POSTING # 11

Post Office Parking Problems in Virgil; Making Barbie Dolls in Malaysia; What to do with a Gift Durian?; Washing Slip Covers in Ottawa; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)


Post Office Parking Problems in Virgil

Like most people in Virgil, we pick up our mail at the Post Office (I have seen only one neighbourhood set of mailboxes). The Post Office lobby, with rows of mailboxes, is open from 9 to 5, but the heaviest traffic is from 3---when the mail is sorted---to 5.

Some people can walk to the Post Office but many people drive, parking in front of the Post Office in a small rectangular parking lot. The lot is off a narrow lane, and has space for 6 cars.

The one entrance/exit is often congested as cars jostle to get in or out. In the lot itself there is more congestion as cars jockey to get in and out of the parking spots.

Our population is growing and I noticed they have added more boxes in the lobby, but have no new parking spots.

It can be frustrating (I overheard one woman in the lobby talking about “the parking rage out there”) and also potentially dangerous, especially to toddlers and seniors who are walking to or from the Post Office, as cars are backing up.

That’s the problem, now what are the solutions.

One is to have home delivery but that seems unlikely, given the cost.

Another is to put up neighbourhood boxes within walking distance of people’s homes (a good, green solution but again there are costs).

I like an ‘outside-the-box’ (or perhaps more accurately, an ‘outside-the-lobby’) solution.

I suggest we use some of Mr. Harper’s stimulus money to create Canada’s first-drive through post office. With a modest reconfiguration of the post office building and property, one could have a speaker post, like at Tim Hortons, where the person asks for the mail for box xxx and gives a PIN. Then the driver pulls up to a window and is handed the mail.

I wonder if the Post Office has a suggestion award program.

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I wrote the above on Wednesday and on Friday our daughter and son-in-law came to visit. She went with me to get the mail and seeing the parking lot congestion said, “This is crazy, why don’t they put in a drive-through?”

And I thought I was being so creative!


Making Barbie Dolls in Malaysia

In 1991, I was in Malaysia studying the nation’s Employment Service in order to prepare and deliver a training course for senior managers on how to make the Service more effective. My project was part of Canada’s support for the Prime Minister of Malaysia’s 20/20 strategy, that Malaysians should have a western standard of living by 2020.

Accompanied by an official of the Service, I toured some local employment offices and looked at the help being offered to unemployed workers. Then, we visited a few employers to see what they liked or didn’t like about the Service.

One of the employers was Mattel, which had recently opened a factory in Malaysia to make Barbie Dolls. An American from the Human Resources department described how they had recruited several thousand workers, most of them young, Muslim women. With help from the Employment Service, they had toured small farming and fishing villages, met with elders in each community and told them of the arrangements the company would make to ensure that the young women would be protected.

The company had built dormitories for the workers, had a fleet of buses that would carry them to and from the factory, and had hired older women who would ensure the younger women would have no unsupervised contact with men on or off the job. The community elders explained all this to the fathers of young women and, in general, the fathers agreed to let their daughters work for Mattel.

The Human Resources persons asked if I would like a tour of the plant, and I nodded. We went down a corridor, he opened a door, and gestured for my guide and me to go ahead.

Suddenly, we were in a vast, brilliantly-lit hall facing many hundreds of women seated at small work stations. The women, who wore head scarves and long Islamic clothing (but no veils), looked up, stared at us for a few moments and then went back to their particular task in the making of Barbie dolls--- clicking arms and legs into the doll torsos, making outfits and accessories, dressing the dolls and putting them into boxes.

We moved on to a much smaller room where men were seated at work stations stitching hair into the rubberized Barbie heads, pushing a large needle, threaded with ‘hair’ through the scalp, and tying off the strands. I was told that the men were paid more than the women in the other room because their work was more skilled. I wasn’t sure that the women couldn’t have been taught to do the job but every culture has its own customs and mores.

Years later, I can still recall vividly the feeling of awe as I looked out at the row upon row of Muslim women making Barbie Dolls.

Part of the awe was sparked by the incongruity of Muslim women assembling dolls that reflected values so foreign to traditional Islam---for example, uncovered hair, skimpy clothing, and bare arms and legs.

And part of it was the enormity of the change in these women’s lives. They had been living with their families in small rural communities, helping their parents, learning how to be homemakers and waiting for an arranged marriage. And suddenly they agreed (there was no suggestion of any compulsion) to a new life that involved being away from their families, living in dormitories and working in an enormous factory.

I wonder if any studies have been done on the impact of that abrupt change on their lives. Did the women work for a few years and then return to their communities and marry? If not, what happened to them? Were husbands found for them near the factory, and if so, did the women continue working? Did they feel happy with their decision to take these jobs?

It would be good to know.

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By the way, the Mattel plant was a financial success and Mattel subsequently opened other plants in Malaysia.

Evidence of Malaysia’s progress toward its 20/20 strategy was the opening in 1998 of the twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, for a time the tallest buildings in the world (the CN Tower is the tallest structure).

Overall, although there have been some ups and downs, Malaysia has made considerable economic progress since 1991, helped, I hope, by a more effective Employment Service.



What to do with a Gift Durian?

On the weekend after my tour of the Mattel plant, one of the Malaysian officials and his wife took me on a delightful tour of Kuala Lumpur. He was about 30 and his wife, dressed in head scarf and long dress, was in her early 20s. She sat in the backseat during our tour.

On our way back to my hotel, the official stopped by a fruit stand and I got out and admired the papayas, mangoes and local bananas. The official pointed to a fruit about the size of a large coconut, covered with sharp spikes, and asked the clerk if we could have a taste. The clerk sliced the top off one and dug out a small sample for each of us. The flesh was sweetish and mild but the smell was nose-holdingly bad. My host said the fruit was a durian, and he bought two and put them in the trunk. From the money handed over, I could tell they were expensive.

I had heard about durians but never seen one. There was a sign at the entrance of my hotel saying that durians were not allowed in hotel rooms and when I asked someone what the sign meant, he said that durians were a local fruit with a strong smell that was almost impossible to get out of carpets, drapes and bedding. Here is the Wikipedia article on durians.

Malaysians tell me they love the smell of durians, just a little whiff is enough to get them salivating. For me, durians have a sweet, rotting-vegetation odour that is really unpleasant. It all depends, I guess, on what one grew up with.

As I re-read what I have just written, I’m afraid that I haven’t adequately described the smell of durians.I keep thinking about the old challenge: how do you describe the taste of chocolate to someone who has never tried it.

Perhaps instead of trying to describe the smell, I should try to give some idea of its power and pungency. Here, there seem to me to be some parallels with Limburger cheese. First, both have smells that many people find objectionable. (Apparently, the odour of Limburger comes from bacteria that are added to the rinses that keep the ripening cheese moist. The bacteria are similar to those that cause body odour, and therefore things like stinky work socks.) Second, the taste of the product is surprisingly mild, and even pleasant.

The problem is that most people today have never smelled Limburger cheese---they have just heard comedians make fun of it.

When I was growing up there was a cheese factory in Western Ontario that produced it, and wrapped it in foil with three large X’s on it, signifying, I suppose, that this was really powerful stuff.

After my father had been called out at night to investigate a traffic accident, my mother would often prepare a sandwich for him made of Limburger cheese, Spanish onion and honey. He loved those sandwiches!

But back to my tour of Kuala Lumpur, we got out of the car at the hotel and I told the official and his wife how much I had enjoyed the tour. The official reached into the trunk and bringing out one of the durians tried to hand it to me.

“You will enjoy this”, he said.

I thought, what do I do now? How do I reject the durian without insulting or embarrassing this young, very kind couple? I can’t take it into the hotel, even if I wanted to. I could take it and give it to the doorman, but it was expensive and the couple should have the enjoyment of it.

Finally, I thanked them but told them I could not accept it, that they should take it and enjoy it.

He kept insisting that I should take it.

Growing flustered, I tried to put an end to the to-ing and fro-ing by holding out my hand. He took it, we shook hands, I said again how much I appreciated their kindness and said we would see each other at the office on Monday.

And then I did a really dumb thing.

I reached out my hand to his wife. She paused for a moment and then took it.

Later, in my room, I re-played the incident and realized that by shaking her hand I had rendered her unclean (a man other than her husband had touched her). She would have to go home and cleanse herself through a ritual washing.

I apologized on Monday but I still feel badly about my gaff.

If I had a chance of a re-do, I would take the darn durian and give it to the doorman.

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Sometime later, Pat and I were in London, England on holiday and we stopped in at Harrods’ Food Halls. We browsed through what must be the most comprehensive (and expensive) collection of foods on earth. On a whim, I asked a clerk in the fruit section if they ever had durian. He grew very apologetic and said, with a polished accent, that they didn’t stock them but they could get one for me in 24 hours.

Then he added, in a lowered voice, “We used to stock them, but they smelled up the Hall something awful.”

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One last story about durians.

After my trips to Malaysia, I read a news story about a man who was sleeping under a durian tree in, I think, Thailand, He was killed when a durian fell on his head and the spikes punctured his skull.

Definitely, a fruit to be avoided!!


Washing Slip Covers in Ottawa

One day, when we lived in Ottawa, Pat dropped in on one of her best friends and was surprised to see that she was washing the living room slip covers---surprised because the slip covers weren’t that dirty and because the friend, although a fine mother, was not a ‘neat freak’.

“Why are you washing the slip covers?”, Pat asked.

“Because they are dirty.”

As Pat looked at her quizzically, the friend confessed, “Because I have to do the income tax.”

Since then whenever we procrastinate, we say that we are washing slip covers.


Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Some of Cassidy’s Quirks

We bought our first home in 1967 on a quiet crescent in Beacon Hill North, a new development on the eastern edge of Ottawa. A few years later, Cassidy, our blond American Cocker Spaniel, joined us.

Usually, Cass enjoyed going for a walk to do his business but sometimes he would resist. He would plant his front paws at a forty-five degree angle and no amount of leash tugging could get him to budge.

I could never figure out why he rebelled sometimes and not others. Was it that he didn’t really have to ‘go’? Or was it fear of MacDuff, a German-Shepherd-type of dog at the top of our crescent. MacDuff had a loud, deep and ferocious-sounding bark, and a tremendous sense of smell. If MacDuff was in his back yard, and a dog ventured anywhere onto the crescent, MacDuff would soon pick up the scent and start barking.

Whenever Cassidy heard MacDuff bark, his head and shoulders would sink. Sometimes, he would start to shake.

Whatever the reason for the refusal to go for a walk, the children knew they had to get him to do his business. Finally, they found that if they carried him up the street, he would willingly walk back. So they would carry him up to the top of the crescent, not far from where MacDuff lived. On the way back, Cass would stop on top of the same manhole cover each day, squat, and do his widdle. As he widdled, he would twist his head to the side so he could hear the liquid hitting the water in the bottom of the drain.

When he was finished, he would shake himself, stand up and trot proudly home.

Looking back on it, I wonder if Cass thought that widdling down the manhole cover was a safe way of showing his disdain for MacDuff.

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I mentioned that Cass would ‘squat’ on the manhole cover. This was another of his quirks. He could cock his leg against a tree or fire hydrant but it was not a confident, steady cocking-of-the-leg. He tended to wobble a bit when he was on three legs and sometimes he had to rest his leg on the tree or fire hydrant to steady himself.

He generally preferred to squat.

This bothered the boys, “You are a boy-dog, Cass. You’re not supposed to squat.”

I guess we would say today, that Cass, who had not been ‘fixed’, was secure in his sexuality.

He would squat if he wanted.


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See you next Sunday for more stories from our family’s universe!