One with think with a trip to Southeast Asia, well, not all of it, just some parts of Thailand and Malaysia, I’d have updated this fucker. Alas, there was the colossal fatigue, the return to work and the continued biliousness from an alien species of crab. I think it was alien. It didn’t look like any crab I have ever seen, so I ate it. It wasn’t this guy:
The upside of the Thai food-poisoning caper is that it wasn’t the sorry ass white American girl alone. M.’s uncle and aunt didn’t not escape unscathed, despite being adventurous foodie types from Kuala Lumpur. Misery loves company, and no one wants to feel like the giant pussy who can’t eat food while traveling.
One wonderful bit of traveling advice — If ever you should find yourself wrestling with sudden, urgent, unpleasant bathroom yearnings, Bangkok is the fan-fucking-tabulous place to be. In every market, mall, restaurant, hotel lobby, public place of any size I met up with clean and efficient accommodations. Even the sad-looking toilets with a matron collecting 3 baht (less than one thin dime) for a pocket pack of tissue were way better than serviceable.
It gladdened my pathetic, American, toilet-obsessed soul and unhappy belly.
In other news, we rocked in the New Year local Penang-style. This here is Penang, aka Betel Nut Island.
Actually, I’ve never heard anyone calling it Betel Nut Island, even if that is to what Pulau Pinang translates, but the world-wide web says it, so it must be true. It’s a state of Malaysia, it’s an island, and it’s about 10 times smaller than Rhode Island with roughly the same population. One thing about Asia is you do get a sense of huge amounts of sprawling elbow room back here in the U.S. of A.
An adventurous aunt had picked up tickets to a local church function room New Year’s dance, because her friends in the band Rozells would be doing up the oldies and, of course, country and western. NOTHING ever surprises me more whilst traveling internationally than the old C&W. I can go for long, long stretches of time in the country of it’s origin without hearing country music. I have to actively choose to crank up the twangy guitars and sad ballads of failure and misery. With zero effort, I don’t ever have to listen to Billy Ray Cyrus (even if Miley is ubiquitous on the old internets).
I’ve heard Elvis and Carl Perkins in the Ukraine. I’ve caught some Dolly from East African radio stations and knew a Zimbabwean who could listen to her all night long. In London in the ’80s, a popular (and conveniently located) bar was the Lone Star, albeit with a surprising skewed to Australian bunch of waitresses. In Iceland, I tried puffin and heard Patsy Cline lamentl And in Malaysia, if it has a twang, a two-step beat or a line dance, it’s what is getting heard. Man, them Chinese ladies can line dance like motherfuckers. Hugely, crazily popular.
In fact, I would say that I’ve met enough folks who know a line dance or two, that’s it’s kind of embarrassing to answer the natural question you might ask a visiting American — Is it as popular where you are. In a word, NO.
Back to the eve of the new decade.
As Rozells was pouring it’s collective soul into the saddest, loneliest ballads of the American popular songbook, the night was starting out a bit slow. I realized it wasn’t just me when an uncle pointed out this hand-made photo-op meant to advertise the party inside.
You know what livens up a party, though? Disco and beer. As soon as the Tiger started flowing and the hits from the 70s and 80s started kicking into high gear, it all felt a whole lot more comfy. Better yet, the complementary party pack for every ticket holder included not just the New Year’s staple silly hat and noisemakers, there were masks.
Seriously, how could you not have a bit of fun when this kind of party look was going down.
One key question when I’m hanging out with M.’s family and jumping in enthusiastically as a complete jackass, given my lack of dancing abilities, verified once by an actual dancing instructor who patted me on the back for at least trying, why in hell would I let control of my camera slip from my hands?
In the end, I was the sole American or Caucasian in the room, I’m pretty sure. Well, except for maybe the old man in the front of this picture, wearing a red shirt and tie, who crazily and drunkenly and creepily kissed my cheek and told me he was from a country near mine, called “New Mexico,” but not to ask him to speak his native language, because he’d given it up many, many years ago, even though he was a local scholar and expert. It was one of those random, nonsensical conversations you’re lucky to come across now and again, particularly if you chat up the homeless. After the cheek kiss, an aunt handed me a bottle of hand sanitizer in case his brand of crazy was contagious.
It was local, it was unhip, it was Penang, and it was family. Best of all, it was Tiger beer and laughing a lot.
Onward and upward to the 2010s and a brand new decade.
Finally, for anyone who cares, there is a gigantic bucketload of pictures here http://dee-rob.com/zenphoto/Malaysia%20and%20Thailand%2C%202009-10/ with aptly titled subsets.