Malaysia

Those of you who have traveled to countries that require visas will surely look back fondly on the process of acquiring the visa. As a foreigner working in Thailand, I was faced with the super fun task of getting a non-immigrant "B" visa. This wouldn't have been a big deal if it just required a trip to the local immigration office. After three days arguing with various Thai officials about why they couldn't just extend my tourist visa for the 30 days that most tourist visas can be extended, I accepted that I'd have to leave the country and go to a Thai consulate and apply for my new and improved visa. The closest consulate is in Penang, Malaysia so on Monday morning circa 1 AM, I boarded a minibus bound for a country whose Prime Minister will forever be synonymous with Zoolander. The driving time to the border of Thailand and Malaysia was 7 hours and from the border it was another 2 1/2 hours to Penang. Needless to say, I arrived at the Thai consulate extremely tired, cranky, and sweaty. The Thai consulate, I should mention, is not even a building. It's a set of windows that are past a security guard and people waiting in "line" just coagulate around the windows in the usual I'm-a-foreigner-and-therefore-am-more-important-than-everyone-around-me pushiness.
After leaving the consulate, I headed to my hotel where I changed out of my comfortable, yet impractical for Southeast Asian temperature, traveling clothes (read: sweatpants) and took a delightfully long hot shower. I had to pick up my passport/visa the following afternoon so that left me with the entire day to wander around Penang. My first stop was to find a Malaysian SIM card because I had a phone date with THE Thai consulate general himself later that afternoon at 3 pm to discuss the status of my non-immigrant B visa. Since Malaysia is probably the hottest place I've ever been, and since I'd spent the past ten hours on a bus enduring the bus driver's DVD choice of Jon Bon Jovi: Live from London, I was in desperate need of something cold and caffeinated. On my way to the mall that supposedly sold Malaysian SIM cards, I stopped by a bakery that sold iced coffees. Before handing me my change, the barista asked if I wanted my iced coffee in a bag. "A bag?" I said. "Um...no thank you."
Now I digress. I need to talk about the Thai (and apparently Malaysian) Obsessive Bagging. I'm not talking about the somewhat unnecessary bagging that occurs when you buy, for example, a water and a bag of fried seaweed (because those bags are actually useful in their second life as trash bags). The first ubiquitous instance of this Thai/Malaysian Obsessive Bagging is with beverages such as iced coffees or soft drinks from 7-11 or really any beverage that already comes in its own cup. Usually these beverages already have straws poking out of them so putting them in a bag just makes no sense. First of all, the liquid in the cup is going to spill because things in plastic bags don't sit upright of their own free will (it's entropy). Second of all, if I ordered an iced coffee and it's approximately 100 degrees outside why would I want to not be drinking that cool, iced beverage ASAP? Maybe if I had a phobia of condensation then it would make sense to bag things like iced coffees. But that is not the case so...I am still confused. The second instance of the Thai/Malaysian Obsessive Bagging occurs at grocery stores or markets where individual, pre-packaged items are placed in individual miniature plastic bags and then the mass of individual plastic bags of pre-packaged items is placed in a larger plastic bag...which is then placed in my own large bag. This is confusing for a number of reasons. First of all, it's a Top Ten Time Waster to individually bag anything that is already individually wrapped unless I say, "I would like these ten candy bars placed in their own individual plastic bags." In the time it takes the two cashiers to complete this ritual (yes, there are two of them...one who individually bags everything and then another who places those bags into the larger grocery bag) I feel like a lot of other things could be accomplished. The second confusing part of the individual bagging is that there is literally no conceivable second life purpose for the miniature bags. Aside from being the perfect pooper-scooper for a dog or a bad way to wrap a present.
Now that that rant is over, I can continue with my Malaysian adventure. Having consumed the bag-less iced coffee in about 10 seconds, I continued into the Komtar tower/shopping mall whose lobby had (no joke) 40 different elevators going to the various levels.

Outside of the Komtar Tower. Completely irrelevant to anything I'm talking about, but necessary because it's an awesome poster.

One level of the shopping mall/tower was entirely dedicated to the various styles of burkas (colors, patterns, bedazzled, sequined, different fabrics, etc.). After finding and setting up my Malaysian SIM card, I decided to utilize the notes I'd taken from the NY Times travel section for Penang and started to wander around some back streets in search of a satisfactory lunch place.

The perimeter of Penang.

I ended up on Campbell street (or Lebuh Campbell as the Malaysians call it). I found a stand called Hameediyah Restaran where I ordered a chicken murtabak and the biggest water they had. The murtabak (4 ringgit, less than $2) was brought to me alongside sauteed onions and a delicious, extremely spicy curry sauce.

It was unbelievable. A curried chicken pancake satchel is the best way I can describe it. 

With my mouth on fire, I continued my walking tour of Penang...

Along the way I found Chinatown and Little India where I bought some great jewelry, examined various extremely awesome and expensive traditional silk saris, and ate the best chicken samosa I've ever had. Another of the treats of Little India was a small dessert shop I found that sold something akin to a fudge made of cashew nuts...

Instead of bins of chocolate covered everything and gummy shaped objects, Malaysia has these. Each container is full of a dried date covered in a different flavor. 

Another delicacy of Little India were these chickpeas. Although...I have to say it...why would you just put them in a bag by themselves? Seems like there should be a utensil accompanying them if they're just going to hang out at the bottom of a plastic bag.

This was a sign above a store in Chinatown. JUST envelope marketing...so don't ask for anything else.

The rickshaw...it is literally being peddled around in a wheelbarrow. Great alternative to cabs.

To end my day, I wandered by some stalls known for char koay teow (flat noodles with shrimp and bean sprouts). I ordered one for my dinner and watched the woman cook my meal...

Char koay teow = inferior paht thai (I'm biased). I ate my to-go dinner in the comfort of my air conditioned room, passed out before 8 pm and woke up the following morning 13 hours later (that's what a night of one hour of sleep on a minibus will do to you). I only had about two hours before i had to be back at the hotel to take the bus to the consulate to retrieve my passport, so I decided to make the most of it. I got a cab and headed to Burmah Road where I'd read about a Malaysian Chinese man who serves a famous pancake for 0.40 ringgit (about 10 cents in the US). I got there an hour before he opened, so I wandered around...

It was so hot that it fogged my camera lens.

No idea what this is.

I waited while the man set up his stand and watched his meticulous preparations. He wiped down the molded stove in circular patterned motions going first clockwise and then counterclockwise around the whole stovetop. The batter went in clockwise, followed by individual pieces of banana which went 1 per pancake clockwise followed by a second round of banana slices placed in a counterclockwise pattern. Then, the heat was turned down, corn kernels placed in after a couple of minutes, and then the heat was raised.

The final product made my mouth water for more. I finished my pancake (and was tempted to buy about thirty more) and headed back to the hotel and then to the consulate. After getting my passport (with the non-immigrant B visa intact...WOOHOOO!!!), I stopped by a fruit stand before going into the bus for the 10 hour drive back to Thailand. I bought a banana which I ate about an hour into the bus ride. And then I was left with the peel...which is when I realized that I could really use one of those miniature plastic bags.

House and Job: A Picture Book of Life in Phang-nga

When I tell people that I live in a town that is surrounded by limestone cliffs, they either don't understand what I mean or ask for a description. Here is the best view I can give of what it looks like to drive down any given road in Phang-nga.

Speaking of driving...

This is my motorbike. It is awesome.

I wear a helmet with a racing stripe down the middle so that people know I like to be fashionable and safe on the road. The peace sign is the go-to photo pose in Asia so I opted to use it just to be sure I look extra cool in this picture.

When I wake up in the morning to go to work, this is the view I usually have from my bedroom window. I called it the Narnia mist.

The school's garage is on the right.

This is the school's courtyard/field (where daily PE consists of ribbon dancing or standing in a line, holding hands, and running to the opposite end of the field and back).

The walk from school to my house.

Never gets old.

Although I teach nine classes of 45+ students per class, I have quite a bit of free time after the requisite lesson planning and teaching aid creating (read: a whole lot of coloring/cutting/taping cut out colored pictures to large sheets of paper). You could say that cooking runs in my family, and we tend to be a bit obsessive about perfecting that which we attempt. So, I've become obsessed with perfecting the art of Thai cooking. I bought all the necessary gadgets and accessories and condiments (in typical Podell fashion)...a rice cooker, a wok, a frying pan, a wooden spatula, a giant bag of crushed chilies, palm oil for cooking and a refrigerator full of ginger, garlic, onions, basil, morning glory, scallions, shallots, oyster sauce, schezuan sauce, fish sauce and four different kinds of soy sauce. Getting used to the various sauces has been the most difficult part of learning to cook Thai food, especially differentiating between when to use mushroom soy sauce vs. light soy sauce vs. sweet soy sauce vs. sweet dark soy sauce. "Fish sauce" is another thing that I spent a lot of time grappling with, namely because of its name and pungent odor. Now that I've spent time actually testing how much to use and when to add it to the dish, I've come to terms with the fact that it's delicious despite being described as "a mixture of fish and salt that has been allowed to ferment for 1 year to 18 months."

So far, I've cooked every night for the past week and have tried a different dish each night. This was "fried rice with gai (chicken) and gung (shrimp)" night. My two favorite dishes that I've made thus far are a cashew nut and chicken dish with green pepper, onions, and chilies and a vegetarian dish with an assortment of vegetables (including a 2 lb. carrot...no joke), basil (two kinds) and ginger.

The food is great, but the dinnertime views are even better.

Now, onto the teaching portion of my life here. The kids are quite the varied bunch in terms of intelligence, maturity and motivation to learn English and I have the sense that this variety will prove to be the hardest challenge in being a teacher. The best part of the initial weeks of teaching has been to witness the students' astounding artistic creativity when given the chance to draw or color. Here are some examples:

This picture was not fiddled with on Photoshop. Those are the shades and colors some of the students were able to create using simple colored pencils. Pretty incredible.

The general drawing abilities (this is a 4th grader) are also incredible.

A 5th graders' work...not sure where she saw a kangaroo...but this was all free-hand.

Ok. Now onto the more  humorous drawings I received. All of these drawings are the result of my instruction to simply "draw a picture" on the back of the basic information cards I gave to each student.

...Yeah. This is what I wear to work every day...NOT. I don't even know what those lace-up blue shoes are supposed to be. We'll call this "Teacher Becca 1"...

And this "Teacher Becca 2." Same same...but different.

I have no idea what/who this is. Ninja Bikini Motorbike Dominatrix would be a great addition to the riveting series that Thai television comprises.

I'm sort of afraid to ask to have this speech bubble translated. We can turn it into one of those New Yorker cartoon caption competitions...any takers?

This is the equivalent of Pokemon in Thailand (it's from Japan, but the Thai kids are completely obsessed with the character). The white half-moon is his "magic pocket." DUH.

The other interesting drawings I received were of action figure battles. This wouldn't have been so odd if the kids who handed these in had been sitting next to each other...but they were all on opposite ends of the classroom.

Red Bird vs. Gloved Ninja = hilariously awesome hypothetical comic strip.

"My favorite colors are green and red but NOT PINK." 

Aside from the language problem (I have no Thai TA to facilitate translations between me and the students), the other challenging aspect of the job is that I only meet with each class once a week. Just getting the students into their seats and armed with a notebook and pen (two things that about 30% of them have deemed unnecessary to bring to class) takes about ten minutes. They are obsessed with playing games so the best way to get them to be quiet and sit down is using the bribe of a game. However, they seriously fail in actually understanding the concept of "a game." Take, for instance, the much loved Hangman. After a couple of rounds of me writing words on the board, I give the piece of chalk to a student so he/she can practice writing and identifying letters (yeah "chalk"...no dry erase boards here...my work clothes love me). At first, I thought to myself, "Be fair, don't play favorites with the smart kids who 'speak' English because then the ones who sit in the back row and draw anime action figure battle scenes won't learn anything." So, I gave the chalk to one of the back row cartoonists. He chose "soewul" as his word, or letter combination I should say. I tried explaining that we are in an English class and therefore we are not playing Hangman with either Thai words or made up words...that attempted explanation was also a major fail; after nodding and shouting, "Yes! Yes, Teacher!!" another kid walked up to the board and chose an equally nonsensical "word." Why would a game's purpose be "let's guess a random combination of letters that has no meaning"? No idea. Finally, another kid (one of the smartest in the class) walked up to the board and wrote five blanks. I breathed a sigh of relief as he began to write guessed letters that were resembling an English word. Then, after about two minutes, the class had guessed the word. Remarkable! My students actually do understand how to play hangman! Another kid walked up to the board, and this time within less than two minutes the seven letter word had been "guessed." Wait a minute, I started to think, what is going on here. And then I realized that groups of 15 kids were deciding on which word one of them would use before the student went to the board so the whole class could "guess" the right word without any wrong letters guessed. Interesting way to play a game...I think I shall have to give Hangman a rest.