Appreciating Home

After living in Vietnam for eight months I flew home with what I thought was the clandestine knowledge that gave me a leg up on much of my graduating class (save rogan, risi, tory and a few other adventurers). I had the belief that their myopic perspective on the world, which insulated them to the island of Manhattan or strapped them inside the D.C. Beltway, would lead to a life of monotony, dictated by rent payments and club cover charges. (Yes, I have a tendency to be a bit close-minded and patronizing when I’m certain I have a good idea. I’m working on it, okay!). I, on the other hand, had experienced something new, fresh and easily accessible. The new world: feared by the masses for its rampant sexual immorality, irrational and mystic spirituality that is disconnected from the real world, and feared mostly for being represented by the communist star of Ho Chi Minh, Lenin and the rest of those anti-freedom nihilists. I, on the other hand, had discovered something completely different: a land of opportunity where a xe om (motorbike taxi) is a dollar, three delicious meals a day will cost you $3, an only slightly grimy hotel rooms complete with wifi and hot water goes for $5/night , an occasional (or daily) massage is just $3 an hour and clubbing at our favorite spot, Lush, is a paltry $10. It was a revelation that changed my entire worldview and transformed my perspective on the future. 

Fast forward...two years later. I'm sitting at a coffee shop in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. I just returned from an epic trip  to Nepal, Bhutan and Singapore with my baller dad, whose eagerness to explore our foreign surroundings, enabled us to experience all of these amazing places with depth and open mindedness. I've seen a lot more places sine I flew home from Vietnam including Spain, France, Indonesia, Thailand (again), nearly all of Malaysia, as well as Nepal, Bhutan and Singapore. As any good travel experience should do, my perspective has changed a bit from my post-Vietnam self. 

Number one... I have a slightly new attitude towards travel. When I once appreciated travel for its ability to give me a glimpse of another world and another culture, I now think that was a bit too lofty. Having been truly immersed in a culture for as long as I have (not particularly long, but long enough to have a change of heart), here in Malaysia as well as Vietnam, I've discovered that travel can’t provide the cultural understanding that I would hope. Admittedly, I’m taking this new revelation with a healthy dose of uncertainty, though, now that i've seen how my attitude is liable to change at any moment, but having read Lonely Planet and seen innumerable TLC travel shows, I’m disheartened by the lack of depth available in ordinary travel. Fortunately, I’ve found new value in globetrotting. Travel has become more of an introspective affair, which provides a fairly trustworthy mirror to perceive yourself from a meditationesque third person perspective. Travel provides opportunity for discomfort and anxiety, which are the moments where growth and personal understanding arise. 

Number two... My appreciation for America has grown dramatically. Hands down, the thing I respect the most about American culture is its creativity and appreciation for the art. Here’s one anecdote out of the millions I have to share that should manifest the lack of artistic expression that plagues Southeast Asia (I can’t speak for china, korea and japan, but I doubt it’s much different). Dad and I were in Singapore a little while back searching for a bit of semi-western culture after having travelled in time to the 17th Century in Nepal and Bhutan. All we really wanted our first night in Singapore was to see some music. So, we settled at a bar in Clarke Quay that featured an Indonesian on bass, a brilliant Japanese guitarist, a grizzled American on drums and his wife, who sounded like Melissa Etheridge, but looked more like Rosie O’Donnell. Sadly, we were going to have to settle for relatively well-done American covers, which was okay for night number one, but we were intent on finding real music the next night. We had nearly everyone at Raffles (yeah, we stayed at Raffles... if you don’t know it, look it up - thanks dad!!) scouring Singapore for some real music - jazz, blues, rock, anything that’s not a cover. They sent us to a bar that was the namesake of an international music festival that had featured Bob Dylan, Imogen Heap, Toots & The Maytals, Trombone Shorty, John Legend and Michael Franti a few months before, so we were pumped. Our excitement was immediately squashed as they opened with “Hotel California” - the song that plagues every Asian bar I've ever been to. The saddest part was that the band playing was the only local band that was featured in the music festival! Granted, they went on to play some decent blues covers, but the damage was done... Singapore just didn’t have what I needed. That night I had a feeling of incredible appreciation for America, and most importantly, New York City. The house band at Arthur’s Tavern in the West Village, my favorite jazz place to go to whenever there’s nothing better to do, would literally be the best jazz group in Southeast Asia. Being trapped by rent and club covers was seeming more and more attractive. 

If Singapore didn’t have a single band playing original music on a Thursday night image the scene in Malaysia! The brings me to my next reason for my new-found appreciating the United States... The education I received at Collegiate and Hamilton! Let me begin with a word of appreciation for Malaysians and the culture of my school in particular. My school, SMK Dato’ Razali Ismail, is a relatively selective public school in Terengganu where students come if they have done well on their examinations. So, students are sporadically coming and going depending on their exams, but my school has an incredibly admirable sense of community and respect for one another. For example, last weekend was the Form 4 (11th grade) camping trip. It was a beautiful display of mutual respect and cooperation by the teachers and students alike. It is truly a family. I think every single teacher in the entire school came to visit at least one time during the weekend. Often they brought their spouse and their children and stayed up until after midnight barbecuing cuttlefish, shrimp and chicken, munching on durian (not my favorite fruit, but they seem to love it - apparently it’s the king of fruits) and shootin the shit. It was fantastic and they treated me as one of the family. Even better, the next week at school felt like a continuation of the weekend before... Teachers who had previously been timid to speak to the young American who spoke a pathetic amount of Bahasa Malaysia, were stopping to say hey. Last week was a great week. 

         So, when reading the following don’t take it as a typical ....,but... sentence where the second part is all that really matters. Malaysian education system has a few gaping holes that may produce students who will have trouble competing globally, if they so choose. First, it’s rare to find a student who can play a musical instrument or has been a part of a legitimate dramatic production. Consequently, the majority of my students are deathly afraid of public speaking... Or even speaking in front of the class. So, asking a student to say a few words in English class typically renders them incapacitated with their heads hidden under their desk. Second, my students have a limited understanding of world history and international affairs. The perfect example of this comes from fellow Fulbrighter, Mike, who, while studying in a M.A. Program in international affairs and ASEAN studies in KL sat in on a class where a student posed the question, “hey prof... Tell me, what is this Cold War I keep hearing about”. Yes, a Master’s student in INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS hadn't heard of the Cold War!! Secondary school education focuses mainly on Malaysian history and seems to save the humanities for the slightly lesser students who fail to excel in math and science. Soooo, that’s a real problem. Above all, though, the problem lies in the emphasis on examinations and the lack of critical thinking that pervades most Asian schools. It also makes me skeptical of the recent study that puts China atop the world in educational achievement - (Chinese Education System). Most of these problems are administrative, curriculum issues that seem easy enough to fix, but it seems unlikely that any change will be made. I wouldn’t say that the U.S. Has anything close to a perfect education model. See the movie “Waiting for Superman” if you’re interested in the failings of our primary and secondary schools or read this article, Faulty Towers, to hear about the inadequacies of our university system (this one is especially depressing for me since I really want to be a university professor and it begins with the statement, “going to graduate school is a suicide mission”). But regardless of some serious structural problems that we can overcome assuming the U.S. can rediscover some virtue and transparency in its politics (dammit Weiner... and I really liked you), I have come to truly appreciate the education I received in the States. 

        Okay. So, returning to my original point. Vietnam instilled in me a tremendous sense of freedom, and an appreciation for living extremely cheaply. I left there feeling like I want to live in a place like that for the rest of my life because I can have that continuous buzz from living in a foreign land, live extremely cheaply and live in a place where my skills and education are truly appreciated. The extremely obvious flip side, which I have failed to recognize until that night in Singapore, is that I need a few things in my life to be fulfilled: a great music scene, an intellectually engaged population that appreciates creativity, SEASONS (!!!! i've never missed winter so much) and, of course, an American girl, or two, to chase after (joking... no, but seriously)... And, it turns out that Southeast Asia has most of the things I need to be fulfilled, but there's simply no replacement for home. So, whether my mind changes completely tomorrow and I decide to live in Singapore for the next two years, at least I've discovered a new appreciation for home (another benefit of travel)

Okay, I gotta go. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to start writing with more regularity, but who knows. Either way, this place is clearly full of learning experiences. Now, if I could just find a job market that appreciates someone who is utterly confused by the world, but willing to try just about anything.