Packing Up

Today is my last day staying on campus. This morning when I woke up there were men in military uniform jumping out of a truck. They set up tents/shelters on the field in front of the guest house and then sat out the rain. I tried to take a picture from my room, but no luck.

I spent most of the day catching up on e-mails and cleaing my office. I moved all my files off my desk top, created a huge pile of recycling, and separated what I will carry on the first leg of our trip and what will get stored until we leave. (The International Office stores luggage!) I will continue to conduct interviews and plead for survey responses as we travel. The staff member at the AIDS Council is going to arrange a set of interviews and send me off with a driver! In addition I am meeting with the women's groups to brainstorm how to organize a presentation in July so that it isn't just me talking. This group seemed the best choice, b/c they are less consultant dependent.

I had dinner with Lina last night (Friday night). It was a bit disconcerting to tell her that Doug was leaving Friday morning and it was still severl hours before he was to take off! As we were eating the stall owners came in to move our table, b/c it was raining. Two women faculty members who didn't know enough to come in from the rain!

One piece of my life here can't be photographed. The office next store has a post-doc student from Pakistan. He is very loud. I can't tell if he is hard of hearing or just has lousy phone connections. About every two minutes I hear "hello, hell." None of my near office neighbors knows what language he is speaking. In addition to being loud the walls on campus are very thin. I can tell when someone in the next room at the Guest House has a cold!

Thanksgiving Day

When I received good wishes for Thanksgiving I was caught completely off guard. There are no weather cues (it is still "summer"), no store displays, and no other seasonal reminders, such as reading student papers and writing final examinations. Today is perfect day to introduce and thank the people who are essential to the School of Social Sciences and who helped me in so many ways over the past 5 months.

Gait Lan is the "Chief Clerk." She keeps the "ship afloat." NC State readers can think of her as USM's Lillie. She has Lillie's sense of style. I am sure that she and Lillie would admire each other's closets. And just like Lillie she can answer every question about the school and the university. She is the first person I go to whether it is to figure out how to pronoounce someone's name or for a hotel/restaurant recommendation. My first day here she gave me a map to the Historic District - a perfect example of a Penangite booster. (I am struck by the number of people I meet who were born here. When ever I mention that Doug and I plan to live in KL the typical Penang resident reacts with horror.)



Husin is the deputy registrar. The School of Social Sciences consists of sections rather than departments. So many responsibilities carried out by department staff in the US end up at the school level here. As far as I can figure out the deputy registrar is equivalent to the White House chief of staff. Husin was the person who arranged for me to stay at the Guest House. Having housing from day 1 was a great relief. Despite comments that I could have gotten better/cheaper accommodations, not having to look for a place to settle into for five months made my life easier.

Aziz handles graduate records. His job is almost identical to the graduate secretary's. He is the one I went to if I wanted to know who was in my class, what a student's e-mail address was, and to enter grades. Since I was here for a short time I didn't get a chance to tap into his other responsibilities. He was one of the recipients of my stash of Obama buttons.





Amnah's title is "Chief Administrative Officer." Husin told me that she handles most of the school's human resources (Before I edited this I had typed "human relations," she does that as well). Amnah helped me with the campus bureaucracy (getting my visa and campus ID). She has an office a floor below the other staff offices. She always seems welcoming if I drop in for a visit and a chat. When I told Amnah word that my Bahasa Malaysian teacher used for something (I have long since forgotten) she told me that it was "kampung Malay." At that point I became firmly convinced that the Bahasa Malaysian teacher was nice but an awful teacher. (In addition I knew more about Malaysian grammar than she did and that is pretty little.)

The route to Kl

This is my last trip to KL as a Fulbrighter and "single woman" in 2008. On Saturday I took a bus from Penang to KL. To go to KL I either take the Plusliner (27 ringitt or the Nice (62 ringitt) roughly less than US$9 or US$20. Either price is not bad for a 4.5 hour trip. The Plusliner doesn't have snacks (a simple sandwich) or drinks (water, coffee, and very sweet lemon tea), a movie (in English with Chinese subtitles) or a hostess. But for me and probably most people the extra ringgits are b/c of the schedule. The Nice leaves at the best times. The Plusliner takes nearly an hour longer - traffic and a 30 minute break. The hawkers surrounding the buses and dusty dark stalls have disappeared. The stops have fruit stalls, at least one eating area with the conventional nasi (rice) offerings (some have fast food outlets), and small kiosks selling snacks. I bought my favorite Indonesia/Malaysian snack. A crisp cracker with peanuts and an occasional anchovy. I can't remember the name. I highly recommend it and the anchovies seem more decrative than anything else.

This is my fourth stay at the Shah Village Hotel. The man I met with today said that he often stays here for sentimental reasons - he stayed here when his career was starting. i am not sure of the details, but the owner now in his 80's is a bit of a legend. Almost everyone seems to know where the hotel is. I am close to an LRT station so I can get to KL for less than 2 ringgit. When I interview NGOs in PJ (Petaling Jaya, where the hotel is) a taxi fare is rarely more than 5 ringgit. Overall convenient and cheap. The hotel food isn't bad - I am a big fan of the ikan assam (fish in a spicy stew) and there is an Indian food stall in one direction and the large mall in the other.

From Riches to Rags

My title sounds like the U.S. economy, but it summarizes the highlights of my day. This morning I headed out to a Tamil temple to meet up with Pushpam for her cousin's son's wedding. I can't do justice to the ceremony - parts reminded me of a Muslim/Malay wedding, parts of a bat mitzvah, and parts of a church wedding. The groom arrived and sat at the front of the wedding hall. Later the bride came in, wearing a sari and a veil covering her face. There was a lot of upfront activity and breaking of coconuts. About midway the groom presented the bride with a sari and she went off to change. In the meantime baskets of betel leaves, sweets (peanuts and something similar to gum drops), and rice and flower petals were passed around. When the bride came back the groom lifted her veil and tied the back of her sari (if I understood correctly). Once it was tied bells rang, we threw the rice and flower petals, and they were married. (I imagined that people in the front rows would be covered with rice and petals, but guests' throwing arms weren't that strong.) The time of marriage was set by an astrologer. If a bride seems to be dawdling getting dressed she is urged to speed up.

As soon as they were married we headed down stairs for a vegetarian buffet. It was really good - so if anyone ends up in KL looking for a caterer I can recommend Little Caterers. While we dined we watched the "receiving line" of a jumbo screen. Sorry that I cut their heads off but you get the idea. Before I left remembered to photograph Pushpam and Yoga.(I first met Pushpam in 1971, before either of us knew our husbands.)




In the afternoon I headed over to the mall near the hotel. I was surprised to see table after table set up in front of the shops. All 5 floors were crowded with what seemed to be a combination flea market and night market. The assortment was familiar, including LPs, CDs, books, toys, and piles of clothes. The mall was the first where I saw a sign of Christmas, clearly not close to the usual US extravaganza and no sign of Santa Claus.

I have more than one top

Last night when I realized that nearly every picture, if not every, has me in this blue top. Everything I brought is coordinated with blue or brown. Doug says that it makes me look as if I have lost weight - I suspect that the truth is that if I have it won't last for long; I have a steady stream of lunch, dinner and tea invitations.

The picture is from last night's dinner with a Deputy Director of the Library, her husband, and son. Among the dishes I ate was a new one - telor bungkus or Chinese omelet. (Telor is egg and bungkus package.) It was quite tasty. Hasbah's husband is retired from Shell - he was tired of good money and 24-7 hours. He now cooks, sews, and gardens. Not exactly one's image of a Malay man. After dinner we walked across campus to a lecture on Islam. I found that as you walk across campus with a librarian you meet a constant stream of people.

The first part of the lecture was on the core beliefs, which I was familiar with. The second part (as far as I could figure out was shattering the rhetoric of radical Islam). The reason for "as I could figure out" was because the lecture began near 9 and by 9:30 I was totally worn out. I headed back to my room rather than continue to listen. I don't know who Malays who get up before 6 to pray, eat dinner around 8:30, and then go out do it. Also, Malaysians seem ready and willing to listen to very long lectures.

Earlier in the day I met with the chair of Penang's Environmental Working group for a very energizing discussion He was the least judgmental NGO person I have met - he saw the flaws in various approaches but argued that each has its place. Although he was trained as a physician one could see his political skills at play. He has held state and municipal offices. Similar to the librarian, if you have coffee with a politician or ex-politician you get words in between a line of well-wishers/petitioners. Tonight I will type up my notes and add some comments here - since he ties together much of what I have learned thus far.

I had lunch with a young colleague in the Psychology Department. She did her BA at the University of Chicago. She mentioned regretting that she had not taken advantage of all the Chicago offered - an example of education being wasted on the young. We talked about her research on Motorola. Similar to the librarian's husband, her husband puts in long hours although not on weekends. The nice thing about being here is that I can introduce people to US colleagues who may be helpful in brainstorming fruitful research topics.

Eating in an unfamilliar town - look for the crowds

In August Rattu (from Bhutan) and I had lunch to discuss how to improve his written work. He felt that we should eat in a quiet place. I went along, but told him that in a food obsessed country a crowd is a good indicator of quality. Last week we went out for a farewell dinner (he is now home with wife, children, and cold weather). He commented that the restaurant was crowded and that I had taught him an important lesson.

So why am I mentioning this now? Today as I walked through George Town I joined the queue at "Penang Road's Famous Teochew Chendol." About 2 meters away was another "Penang Road's Famous Teochwe Chendol." Clearly in Penang one does not need to copyright their name to protect their business. BTW the chendol was fine - should it be famous? I have no idea, usually I get es katchang.



The picture does not begin to do justice to the chaotic used book store. It is on the second floor of a wet market. I didn't count the number of narrow sections with books stacked from floor to ceiling. There was no effort at marketing. Some areas seemed to contain relatively similar books,and fiction was everywhere. So I gave up on the idea that a random book would appeal to me. Finally I found the classics. (I wanted something to read on the bus next week. I am about 2/3 of the way through A Legacy of Ashes, so chances are I don't need anything else. Still I dread facing several hours on a bus with nothing to read. I decided on Heart of Darkness. I read it in high school and have taken a copy on several trips in the US. I never seemed to get very far. We will see if this time is different. My mistake - I didn't look up to see if there were sprinklers. I am sure there weren't.

University in a Garden

USM's tag line is "University in a Garden." "University in an Arboreteum" would be more accurate. In any case it is a lovely campus with a wide variety of trees and flowering plants. The downside of living in a garden is the upkeep. The last few days the workers have been "mowing" the grounds near my office. The noise is as loud as an suburban mower, but the equipment is far smaller so the noise seems to last for hours.

Yesterday as I was leaving campus I noticed the stand of trees with the same shape as the artificial Christmas trees. As my stay here is winding down I am playing closer attention to my surroundings (and remembering to take more photos). What I noticed? Similar stands of trees are NOT spread throughout campus. If I was a tree person I would be in tree heaven with all sorts of varieties to inspect. (A random note - the Christmas cards at the shops by campus are all in English!)

One place I pass by everyday is the mosque. It is on campus next to a main gate. (Last week at lunch two senior Penangite debated which of three gates is the main gate. An important point b/c one of the participants had suggested that I meet him at a canteen "next to the main gate.") There is far more activity around the mosque than the picture suggests. In front of the mosque is a common meeting place, which is fine unless it is prayer time. The amplification drowns out thought and conversation.

Next Saturday I am going to KL. So today's project is go to George Town to find a used book store. The pickings in Borders and the like are expensive and uninspiring - a lot of fiction and books on how to make money.

Seasonal Disconnect

I just noticed that the mini-marts and Tesco are selling Christmas cards. It seems strange since I rarely hear Christmas even mentioned. (When I told people that Doug and I were considering where to spend Christmas, they would offer a suggestion of a place where we might get the "Christmas feeling." A nice, but futile, try since Christmas to us is snow. Our Christmas in Munich in 1999 was the most Christmas-like ever. At midnight we left a church as church bells throughout the city started ringing and a soft snow was falling. The city looked like a Christmas card.) Ramadham/Hayi Raya (which lasts in one form or other for two months - one month to fast, one to celebrate the end of the fast), Devali(not as long, but since different nationalities mark the date on separate days it seems to stretch out for nearly a week), and Chinese New Years are the major holidays. Each comes with its food and open houses. Recently I had lunch with a man who carries around the dates for Ramadham and Chinese New Years up to 2020.

Anyway I was a bit surprised by my first Christmas tree sighting. This display was in front of the local gift store. Today I read a blog line that started "what is it with the orange Christmas tree?" But got no further into the entry - except to conclude that this year orange may have been added to the Christmas pallete.

Even though Thanksgiving is close at hand in the U.S. The flowers and butterfly picture, taken on the path leading up to my room, shows why the autumn holidays seem far away. Summer just lasts forever.

Tending to the Routine isn't Necessarily Interesting

Now that my course is over and exams graded I am settling down into the penultimate stage of data collection and having "what next conversations." Today I am meeting with my star student a young woman from Iran. She speaks well for her education in Iran - her English was superior and she was normally one step ahead of me in asking questions. Lesson learned: in some countries English is the perfect undergraduate major. She was one of the few fluent English speakers in her ministry, so she was the person who escorted visiting dignitaries around Iran.

This weekend I did a quick analysis of my preliminary data - one, so that I wouldn't bog down when all the data are in and two, to see if anything was showing up. I separated out the surveys where people felt that the collaborations had the highest impact from the others. Trust (no suprise), an ability to delegate work fairly and effectively, and clear benefits to participaing organizations were important. Today I followed up with the non-responding environmental groups. I have been alluding to these findings as a "teaser" which I hope motivates responses. Virtually all the women's groups have checked in. I need to find a way to get the Human Rights groups more involved. When I am in KL I will see what can be done to get more responses from the AIDS Council (a group that has been actively advocating collaboration among its members). Tomorrow I meet with someone who is involved with the disabilities groups and the state's (Penang's) leading think tank.

My lasting memory of Obama's impact: Doug told me that Tomm, our personal trainer and friend, who was raised in the segregated South drove to Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday November 5. He visited his parents' grave to tell them that Obama won. I can't imagine anything better illustrates the impact of Obama's election outside the political realm.

Now when people hear I am from the US they typical respond by saying "Obama." These days it is nicer to be an American abroad than it has been in recent years.

Enjoying Another Person's Memories

Saturday morning Angeline appeared at my office to invite me to join her as she drove Kevin, St. Joseph's Home's soon-to-depart intern, to see Kedah. Kedah is the neighboring state and the "rice bowl of Malaysia." Angeline had lived in Kedah, outside Alor Star, in 1971. It was her first teaching job. Midafternoon we passed the school where she taught and place she lived (over a coffee shop). As she talked about small town life she repeated one of my favorite observatons ns "you never see anyone, but they all see you."

I arrived at St. Joseph's at 1:30, expecting to leave immediately. But this is Malaysia - so lunch first. We left about 2:30 and took the ferry over to Butterworth (the mainland portion of Penang). One of the first standouts of our "guided tours" was the evidence of a defunct runway. It ran across the highway and cars had to stop for take offs and landings. Throughout the trip Angeline, whose field is social work, told us stories the children and her trials and tribulations in working with Malaysian social services. She added to my knowledge of Malaysia's government and politics. Money dominates who gets what from the bus contracts to political party nominations in a way that is much less subtle than I am used to.

As we drove along I heard about the changing landscape. Rubber plantations are now palm oil plantations, shopping centers, or housing developments. While rubber tappers have to be skilled, the palm fruit requires no skill to pick or process. Along the way we saw a lot of padi. Rice production is increasingly mechanized. So hand planting of padi only occurs on the smallest plots. Angeline added to the conversation by singing a childhood ditty "planting rice is not very nice."

We stopped at an archaology museum . What I found particularly interesting was the information on a nearby candi (a Buddhist temple) which was first excavated in the 1930s. Next we headed to Gunung Jerai, but we were stopped as we neared the peak. A recent rainstorm had caused a landslide making the rest of the road dangerous. We saw a number of hikers (perhaps better described as "strollers") walking down. So perhaps Doug and I can explore the mountain further depending on how our time goes.

We stopped for dinner at Alor Star (the same hotel I had stayed in during the Chinese Cultural Assembly). Dinner was definitely better than breakfast. Then back to Penang. I said good bye to Kevin who is headed back to the University of Montana and a December graduation.

The US election outcomes still reverberate. Friday morning a colleauge hugged – his hug “for all the American people.” A staff member asked if I had found it hard to vote for “Obama.” He, like others I have met, expressed disbelief that whites would vote across racial lines. The day after the election there were discussions on the floor of parliament along the lines of why can't we (Malaysians) have a non-Malay PM. A quick google found one article that addresses the issue T

I spent most of the day reading exams written in English (a colleague is reading the ones written in Malaysian). I put a lot of effort into making sure that the same answer receives the same score, which is time consuming in itself but takes longer when you are preparing an answer sheet for a colleague. The outcomes were 4 strong, 4 satisfactory, and 4 weak. The weakest written by a student who never turned in an assignment and attended a handful of classes (hope strings eternal). FYI - for the exam students in two classes were in the same lecture hall. Each had an assigned seat and submitted his/her exam by seat number. Since I was there for part of the time it was easy to link the first and last number with a specific person.

In the evening I went to St. Joseph’s Home to see the children's end of year performance. The children had organized and written the entire program. The audience had board members, volunteers, and the bishop. The children are orphans, children from difficult family situations, and street children. Many are orang asli from rural parts of Malaysia. The program started with a lion dance. Throughout the program the youngest children would introduce themselves and sing a short song. My photo doesn't show how trully tiny this 5 year old guitarist and singer is. The evening had a number of dances. Angelina, a colleague and force behind the home, told me that they rumaged through donated boxes to find the clothes/costumes.

About halfway through we had a buffet dinner. Children were every where, sitting on the laps of the many volunteers, or wandering through with huge bowls of es katchung.

Election Day - Almost like Home

Now that the election I have no need to rush to the office to check the Gallup tracking poll.

In 1974 we were in Indonesia when Nixon resigned. People went out of their way to find Americans and congratulate them. Yesterday seemed similar. Early in the day I would run into staff members who were receiving SMSs reporting the electoral college count. Later in the day people would pop out of their offices to ask if I had heard Obama's victory speech.

During the campaign I was happy that no results would be report until Wednesday morning (Malaysia is 13 hours ahead of the East Coast). Still I woke up several time during the night and turned on CNN. I know that there is no value in hearing about lines at voting stations, but it is addictive. As the result tricked in I decided to take a break, go to my office, and check my e-mail. Even though I had had mixed success in connecting to a US network on-line I gave it a try. I was immediately successful. When the California polls were about to close I headed back to my room (less distracting) and a bigger screen.

Once the election was called I heard from Doug, Brendan, and Lina (Malaysian). Brendan had the longest day. He did line management in Indiana. He said that when he arrived at the polling station at 6:15 a.m. people were snaked around the building. His assigned precinct had one clerk whom Brendan judged to be none too competent. Next they (the Obama volunteers)step were able to have the powers to be divide up the registration list. A seemingly easy task that went awry. Eventually they got other help and verified that all the pages of the registration lists were in tact. Two lessons - democracy on the ground isn't always pretty and without the armies of volunteers the day could have been very frustrating for voters. I will leave it to people's imaginations to decide other possible costs of not having volunteers.

So while I am half way across the planet I am sure that my emotions are the same as if I was in the US, but I missed all the ads, which was surely a benefit.

Apparently the opposition in the Malaysian parliament was stonewalled yesterday and were unable to ask parliamentary questions. But my attention was elsewhere. So tomorrow I can catch up with Malaysian politics.

The ending of the food binge

When I walked into work today the most common comment I heard was on how much we ate during the weekend. I told one colleague to treat the next few days as a "mini-Ramadan" as he resists the urge to eat - of course, I ran into him as he was going out to smoke!

On Sunday morning all the groups from the previous day's discussions reported. The "eliminate," etc. framework worked reasonable well at the beginning. Of the 9 presentations the most interesting one was the first (perhaps b/c my mind was fresher then). The group was on nurturing students and they presented ideas on how to engage students and to get rid of the current examination-based system. Whether it will happen is another issue. The discussion of facilities mentioned parking several times. For a university that is advocating a sustainable environment it was hard to imagine that building a parking garage is a wise move. Included on the want list (although I suspect the presenters saw the wants as needs) was more child care centers, better health insurance, dental insurance. So wants are the same every where. I also learned that the typical teaching load is 3 courses year!

After the session ended I rendezvoused with Kevin (my younger brother who lives in Jakarta) and his family. Just before they arrived the battery fell out of my room safe. Kevin arrived before housekeeping; he fixed enough for me to get my passport, keys, and money. We spent the afternoon wandering around the neighborhood. We started at a seafood restaurant for drinks and returned later for seafood. Gwendolyn was in "seventh heaven" when she spotted the lobsters; she ordered two. I had a little - lobster tastes better when you don't have to work to get to the meat. After stating that I didn't like food that you had to work to eat I ordered butter prawns. Each prawn had to be peeled - clearly I would have an easier time if Mooi Lian had been there to order. Between drinks and dinner we stopped and had another round of drinks/snacks. As you can see Pudgie's, Alexandria's caretaker/nanny, ice cream treat was color coordinated.

Becoming an Apex University

In September USM learned that it would be Malaysia's first Apex university. The transition begins on 1/1/09. The university will receive an influx of money to help it achieve the goal of being in the top 100 world universities within 5 years. (From my limited perspective it doesn't feel achievable.)

The entire campus is engaged in planning for the transition. This weekend the School of Social Science faculty and staff were put up at The Gurney, a nicely located hotel in Georgetown. Best of all it has comfortable sheets - the sheets at the Guest House often feel knobby. Last night the weekend started with a long talk (about 1.5 hours) explaining the implications of the Apex University. The speaker was soft spoken and had wordy slides, so it was hard to pay attention. Several bits and pieces made me glad that this is not my home institution. The university expects to increase graduate enrollment - at the same time it is increasing tuition. Since increased visibility/reputation is in the future it is hard to imagine a large number of students will take advantage to spend more money to come to social sciences.In addition each unit can decide how to govern itself (I will have to wait for the Sunday morning report to get a full grasp of the implications. A huge shift for a top-down university, but no one expects much change immediately)

In the morning I sat with the Research & Innovation group. It was one of those awful exercises where one fills in a matrix. Here the boxes were "eliminate," "reduce," "raise," and "create." The rows had entries such as the number of faculty who were PIs (principal investigators) - of course they wanted more. The "grants with publications" row opened up a discussion about "grants without publications" and "publications without grants (a possibility never entertained by the matrix writers). I had looked forward to a discussion of centers of excellence, but we didn't get close. Even the need for mentoring got buried in the matrix on the number of PIs. Then there was the discussion on making sure that publications get credited to USM (for an non-academic reader these discussions are not unique to USM or Malaysia)

The afternoon session was on graduate education. Again, so much had been decided and was driven by numbers and policies it was hard to imagine that one could think out of the box. There is a fair amount of money for student support but only as RAs - which eliminates the chance for PhDs to get teaching experience. There was a brief discussion of MPA problems - a sever shortage of teachers - but I am not sure that it will get resolved. If you know of someone who has a PhD in public administration and wants to give Malaysia a shot let me know.

There were nine sessions. They will report back tomorrow morning. One of the advantages of being a visiting professor/foreign I can always duck out. At least there is good food and a comfortable bed.