Penang, Malaysia.
I have been wearing my sandals nonstop since arriving in the southeast. In the islands, they kept my feet cool and comfortable giving my toes easy access to the warm waters. Now they are two strapped flabby pieces of rubber that keep my feet half an inch above the filth I've been walking through. It's too hot for shoes, so I deal with the rats.
I'm in Malaysia now, and it is tremendously different from thailand. People's faces are darker and more bearded. They speak better english. Serious western influences: Narrow streets, ancient cracked buildings. It's like a typical medeterranean city which was baked in asian heat for two hundred years. International in a very old way. Odd though, I'm the only American i've met so far. Lots of aussies, dutch, retired brits.
An old man sat at a table with me today while I was reading. He was chinese, spoke perfect English.
"You americans afraid of malaysia, give us a bad wrap. We are not extremists, you only afraid of yourselves." He had a bald spot and a very bright smile, and told this to me cheerfully. He seemed very kind.
Not sure what to think yet, just got here yesterday. Being in the city changes one's perception in a very distinct way. People are no longer happy to see farang walking down the street. Fewer smiles projected. It makes sense, if you live in a place where the most nature you experience are street dogs with skin conditions and your window looks out onto a brick wall. But people lay down their ploughs, and leave their huts in the countryside, and come in droves because they are poor.
When I was motorbiking through a little rural villiage in Mae Hong Son near Pai, everyone waved with big grins. The next day we were on a dirt road to the main waterfall where lots of tourists pass, and little kids were playing with paper kites. One of the children had burns all over his face and arms, and was slathered in some white cream. He had the smallest kite out of everyone, and would run down the street as fast as he could watching over his shoulder as the kite floated into the air for a moment, then dropped back onto the dusty road. There wasn't enough wind to keep it up.
We watched them for a long time, but none of them seemed to care that we were there. They saw farang all the time, and we didn't represent anything to them. This said something to me about the nature of our interactions with this poor culture. The fact that almost everyone i've met here has been kind and sweet offset my original judgment. It's easy to write off a culture as content when they introduce themselves to you with benevolent kindness. There is subjectivity in human perception, and these people may be perfectly happy living in tin huts all their lives eating rice. If they were, then I'd feel much better about my relative affluence. Hard to say though. It is too easy to write off kindness as happiness.
I'll be chewing on this one for awhile, but I needed to share.
Love,
Tobias