Today I'm feeling a bit
homesick. I miss Australia and I miss my friends back in Cairns.
While this is now home, there are some things that we loved in
Australia that will never be here. We miss being able to converse in
fluent English, sharing a common cultural understanding that dictates
social norms, and being able to understand the machinations of the
society. I especially miss the comfort and ease that comes with
understanding how things in the society run. Do I line up? Where? Is
there a machine where I take a number? Will it offend if I do that?
How do I pay? Who do I pay? What type of shop do I go to buy one of
those? Is it worth the effort shopping around, or will I never find
one? How do I make a complaint? What should I expect of a person in
this situation? It takes me hours to translate letters and bills
received. The questions are endless, the confusion is endless, and it
can be quite tiring dealing with the barrage of experiences that
bombard you when living in a new culture. It simultaneously makes it
more difficult and less so, that Malaysian culture is not just one
but three, however I feel this will be the topic for another blog
post.
Showing people photos
of the beautiful, clean mountains, beaches and suburbs of Cairns
reminds me of what we left behind, and looking at them floods
me with sweet remembering. I have always been able to appreciate the
incredible good fortune of being born Australian and being blessed to
live in Cairns, and I need to be careful to limit the comparisons. As
a newcomer, it is also not my place to try and change things here,
though I find it hard to resist doing so. It would be wrong for me to
try to make Malaysia like Australia- this would be to deny the unique
things that this country has to offer. I need to enjoy and appreciate
Malaysia for what it is, its own beauty and experiences- good and
bad, as all are valuable. Is it possible to love two homes?
It's actually easier to not think too much about the people we have left behind.
Strangely, it's not the family I'm missing most. I speak to them
often, family are always in my thoughts, and besides, their presence
wasn't something we could appreciate everyday, even when we lived in
Australia. It's the many people who brushed through my life on a
daily basis, shaping the course of my life in tiny, seemingly
insignificant moments, or, in some cases, obvious and very
significant ones. I miss all our friends from church, but especially,
of course, the little group of very special friends that grew from
there. I miss my work colleagues at my numerous workplaces, and the
friends all around town that we always lamented we never had enough
time for. If once my days were filled to overflowing with people and
happenings, now, though no less busy, my days are strangely bereft of
that joyous thing called companionship. Some people are regulars on
Facebook, and both of us have become somewhat avid followers of the
goings-on of those that we are able to follow. The regular, small
tidbits of irrelevant rubbish from someone's life can be more
connecting that the otherwise far more enlightening and informative
newsy letters received. I suppose that it is more like real life, in
a way. The removal of our social network has, of course, drawn the
inventor and I closer together. We have come to really rely on each
other very heavily for companionship and I am sure, as our new life
unfolds here in Malaysia, that our relationship will continue to
benefit from this.
In the blog of an
Aussie expat living in Vietnam, I read of her reasoning of why expats
cluster together. I have always shared her viewpoint- that comfort is
found with familiarity, and we enjoy best the time spent with those
whose language and culture is most familiar. I think this is why we
enjoy the company of Desmond and Swee Yee, who we met at church in
Ipoh. Unfortunately, in Kampar there is no great expat community, in
fact, the Canadian family remain the only westerners we have met in
Kampar, despite the large university here. We have been received with
welcome arms in our new church, and our only regret is that Ipoh is
far enough away that many people do not consider it for a regular
drive. With our spiritual needs met adequately by Sunday services and
Friday night cell group in Ipoh, we plan to sample some more of the
offerings of English-speaking churches here in Kampar, with the
primary intention being, I unashamedly admit, of meeting people who
live close by.
It's not that I ever am
in need of something to do. In fact, after the first few quiet weeks
here, the list of things to do has restored itself to its former
unmanageable glory, and for that I am grateful. When we first
arrived, my primary goal was getting us settled in and our home
sorted out. Once that was accomplished, new projects began to emerge
and the busyness slowly returned. We spent a lot of time before
leaving Australia dealing with jobs that must be done, and I had the
unexpected extra two weeks to get everything sorted out, so when we
arrived, the “to do” list was uncharacteristically short. I can
happily report that, once again, the days are not long enough to even
scratch the surface of the list, and prioritising has become the
first task of each day.
I have spent some days
working on an application for funding for our project, and we still
have a lot of work to be done on that, and on business planning in
general. The Inventor's head has been so “in the clouds” of late,
that my input is needed for the everyday practicalities. He even
struggles with intellectual pursuits he would normally tackle with
ease, and at my suggestion has given up trying to learn the local
language. He is, by choice, allowing his head and the majority of his
vast and extraordinary thought processes to remain floating in the
clouds and on the task to which he has been assigned. His bedtime
reading is often thick bundles of tiny pages which I am told are
patent applications- numerous similar patents found in searches,
which must be scanned and analysed to ensure the uniqueness of his
own pending patent, but just as importantly, to glean ideas from
others who have expertise in the area.
In addition to helping The Inventor, I spend my days looking after our financial and
physical resources both here and in Australia. In this last week,
amongst other smaller tasks, I have advertised a car for sale,
contacted the
sorted out one long-outstanding and complicated problem with the
tax office, finally chosen and ordered bicycles for the two of us, paid bills and
shuffled money between bank accounts, spoken to Cairns Council about
a refund I have been chasing, sent rent statements to tenants,
recharged our toll card, recharged prepaid mobiles, and researched
verbs and affixes in Bahasa Melayu. I am trying to teach myself
Bahasa Melayu, and I teach English lessons three times a week to some
of the lab and office staff, in exchange for help with Malay.
Planning these lessons takes up quite a lot of my time, as I have not
taught English as a Second Language for a long time, have never
taught adults before, have never tried to learn a language while
simultaneously teaching another, and have a wide range of abilities
to cater to. The other thing I have had to do this week, is to
research what trips the two of us might be able to take out the
country next weekend. We must leave and return, as our 30-day visitor
visas will expire soon, and the company has not yet been registered
(once the company registration is complete, we will be free to stay
as long as we like, with The Inventor as a director of the Malaysian
joint-venture company). Malaysia is very accommodating, and we will
readily obtain a new 90-day visitor visa on our return, but to do
this we must leave the country. It is foreign to us to have so many
affordable options for a long weekend away, “overseas”. After
searching flights from Ipoh, KL and Penang to places such as Vietnam,
Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Laos, and Indonesia, we are currently
investigating an Island in the south of Thailand which can be
accessed by boat from the north of Malaysia, via a Malaysian Island
called Langkawi.
Life continues to be
challenging, rewarding, exciting and dull, and Malaysia interesting,
friendly, breathtakingly beautiful and appallingly dirty. We work
hard at the Inventor's difficult and massive project, we take the
challenges for the learning experiences they are meant to be, we lap
up the variety and opportunities. This is life, and, for the most
part, I think we are dealing with it well. Bring it on!
