Deporting Sex
Good news! I finally found out what happened to all the sex that Malaysia wasn't using. It got deported to Thailand. Taken together, the two countries are like Descartes' mind-body dualism, where Malaysia takes care of the spirit and Thailand takes care of the body. And does it ever.
Of course now might be a good time to talk about the limited sample sizes I'm working with here. I'm really just comparing Terengganu with the beautiful and touristy island of Phuket (to my profound disappointment, pronounced pooh-KET).
It was bizarre walking down the street at Kata Beach with Sarah, Julia, and Kiyomi (friends of Sarah's and mine from way back in high school). Everyone we passed wanted to either touch my body, clothe my body, feed my body, get my body drunk, have my body stay in their hotel, or take my body on a boat ride. And I'll be honest, it felt good to be wanted. You see, people here in Malaysia don't objectify my body, they just objectify my ability to speak English. They don't care that I might give them money if they do things to my body, they just want to give me money in exchange for teaching them valuable skills. Needless to say, a body gets neglected and depressed after a time. As Toni Morrison said, "you got to love it" (or else go to Thailand and pay someone $6 an hour to love it for you. That's for a Thai massage by the way. I don't know anything about the prostitutes, although we were pretty sure we saw one playing Connect Four with a 10 year-old boy while his father watched. I couldn't tell who won.).
And they do go to Thailand, by the thousands. Phuket is an endless parade of pink, bronze, and red flesh, from one end to the other and it's exciting just to get lost in the middle of it. I saw body parts on those beaches that are not often shown in public in Muslim countries, and other body parts that are not nearly as well outlined by garments.
Bodies were everywhere, in various states of undress. I was presented with a swizzle stick featuring a cross between a naked woman and a spoon, a spoon-maid, if you will, following the same equation of woman + fish = delightful mutant.
One of the better things my body got to do was to take a festive boat ride with Sarah and our friends to the other little islands which were every bit as featured in The Beach as the tour guides said they were.
I was however a little bit disappointed at the section where we were supposed to "feed a piece of bananas to monkeys at monkey beach." Instead, Sarah and I watched from back of the boat as Julia and Kiyomi in the front of the boat got urine and feces flung on them by monkeys who were angry that their piece of bananas had landed in the water. They were annoyed that they were covered in monkey excrement, and we were annoyed that we were unable to take pictures of them being covered in monkey excrement. Lose-lose. (Lose-lose-lose, if you count how the monkeys felt, although lose-lose-lose-win if you factor in the piece of bananas, floating away to freedom.)
Other items of note are the tasty, but still vastly inferior, cousin to roti chennai, the Thai banana pancake. It's sweeter, thicker, and dare I say it, a bit more soulless. Still, I have nothing but praise for the food on the whole. I got a decent loaf of bread at two different bakeries, the water was cheap and bottled, and the tom yum was the best ever.
Besides the sandy meat market, the strangest thing was that traveling with Kiyomi was a bit like traveling into the future for Sarah and me. Kiyomi was an ETA in Thailand and just finished up her contract, so she's what "done" looks like. Her Thai was really impressive and I look forward to the time when I can show people around my country (and to the time when I can be done with teaching too, to some extent). But the weekend did end on a high note. As I got onto the plane back to Kuala Terengganu they were playing Sexyback. So maybe sex is finally coming back to Malaysia. I'll keep an eye out for the massage parlors.
-Ez
Of course now might be a good time to talk about the limited sample sizes I'm working with here. I'm really just comparing Terengganu with the beautiful and touristy island of Phuket (to my profound disappointment, pronounced pooh-KET).
It was bizarre walking down the street at Kata Beach with Sarah, Julia, and Kiyomi (friends of Sarah's and mine from way back in high school). Everyone we passed wanted to either touch my body, clothe my body, feed my body, get my body drunk, have my body stay in their hotel, or take my body on a boat ride. And I'll be honest, it felt good to be wanted. You see, people here in Malaysia don't objectify my body, they just objectify my ability to speak English. They don't care that I might give them money if they do things to my body, they just want to give me money in exchange for teaching them valuable skills. Needless to say, a body gets neglected and depressed after a time. As Toni Morrison said, "you got to love it" (or else go to Thailand and pay someone $6 an hour to love it for you. That's for a Thai massage by the way. I don't know anything about the prostitutes, although we were pretty sure we saw one playing Connect Four with a 10 year-old boy while his father watched. I couldn't tell who won.).
And they do go to Thailand, by the thousands. Phuket is an endless parade of pink, bronze, and red flesh, from one end to the other and it's exciting just to get lost in the middle of it. I saw body parts on those beaches that are not often shown in public in Muslim countries, and other body parts that are not nearly as well outlined by garments.
Bodies were everywhere, in various states of undress. I was presented with a swizzle stick featuring a cross between a naked woman and a spoon, a spoon-maid, if you will, following the same equation of woman + fish = delightful mutant.
One of the better things my body got to do was to take a festive boat ride with Sarah and our friends to the other little islands which were every bit as featured in The Beach as the tour guides said they were.
I was however a little bit disappointed at the section where we were supposed to "feed a piece of bananas to monkeys at monkey beach." Instead, Sarah and I watched from back of the boat as Julia and Kiyomi in the front of the boat got urine and feces flung on them by monkeys who were angry that their piece of bananas had landed in the water. They were annoyed that they were covered in monkey excrement, and we were annoyed that we were unable to take pictures of them being covered in monkey excrement. Lose-lose. (Lose-lose-lose, if you count how the monkeys felt, although lose-lose-lose-win if you factor in the piece of bananas, floating away to freedom.)
Other items of note are the tasty, but still vastly inferior, cousin to roti chennai, the Thai banana pancake. It's sweeter, thicker, and dare I say it, a bit more soulless. Still, I have nothing but praise for the food on the whole. I got a decent loaf of bread at two different bakeries, the water was cheap and bottled, and the tom yum was the best ever.
Besides the sandy meat market, the strangest thing was that traveling with Kiyomi was a bit like traveling into the future for Sarah and me. Kiyomi was an ETA in Thailand and just finished up her contract, so she's what "done" looks like. Her Thai was really impressive and I look forward to the time when I can show people around my country (and to the time when I can be done with teaching too, to some extent). But the weekend did end on a high note. As I got onto the plane back to Kuala Terengganu they were playing Sexyback. So maybe sex is finally coming back to Malaysia. I'll keep an eye out for the massage parlors.
-Ez
Ted, the Gay Probe
PS On the same plane ride I saw someone reading a paper with the headline "Deputy IGP Orders Gay Probe." It doesn't say what he ordered the Gay Probe to do, but there is a direct quote from the Probe saying that he has faced a fare amount of discrimination, but is not deterred in his fight for gay probe marriage. He is also still working to revise the administration's overtly probe-ophobic "don't ask, don't probe" policy. The Deputy IGP was quick to respond with "some of my best friends are gay probes," but we over at Ezra in Malaysia don't believe his rhetoric for a second. You don't order your friends. This kind of talk has no place in this new era of tolerance. Stand with me for Gay Probe rights.
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