POSTING #104

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A Sin-Free Lifestyle in Malaysia

On February 13th, the BBC carried a story that began, "Malaysia has stepped up a campaign to stop Muslims celebrating Valentine's Day---labelling it a 'trap' that could encourage immoral behavior."

The story quoted the Deputy Prime Minister as saying that the February 14th celebration of romantic love was "not suitable' for Malaysian Muslims---who make up about 60% of the nation's population, with people of Chinese and Indian origin making up most of the rest.

It went on to say that several states in Malaysia were going to carry out checks on hotels to stop young couples from having premarital sex.

On February 15th, the day after Valentine's, Yahoo News reported that nearly 100 Muslims had been arrested for 'khalwat' which was defined as having close proximity with someone of the opposite sex other than one's spouse. Some of those arrested were teenagers who had rented hotel rooms for two hours for about US $15.

Those charged were told that they faced up to two years in jail and a fine.

The officials said their goal was to promote a sin-free lifestyle for Malaysian Muslims.

The Malaysian Government's attack on the Valentine's Day tradition reminded me of efforts the Government used to make, and perhaps still does, to confront another sin---not romantic love, but GAMBLING.

In February 1992 I was conducting a two-week management training course for senior officials of the Malaysian employment service. The course was held in the resort community of Genting Highlands, an hour's drive from Kuala Lumpur. Mary (not her real name), a Canadian trainer, assisted with the training, and Pat came along to provide support and to enjoy the beauty of the lush resort.

After dinner on our first evening in Genting Highlands, Pat and I were sipping coffee at a pool-side table. The air was soft and warm, and an almost-full moon looked down on us.

A perfect night---especially when we thought of the February cold and snow back in Canada.

And then. looking high and to our right, we saw what seemed to be a shimmering white palace floating in the air. Looking more closely we could see that it was a large building on top of a huge, dark mountain.

We asked the Muslim server about the building.

"It's a casino", she replied with a disapproving air.

I learned that although gambling is, of course, forbidden by Islam, the national government and clerical leaders had made a deal that permitted a developer to create a casino---so long as the developer ensured that Muslims were never allowed to enter. Apart from the 60% of Malaysians who are Muslim, the Chinese and Indian communities have many successful business people who love to gamble. In addition to local, non-Muslim patrons, the casino was designed to cater as well to tourist gamblers from Japan and other Asian nations.

I was intrigued by the casino and by how it managed to screen out Muslims. At the end of training one day, my assistant and I and three members of the course---a Muslim, who had a car and kindly offered to take us to the casino even though he couldn't go in, and two Chinese officials--- drove up to the casino, while Pat rode up in a scenic-tour cable car.

The old Korean-made sedan was too underpowered to be climbing mountains and as we laboured up the switchback road I kept wondering if we were going to have to get out and push. But we made it to the top.

And met a shaken Pat.

She had been the only woman in the cable car, crowded in with 10 or so men of Asian extraction, all of them shorter than her 5 feet 8 inches. She doesn't like heights at the best of times and instead of enjoying the view, as the advertising literature recommended, she focused on a spot on the roof of the car and waited for the torture to end.

Once Pat had recovered, we walked toward the casino.

Seen close up, the casino was pretty horrendous----not a glorious palace but rather a complex of tawdry and tired box-like buildings.

Our Muslim colleague stayed with his car and the rest of us entered the casino. Our passports were examined---the first step in screening out Muslims---and we were allowed to proceed. People who had Malaysian passports (mainly Chinese and Indian) were required to leave a deposit large enough to pay the travel costs back to their homes. The casino had learned that its patrons couldn't be trusted to hold back enough money for the trip home.

We were told that if we 'hit the jackpot' we would be required to spend the night at the casino hotel so we wouldn't be robbed by bandits on the way down the mountain. Apparently there was someone in the casino leaking information on big winners to the bandits!

As we entered the gaming area, burly Malaysians did the final Muslim screening (profiling?). They studied our faces to make sure we didn't look like Muslims---that is, that we didn't look like 60% of the population.

We changed some money for the slot machines and had a good time, joking as money kept disappearing into the machines, with only an occasional small win---which was promptly 're-invested'.

The other patrons weren't laughing. They were tense and agitated.

Let's face it, whether gambling is a sin or not, gambling is not fun and gamblers are not fun people!

Once we had lost all our slot machine money, we wandered over to the sections for 'serious' gambling--- a variety of card and dice games and, of course, roulette wheels. After a while we grew bored and left.

We all squeezed into the car, including Pat (she was NOT going back down in the cable car!). The car's brakes survived the steep trip down the mountain, although they squealed and smoked a bit.

In the remaining evenings at Genting Highlands, we would look up at the casino and marvel at how something that looked so hauntingly beautiful could be so banal and boring.

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After the course ended, we spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur so I could finish off my work with officials at the head office of the employment service. During lunch one day, I laughingly told one of the officials---a researcher of Indian origin with a good post-graduate degree from an American university---about our casino experience.

Thinking that I was serious about the lost money, he expressed regret and said that if he had known we were going to the casino he would have introduced me to a local 'gambling advisor'---read, 'fortune telle'r--- he knew. He said that most Chinese and Indian men in Malaysia went to such advisors before gambling. The advisors would analyze astrological data, the position of the stars etc. and then provide precise instructions on how to improve the odds of winning.

He told me that one of his friends had been told to climb over the fence at the local zoo and get a pheasant's egg and a feather from a nightingale. He was then to put the egg in the right pocket of his jacket and the feather in the left, and to make sure he entered the casino by the right-hand door at exactly 4 PM on a specified date.

As he finished this story, I'm afraid I laughed and blurted out, "And they take this seriously?'

The official bristled. "It works, not every time to be sure, but people who go to the fortune tellers win more often than those who don't. My friend, for example, won a great deal of money."

I thought of that advanced US degree and how even educated people can be superstitious---and then remembered that I will do anything to avoid walking under a ladder.

000

A final story about Malaysia, one that I think can be considered as part of this Posting's theme of trying to live a sin-free life in Malaysia.

While I was meeting with officials at the employment ministry in Kuala Lumpur, Pat, along with my assistant, Mary, and one other Canadian woman decided that they would like to visit an outdoor market noted for its gold jewellery. They were told by the hotel that it would be unwise to go by themselves---without a man---so they prevailed upon a friend of ours, a Canadian of Indian origin who happened to be in Malaysia on business, to accompany them.

We will call him George.

The hotel doorman got them a taxi, one of the large, air-conditioned cars that one finds at up-scale hotels.

It was one of Kuala Lumpur's typical hot, steamy days and the women found that after an hour or so at the market they couldn't take the sun and heat any more. They were eager to get back to the cool hotel.

With the three women standing at his side, George tried to flag down a taxi, not one of the fancy hotel taxis, just something that would get them back to the hotel.

Empty cab after empty cab ignored George's vigorous waves and sailed by without stopping.

One of the wilting women complained, "What's wrong with those taxis?'

George looked at the women, with a grin. "It's you damn white women. They think I'm a pimp with my girls. No decent Muslim is going to pick us up."

Finally, a taxi, driven by a non-Muslim, stopped and the women and George were soon back in the hotel, having a long cool drink in the bar.

And laughing about 'George and his girls'.


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See you on March 6 for Posting #105 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

POSTING #69

Knock Offs

You will remember that I got sucked into a knock off scheme that was selling counterfeit Red Green DVDs (see Posting # 58, February 7, 2010).

Since then I have seen many articles on knock offs. One told about two 18 year olds in Florida who were holding Tupperware-type parties at which they were selling knock off designer handbags. Unfortunately for them, two of their customers at a recent party were undercover detectives. The enterprising youngsters were arrested.

Apparently, there is an upsurge in the under-the-table sale of knock offs in the US, and probably in Canada as well.

The International Chamber of Commerce estimates that the knock off trade is worth around $500 billion annually, which is, of course, money that firms like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Christian Dior and Burberry will never see.

I thought I would share a few stories about my international experiences with knock offs.

000

First in Russia in the mid-1990s.

When I was setting up our Project's office in Moscow, we needed English-language software for our computers---they came with only Russian-language software.

I asked one of the Russian staff to buy word processing, spreadsheet and database programs, and gave him my credit card.

I saw him start when I said the word, 'buy'.

"You don't need to buy the software", he said, "I have a friend who has all that software. He won't charge us anything---maybe just a bottle of vodka."

Now, when I had retired from the Canadian Public Service in 1991, I had been well trained. One didn't, didn't, didn't ever use bootleg software. If the RCMP didn't get you in one of their periodic sweeps of computer systems, the departmental Information Technology people would. The IT people were afraid---quite rightly---of the introduction of viruses via illegal software.

With this background and with ample money in our Moscow budget for software, I explained why we should buy licensed software.

My Russian colleague looked at me, "But everyone does it here. No one would ever complain."

'No, let's buy the software."

"Please, please don't make me do this. All of my friends in the other offices will think we are crazy. Please don't embarrass me like that."

We did buy the software, but I noticed that the boxes the software came in were quickly hidden away so it would look as though we were 'normal' and had installed bootlegged programs.

000

Ten years later, in Azerbaijan, the computers and software for our project were all legal. The European Union that was funding the project had even tougher rules than Canada about using only properly licensed products.

But outside the office---in the streets---it was another matter.

One of the local computer stores was selling disks for $2 that a clerk told me had computer software worth over a thousand dollars, programs that had been stripped of the codes installed by the software companies to prevent piracy.

DVDs of first run movies were available for two or three dollars. The quality wasn't great---I was told that they were copied by someone sitting in a cinema with a video recorder---but the price was certainly right.

Foreign visitors to Baku regularly stocked up on both the software and the movies.

000

Rolex watches have always been a favourite of counterfeiters. I remember years ago seeing people on street corners in the US and Canada selling Rolex knock offs quite openly. Then the authorities cracked down and the Rolexes disappeared.

During a trip to Malaysia in 1991, we discovered where the Rolexes had gone----there were tables of them in the markets of Kuala Lumpur.

We bought a man's and a woman's, for $10 each. They were to be just conversation pieces because Pat and I had discovered earlier on that we couldn't wear knock off watches because they either turned our wrists green or brought on a rash.

Sticking the watches in a suitcase, we forgot about them. When we arrived back in Canada, it was obvious that the suitcase had been tampered with. I worried about a valuable camera and a fancy shortwave radio, but they were safe.

You guessed it. The only items missing were the knock off Rolexes.

000

A final story about knock offs.

I am only going to say that the story happened somewhere in Asia.

Pat and I were riding the hotel shuttle into the downtown area one day. The bus was full of well-dressed women from many countries in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Although they were from different countries, they obviously knew each other.

One of them told us that their husbands were working on an international treaty and had regular meetings around the world, in places like Rome, London, and Tokyo. The wives usually tagged along on these trips and they liked to get together to do some sightseeing and shopping.

(As you can infer, this happened some years ago when treaty negotiations were conducted almost exclusively by men. The situation today would be quite different.)

The woman told us that she and her friends were off that day to a particular part of the city that sold knock offs. The local authorities, she explained, had clamped down on the public display of knock offs but there were still stores that sold them---but you had to go into the back of the store or into a basement and ask to see them.

Her eyes glistened when she talked about the quality and low price of the counterfeit handbags, belts, watches, and jewellery you could get at these shops.

When we asked what kind of treaty the husbands were working on, she looked more than a bit sheepish.

It was a treaty on intellectual property that would require all countries to ban knock offs.

Now, there must be a moral in there somewhere.

Pat and I put our heads together and came up with these morals (you are invited to try your hand at one as well):

"Strike while the iron is hot."

"While the cat's away the mice will play."

"Do as I say, not as I do."

000

POSTSCRIPT

After finishing the above part of the posting, I came across an article in the St. Catharines Standard (Friday, April 23, 2010) about the Canadian classical and jazz guitarist and composer, Jesse Cook.

In an interview, Cook told about one of his songs being bootlegged by an Indian, 'Bollywood', movie. Here is an excerpt from the article that serves, I think, as a perfect ending to this posting:

"A song of mine was ripped off by one of the highest-grossing Bollywood movies of the last few years," he says.
"Their big hit single was a song called Dhoom Dhoom (recorded by Tata Young), which was in fact my song Mario Takes a Walk."
He found out about the alleged copycat song, used in the movie Dhoom, from an Indian fan who wrote him on MySpace.
"It was the weirdest thing. Here was this blatant act of plagiarism and in fact, I loved it. I loved the version that this artist did, I thought it was better than my own," he says with a laugh.
"I just wished they'd called me and said, 'You know, we'd like to use your song.' Because there's no reason to steal when I would be happy to share."

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See you next Sunday for Posting #70 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com

POSTING # 3

POSTING # 3: Canada Geese Drop in on Virgil, Waiting for a Woman in Amman, The World’s Greatest Vodka, Falling into a Storm Sewer in Kuala Lumpur, Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)



Canada Geese Drop in on Virgil

Our home backs onto a large park, and this week a huge flock of Canada Geese used it as a rest stop on their way south.

Now, I happen to like Canada Geese but I know they have their detractors.

Golfers hate them---remember the story of a angry golfer who killed a goose with his putter after the goose had swallowed his ball.

Airline pilots fear them---a goose can smash the windshield or demolish an engine.

Farmers get angry about the damage to their crops.

And people strolling in parks complain about the amount of goose poop---it is certainly true that geese poop frequently and copiously.

I guess what I like about these geese is the skill, dedication and, yes, love they show in raising their young. I enjoy watching the parents take 6 or 8 gosling for a trip on the water or land. The male leads the way while the mother stays back watching for goslings who try to goof off. You can almost hear her saying, “For goodness sake Herbie and Freda, get back in line!”

And when the family is feeding, one of the parents always acts as a sentinel, head up watching for dogs, hawks and other predators.

Male geese can be aggressive in defending their young---just ask a dog that has been battered by a flurry of goose wings---and also very competitive over food and mating.

We were wondering how the males managed to forego all that aggressiveness and competitiveness and become cooperative with others during migration. A biologist friend told us that nature had found a way to turn the males into more cooperative beings. As migration time approaches, the male birds’ testes shrink and they produce less testosterone. After the migration south and back north is completed, the testes grow back to their original size, ready for another round of breeding.

It seems to me that there may be a Nobel Peace Prize for some scientist who can figure out how to use the Canada Goose technique to reduce human testosterone levels during perilous times of economic, military and political challenges.

Just a thought.


Waiting for a Woman in Amman

A driver had picked me up at my hotel in Amman, Jordan to take me to an Embassy reception. First, we had to pick up a Canadian official at another hotel.

The driver checked the lobby but there was no sign of the woman official. He settled back into the van.

“Women are always late”, he said.

“You better not let your wife hear you say that.”

“My wife! I have three wives.”

“Oh.”

As we waited for the official, he told me the story of his three wives. He married his first wife but after a number of years there were no children.

He decided to take a second wife but didn’t divorce his first wife. She stayed in their apartment and he found another apartment for the new wife. He said that, as his religion required, he divided his time equally between the two wives.

A few years passed but there were still no children. He decided to take a third wife, and rented yet another apartment for her. He said that it was easier for his Bedouin cousins who lived in the desert---when they took another wife, they just had to buy another tent.

It was a case of third time lucky and they had a boy and a girl who were now 14 and 12 and, as he said proudly, both healthy and bright. He had hoped that they would be able to go to college or university but he was worried that there wouldn’t be enough money for tuition. Costs of everything were rising and it was expensive to maintain three homes. He was a veteran and the government had a modest program to help the children of veterans. And if the children did well in their exams they might win full scholarships but the chances of that were not great---competition was very tough.

The driver shook his head, “I don’t know what is going to happen”.

Just then the official arrived---she had been on the phone to Canada---and we set off for the reception.

Our discussion was in 2001 and while the cost of living in Amman was rising then, it has soared since the start of the Iraq war in 2003. I often wonder what happened to the driver, his three wives and the two children, who would now be 21 and 19.




The World’s Greatest Vodka

Talking of receptions reminds me of the many official dinners my interpreter and I attended as we travelled across Russia during the planning for the creation of model employment offices. Our hosts were always enormously generous with their food---wonderful local and national dishes---and with their vodka.

Prior to the first (of many) toasts, a local official would always tell us that we were about to taste a special local vodka that was clearly the best vodka in Russia, and therefore, of course, in the world.

At one of the dinners, I playfully asked about the criteria that Russians used in judging different vodkas. The usual response was, “Well, you just know”, but I would persist that we had to be more scientific; we had to isolate the key criteria. The question provoked a lot of good natured bantering and my interpreter and I used the question at many of our dinners.

After lord knows how many dinners and how many toasts, here are the criteria that great vodka must meet:

1. Clarity. It should be as clear as fresh water.
2. Smell. There should be no smell.
3. Taste. It should have a clean taste, not oily.
4. It should go down the throat smoothly, not burn on the way down.
5. There should be no headache the next day.
6. It should affect the legs before the head----after many toasts one can still talk even though one can’t walk.
7. Finally, if the vodka is really good, and there is enough, one no longer needs an interpreter.

The criteria for vodka served us well, breaking the ice and getting conversations flowing.

There was another gambit we used to break the ice. Almost all the dinners involved a course of borscht---my favourite soup. After praising the soup, I would ask which was right: to put the sour cream in the bowl and pour the soup over it, or to add the sour cream after the soup is in the bowl. And then, the interpreter and I would sit back and listen to the proponents of each argue that the ‘right way, the only way’ is this or that. It was fun.



Falling into a Storm Sewer in Kuala Lumpur

I was in Kuala Lumpur in November 1991 as a consultant to assess the Malaysian Employment Service and prepare a leadership training course for senior managers.

I had arrived on Friday and was using the weekend to tour the city and get over jet lag before my meetings started on Monday. On Saturday, after breakfast, I talked with the hotel staff and they gave me maps and instructions on touring the old part of the city. They said the weather would be fine for touring, sunny and hot, but they warned me that it was the monsoon season and there was likely to be a heavy rain storm in the evening.

I toured the old city and had an early dinner so I could get back to the hotel before a storm hit. Either I miscalculated or the storm came early that Saturday. I had just stepped outside the restaurant when sheets of rain started to fall.

Cities in Malaysia have to have ways of carrying off the heavy rains. In that part of the old city, there was a deep ditch along the front of buildings with slabs of concrete across that created a sidewalk. There was an inch or two gap between the slabs so the water could drain into the ditch. It is an excellent system that serves two purposes, getting rid of the rain and providing a sidewalk for people. Excellent, that is, unless someone steals a slab.

I was walking along, rain running down my face, trying to find a taxi when I stepped onto a slab that wasn’t there. Down I went, hitting my chest against a slab that WAS there and knocking the air out of me. When I caught my breath, I was standing in the ditch with water running past my knees. Some people helped me clamber out and find a taxi.

Soon I was back in the Pan Pacific Hotel checking the damage. Apart from a nasty scrape on the chest and some sore ribs I seemed fine. I had a hot bath, wrote an email to Pat telling her I had fallen into a sewer but was fine and went to bed.

The next morning there was an email from Pat saying that she had told B and B guests at breakfast about my sewer adventure. One of the guests knew Kuala Lumpur well and said that criminals used the storm sewers to dispose of the bodies of their victims---the water flushed them out to sea. Just what Pat needed to hear!

My chest was feeling pretty sore so I called the Canadian High Commission and they recommended a clinic they used to examine potential immigrants to Canada. A kindly doctor checked me over, gave me a tetanus shot and some antibiotic cream for the scrape. She thought my ribs were fine but ordered a chest x-ray to be sure.

The clinic was not used to dealing with tall people. As I stood against the wall, the technician strained to get the x-ray camera up as high as it would go. Finally, she took the picture and I went back to wait for the doctor. After thirty minutes, the doctor called me in. She was laughing, “Look at this”, pointing to my x-ray on the illuminated panel. The image showed the bottom half of my chest.

“You are too tall”, she said.

She felt my ribs again and sent me on my way, saying that if the pain got worse, I should get back to her.

As it turned out, my ribs were fine but I took a lot of ribbing (sorry about that) from colleagues who loved to tell about the consultant who fell into a sewer.



Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Friends took their toddler to a fine restaurant in Yorkshire. He sat in his high chair, ate well and was charming with the waitress. He then asked if he could get down and walk around a bit. Our friends looked at each other and decided that he had been so good they would let him. The boy wandered down to the back of the restaurant, smiling at the diners and chatting with them. Our friends took a deep breath and relaxed.

Suddenly, there was a muffled but distinct little explosion that came from the toddler. He stopped, felt in his diaper and then shouted, “Dus gas Mommy”.




One of our grand-daughters had received a first bike and she and her dad went shopping for a helmet. The salesperson brought out several models and he and our son talked about size, cushioning, straps etc. Finally, as the salesperson bent down to take another helmet out of a box, our grand-daughter leaned over and whispered to him, “I think I need a red one”.


Another grand-daughter, about three at the time, was shopping with her dad. They got back to the car and he discovered that he had left the keys in the locked car. The little girl sensed there was something wrong, and then the light came on. She gave a world-weary shake of her head, “Not AGAIN, Daddy”


NEXT SUNDAY

Watch for a more stories from our universe in next Sunday’s Letter from Virgil.