canada. Ticking it off after years of teasing and self consciousness.

We used to say "Helmet or Tuque?" (It is pronounced Took)
I said goodbye.
He pointed at my and gave me a thumbs up and a big smile.
"Nice"

Let's transplant this situation back to Canada. I could never imagine looking at a random dude and yelling "Nice!" from across the room and gesturing at his "cash and prizes." You would probably get beat up. Cultural learnings... What the hell Lets try it just for the sake of Learning.

It was necessary for me to talk about this with my friends over drinks later.
There aren't many tuques out there in N.A. But in Malaysia it is only the Muslims who are snipped every one else is a Tuque. Now we had most continents represented at the table with Europe represented along along with Indian-Malaysians and Chinese-Malaysians present as well. Pretty much every dude in Europe (Jews and Muslims aside I guess), is a tuque and Girls there have no preference. I am not sure what people in N.A. think anymore. Have we started to open up to the concept of going Natural or is it totally ingrained into our thinking or is it up for debate again?