MY TRAVEL FEARS- short

It is perhaps with great wonder that I commence my blogging activity exactly a year after I left it off. I blogged about my return to the homeland in January to attend a friend’s wedding and subsequently lost the thumb drive to which those entries were attached to.

Undeniably, so many things have happened. But perhaps the greatest irony of all is that I wanted to blog once again about my upcoming trip to Marrakesch, this time not with my old man but with two friends.

I have to admit, despite the backpacking credibility and my travelling resume, I have never travelled with friends before. Sure, I made lots of friends along the way but it is totally different from when you travel with friends you know. My main concern would be this, would we still be friends at the end of this trip?

Before I set off for gap trip alone in 2004, I read many gap year books on how going with a friend on a trip can either make or break the friendship. The same goes for couples. It is not romantic to go travelling with your other half. That is when you realise that he or she does stink like the high heavens in the morning, does have bad breath and the angel you picture in your mind does actually fart. Now we know why women get knocked up, it is basically a way to trap a man so that he feels guilty can’t stray and get accustomed to your bad breaths and smelly farts and burps. But typically, I digress.

Hence, there is a difference between making friends while travelling and going with people you know. The former, you can ditch them after five days if you realize your wavelengths are on a completely different level and as for the latter, the trip can either be a nightmare or a good memory.

Let me tell you an example of the former. I met a couple of English guys in Chengdu, China, my first port of call after Tibet. They were complaining about how uncivilized China was and basically how superior the West is. Oh, really, honey? What was your job again in good old Blighty? A carpenter, you say? You get the point.

One thing I am very glad to have been open with the two friends I am going to Marrakech with, is that, sorry, I don’t buy rounds of drinks. I really appreciate you buying for me my Coca Cola or my J20 juice, but I’d rather pay for it myself. Being a firm teetotal, I feel guilty at the thought of buying for others alcoholic drinks as it clashes with my religious beliefs. In a macabre way, it’s like giving a loaded gun to a killer but you are not responsible for any murder he commits.

Also another point is that I like doing things alone while travelling. This is definitely more efficient, I find, instead of walking scraggily as a group. Also, going with two white people to a place on the Northern African continent means one thing. I sure as hell am gonna get ripped off.

KONICHIWA- NOT [exclamation mark]

It has been four days since I have arrived in Fez, the medieval city in Morocco. When asked what I expect of my second visit to Morocco, I shrug my shoulders and say helplessly, a sense of adventure. And adventure is what I always get.

It is not easy to get to this magical place, I have to admit. Falling out of the budget airline routes, it took creative planning and at the same time, coupled with a sense of desperation whether I would ever get to this place which inspired me when I watched MP’s programme on the BBC. After 11 hours of travelling, which included a Eurostar train from London to Paris, we finally reached our destination. And the answer to this question, was it worth it? Not quite.

Whilst waiting for our flight from one of Paris’s regional airport, I had pictured a lovely vision of discarding away my thick cold-proof jacket and gloves. I had imagined wearing nothing but just a tee and enjoying the sun. I thought wrong. It was cold, even colder than the streets of Paris, the reason being the close proximity to the *Atlas mountains.

The first morning I woke up, there was a sense of trepid trepidation. I closed my eyes and willed whatever was coming to go away and come back later, much later. Of course, The Body refused to adhere to the instructions The Mind sternly gave. And lo and behold, the most excruciating stomach cramps began. I laid in bed and waited for the ripples of pain to take over and I did not have long to wait.

To cut the long story short, I only managed to get out of bed at 2pm. 2pm [exclamation mark since I can’t find the symbol on this Arabic keyboard] Making up for lost time, I hurried out of the *Ville Nouvelle quarters and walked to the Ancièn Medina. All throughout the trip, I was reading non-stop about the ancient, medieval city and yet when I reached there, I tossed my book aside and walked and walked and merrily got lost.

That is one thing about Morocoo. You plan to visit this *medresah, you plan to see this *mesjed, the bottom line is you shouldn’t even bother. You do not have to stray for to see these sights, these sights will come to you. The best thing to do whenever you are in a *medina, is just to get lost in the *souks and *alleyways. One minute you are on the well-trodden path, the next you are in someone’s quarters and being a reluctant witness as they cut the neck of the hen which would inevitably land on the family’s dinner plate.

What is so amazing about Fez is how well preserved the place and how intact the traditions lie: You feel like an interloper, like a stranger trespassing into someone’s privacy. But privacy is an almost non-existent thing in the Kasbah as the *Fassis welcome curious visitors; Their faces break into a smile when you say ‘Assalamuaikumm,’ the Arabic greeting for ‘Peace Be Upon You.’ That smile breaks into a contagious grin when you tell them you are a Muslim as well. One old lady actually took my daintily gloved hand to her heart before bringing it upon her lips and kissing it, in a strange reversal of roles.

The men. What can I say about the men? They are simply hawt. Falling in lust every 10 seconds is an easy thing. Last December in Marrakech, my mom looked at every young Moroccan guy who spoke to her as a potential son-in-law. This, she spoke to Malay to me which made my face turn bright red before the both of us burst into laughter, much to the amazement of the Moroccan men. All the men here have gorgeous eyes, much like Naz’s friend whom I met both in Singapore and Paris last year whose name I forgot but who O shall call Beautiful Eyes. I remember asking Beautiful Eyes why the North African and Middle Eastern culture have these café habits which are frequented with men. I remember his reply that the café is a man’s domain; home is just for sleep and reproduction. And that is how it is.

Female With Weak Hearts, beware. Moroccan men seem to be born with an innate charm. And annoying as hell because I get no less than 30 *konichiwas in a day. My trick is to look at them reprovingly and haughtily say ‘Assalamualiakum’ and wait for them for a millisecond to see a look of amazement before walking away and hearing them recover themselves with ‘Alaikumsamlam.’ The catcalls then would stop as they now consider you as a Muslim sister who should be respected. But it a lot of harmless teasing. My shoes gave way just now and I bought myself a pair of *Converse shoes in the medina and a shopkeeper upon learning I was Muslim, led me to his friend’s shop and did the bargaining on my behalf. I asked him why do people consider me Japanese and his reply was the same as my Italian friend who suggested I have small eyes. Small eyes? [please feel free to insert as many exclamation marks if you know how big my eyes are]

I have seen only two Japanese tourists and I am still wondering how they think they know how Japanese people look like when there are not too many around. My guess is that they watch too much Japanese porn, and if you disagree, well too bad; cos this is my blog and I say so. Haha.

Off to Tangier tomorrow, a 5 hour train ride away. And for those of you who thought I went to Morocco with someone else instead of my father, I have learnt this useful Arabic word. Shooma, or shame on you. The six of you know who you are. Hahaha.

*Translations? Please be patient. Since you have waited 10 months for me to update, I know you have plenty to spare. Lol.

WORK ETHICS vs CULTURAL CLASH

It is midnight on a Saturday night and I am seething with the indignity of spending the last few days at home, feeling absolutely sorry for myself. It is not amusing when you have a viral infection and you go to your local *GP and they prescribe Vitamin C tablets. Sorry love, the doctor said, it’s not bacterial, it’s viral. Antibiotics would do you no good. Vitamin C! They might as well have told me to go live on Love and Fresh Air. It is annoying when your GP appointment is half an hour before your brother’s with his own GP, you call him to warn him about bacterial vs viral debate and he comes out triumphantly fifteen minutes later with a prescription for antibiotics after bluffing his way through. It is no longer funny when you wake yourself up at night from a deep slumber because of the senseless wheezing and incipient coughing. A viral infection is like a hiccup, welcoming at first because of the thought of much needed rest in bed but alarming after a few days, when you are shackled to it.

Yesterday, I simply could not sit at home anymore, especially when the sun gave a rather surprising but welcoming appearance. I called up work and told them I was coming in, despite’s my mom’s protests. On my way to work, I thought about people I know who would pull in a sickie on a Monday morning because they were nursing a weekend hangover. And here I was, having a perfectly good excuse to stay at home but determined to go to work.

This got me thinking about work ethics. I worked once in a lawyer’s firm in the homeland whilst waiting for my exam results. Whilst I was working there, I discovered two things. One, that I would never, ever, in my sane mind do law and two, I was expected to ‘wayang.’ ‘Wayang,’ when translated means a show, a drama. Although I finished work, say, for example at one o’clock, I was expected to leave earliest at one-thirty. I had to ‘wayang’ with my boss, to show him that I was indeed hardworking.

My sister once told me when she was working in the adopted country, the first week, she ‘wayang-ed’ and stayed back half an hour later to prove, that as a newcomer, she was indeed as good as the rest. After a week, her supervisor pulled her aside and asked her with genuine concern in his voice, was she given too much workload, if no, why on earth was she staying back late each day? My sister was touched by his concern and that was one cultural barrier learnt.

As a foreigner living in the adopted country, there is this need to prove to yourself and to others that you are tougher than mettle. Perhaps in a startlingly bleak realization, you can’t help but feel for the *increasingly number of foreigners from mainland China and from the Philippines trying to prove their worth in Singapore. They take up menial jobs whilst studying. You see them in *Famous Amos cookie stores, you see them taking factory jobs, jobs which no self-respecting citizen would take because there are other ‘better,’ cushier jobs in air-conditioned malls. These foreigners are probably looking scornfully at the local citizens who are given amazing opportunities in education and healthcare, yet are not making full use of it.

I know, because, simply, I feel the same thing. The local citizens here are given similar amazing opportunities but are not making full use of it. At last count, there were about 150 universities and college for higher education in the adopted country, but a mere 30% of the country’s population graduate with basic diplomas. I watched a documentary programme on telly a few months ago and was startled to realize that according to the Department of Work and Pensions, there were about one million unemployed 19-25 year olds. One million is a staggering number. The documentary showed how one youth was on the unemployment dole for two years. This is unlike the Churchill era of post World War, when the soldiers came home, proud to have won the battle of the Allies but unemployment was rife. This is modern day 21^st century England.

In that particular documentary, the said youth who was on the unemployment dole for two years, was not what you call unlucky. He was plain lazy. Contented of pocketing GBP 45 PER WEEK on the dole from government funding, he just did not bother looking for a job. If he did find a job, he would quit after a few weeks, because he was well, lazy. This is a Socialist theory which I will never understand. Back where I come from, the message is clear. Work and thou shall get rewarded. Laze around and thou shall get nothing. If it is one thing, I am thoroughly appreciative of the government in the homeland is, is not being a Socialist state. ‘You had better get up arse and work’ would be the unspoken motto.

So you can imagine my surprise after all the said ranting and raving about the Socialist state and how lazy some citizens are, to discover that the Socialist state is the most hardworking state in the European Union. Whereas the neighbouring countries such as Germany and France have strict labour laws of a 5-day work week, the adopted country has 5.5-6 day work week. Annual leave in the former would be a generous 6 weeks, whereas the latter has a ‘measly’ four weeks. An Italian friend of mine told me that all factories shut down for a good 4-5 weeks in August because, they simply wanted to enjoy summer. Another Swedish friend once told me that no one wanted to work in Sweden because when you worked, you had to pay 40% taxes, hence it was better off being unemployed than seeking employment.

The other countries in the European Union seem to have an enviable lifestyle comprising of short 5 day work week and longer annual leave but I have come to realize that the grass is always greener on the other side. It doesn’t matter that faceless individuals such as myself have to pay higher taxes to support the socialist state, something which I very much disagree on. It doesn’t matter that although I indirectly support these very lazy individuals, I would always be considered a foreigner and in one scenario, got empty beer cans thrown on the road whilst I was cycling by some, presumably unemployed, but definitely drunken lout in a car who told me to 'fuck off to wherever I came from.' It doesn’t matter that I bitch and whine about this and that about the adopted country.

I am still staying put. And I will still continue to ‘wayang’ on how good the adopted country is.

*GP refers to general practitioner. What it is, is that the GPs are highly notorious for not giving out medication for ‘trivial’ viral infection. They want the body’s natural immune system to ‘fight the bugs.’ I should have retorted, if I was on the dole, I can afford the time to ‘fight the bugs.’

*increasingly number of foreigners from mainland China and Philippines. The homeland has an influx of these immigrants who are probably the crème de la crème in their countries. Ok, I cannot compare myself to them because they are far more talented than I am and more importantly, aku cebok pakai air ah.

*Famous Amos is a famous cookie brand in the homeland. I have tried all types of cookies whilst traveling. Nothing, I mean, nothing beats Famous Amos.

THE BLANKET, A MEMORY

A few days ago, circumstance forced me and my brother to sleep on the floor of his small living room for the night. Whilst giggling and complaining good-naturedly about our fate, he suddenly turned to me and regarded me solemnly, ‘Do you remember the blanket?’

The blanket? I looked at him blankly.

The blanket he was referring to was the kind of blanket you would get on long-haul flight. The patterned yet anonymously thin, wispy kind made of the cheapest and crappiest cotton over. Up to the time, when I entered adolescent and my siblings were leaving theirs, we each had our own thin blankets which we used in a variety of ways which displayed our individual differences. Mine would be used to cover from my navel to the end of my feet, my brother’s would be unceremoniously dumped onto the floor each morning and my sister’s would be used to tuck her from her chin downwards.

Yet, the blanket provided simple solace for each of us. It signaled the beginning of a worry-free sleep, it doubled up as a second pillow when we lay on our stomach reading. It also provided refuge for temporary assuaged guilt when my parents came to check on us at four am in the middle of the night to discover that we were still awake and talking in total darkness on a school night.

The blankets were folded neatly each morning after we woke up. Mine would be at the bottom of the double-decker bunk, my brother’s at the top and my sister’s, neatly on the single bed beside ours. Home then was two bedrooms, one for my parents and the other for the three of us. It was cramped especially when you put in three naturally quarrelsome siblings whose age ranged from thirteen to early twenties and space was a luxury when the parents rented out the living room because money was tight. Things were made more interesting when the two elder siblings contracted the contagious chicken pox at the same time and made the youngest scream in terror and flee for her short life when they both simultaneously emerged from the bedroom with white calamine lotion on their faces, looking eerily like a Chinese ghost in the-then SBC Chinese serials. The blanket was noted to have white, distinguishable spots from the calamine lotion for the next two weeks.

The blanket was also used to hide giggles when the littlest one would pull her brother’s developing leg hair whilst he was sleeping and snoring loudly and then dive back to her lower bunk bed, under her blanket, feigning innocent sleep. The blanket was also used to ‘tell secrets’ between two sisters underneath it, the elder one would feign interest in whatever the little sister had to say. This usually resulted in tickling each other senseless, with the brother joining in at the end.

This idyllic childhood was suddenly disrupted when I was in the early stage of teenagehood. Overnight, the roommates of fourteen years suddenly found that they had rooms to call their own. The first night, I remember, as my brother looked down smugly from his upper floor and superiorly bigger bedroom, the three of us suddenly looked lost. We three converged in my bedroom and unrealistically squeezed into my small queen-sized bed to sleep. My sister complained that the blankets felt different. The blankets, in fact had given way to far superior duvets, a normality now but a rarity at that time. My brother complained that the blankets weren’t homely and that the blankets felt like those in a ‘hotel with no soul.’

A few years passed. My brother went for a short trip to Indonesia and stayed in a modestly, two star run hotel. When he came back, he told us that he had not slept well because the blankets were made of the thin, wispy kind. It struck him then that although he grew up with those kind of basic necessities (the blanket), after getting accustomed to simple luxury (the duvet), it was difficult to go back to basics.

So what I am trying to say is this. If you are used to having a lavish lifestyle of designer clothes, 6 star hotels, first class flights and fine dining you will be in a rude shock when these are suddenly taken away from you, forced or otherwise. This also raises concern for the current and future generations who they do not know the meaning of struggle and are accustomed to their working-class parents accommodating to their every whim and wham. Iphone? Check. Porsche? Check. Designer sunglasses? Check.

It’s a scary, materialistc world out there and for me, the memory of my blanket would be the only way to survive it.