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| Travelogue #10 October 2009 |
Dateline: Aenon, Rambai Melaka, Malaysia; October 16, 2009—Time is a’flying. I was boarding a jet for Malaysia in South Korea the last time I wrote and now tomorrow night I will begin the reverse journey, back to South Korea, then to Japan, then skipping twice across America on my way to Africa again. Just a few more words about Japan, a few from Korea, and some more about Malaysia.
That last weekend in Japan, at a place called Hamamatsu, was so very rewarding. As I said in #9, it was a very mixed audience, from Japan, South America and the Philippines. But they were so receptive to the whole series. Now, having such an audience presents one major problem; translation. The first night, two translators were speaking into transmitters that were picked up by headsets worn by the Japanese speakers and the Portuguese speakers. Those from the Philippines have no problem with English. So I stood out there by myself and spoke, trying to pace myself according to the murmuring I was hearing from the translators. Apparently I galloped a bit too fast in places because the next day, the Portuguese translator stood by my side and that also gave the Japanese translator time to translate.
We had meetings all day on Sunday and they too went very well. That night we drove about two hours to a former student’s home where we were to spend the night. What a house. Build 200 years ago, it has withstood major earthquakes and was built in the time of the Samurai. Trees about a foot across had been used as major supports, like joists, and the rest of the house was build to conform to their curves and bends. One of the main functions of the house, besides housing the family that lives there, is to provide a place of worship for the people of the surrounding area. Many of those who attend this home church are Brazilian.
Monday morning early we were on the trains again. I was heading for Narita and the flight to South Korea. Two years ago in a journey to the airport I had missed my flight and had to spend the night in the airport and purchase a new ticket. Not wanting this to happen again, I made sure there was plenty of wiggle room and even more added on for a possible woops moment as I see my stop flying by. But this time I was in plenty of time and was able to relax for a couple hours before boarding Korean Air for the 2 and a half hour flight to Inchon, South Korea.
The trip to Korea consists of one two-hour lecture at Sahmyook University. That’s it, one lecture. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was fall, the weather was cool at night and just warm in the day. The sky was clear, which was a bit abnormal for the times I have visited there, and I had plenty of time to walk. The lecture itself was on Tuesday. Looking at the main issues in health today, I decided to speak on H1N1. Most of the students were quite attentive and entertained, if nothing more. I was entertained too.
Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like speaking from notes. It bogs me down and causes me to cast about for my place if I get off script. Maybe I can buy one of Obama’s used teleprompters in three years. But in Korea, I am asked to submit my talk verbatim to the brilliant professor who invites me over each year. So, I hammer out a talk, then illustrate it with pictures for a Keynote presentation. It turned out pretty good, too. When I arrive at Sahmyook, I meet with the professor and we go over terms he is not familiar with. His English is good but my accent is probably as strong to him as his is to me, and that is VERY strong. Being American, I have to be careful for idioms, which pepper most fellow countrymen’s speech. He makes Korean comments all over his copy of my talk
to remind himself of what I was meaning and where I was going. When he is satisfied, we head for the meeting. And every time, when I stand up to speak, he lays his notes on my lectern and walks over center stage and from there, translates. I will say a sentence and he will look at me and say Huh? Rephrased, we ramble on. I will say a mouthful and he will say one word. Pretty “green” translation since when we talk we expel carbon dioxide. Gore would have been proud of the effort. But all in all it was a good talk and the students paid reasonable attention.
I now had a day and a half before flying on so climbed the mountain I normally climb and fortuitously entered the music auditorium to find an orchestra practicing. Three of four times I went in there on Tuesday and Wednesday and each time received a command performance. They were so good. One of the main pieces featured a trombone. Normally assigned to a marching band, this guy was great. It was such a relaxing way to spend a bit of free time.
Thursday, 8 October, I flew to Kuala Lumpur, a six and a half hour flight on the least populated flight I have been on in a long time. I had a whole center section row to myself. For a while I had my Bible and lecture notes out, looking over them, making additions and trying to fix them in my mind. After I had put them away, a man from across the aisle asked whether I were an academic. Now, That would cause a few of my college professors to double over with laughter, and it even struck me as a bit amusing. But he had seen me with a big book open and papers spread over two seats. Explaining that I was a naturopath and was really just a teacher, we struck up a very rewarding conversation. He worked for Shell Oil and lived in Kuala Lumpur. He volunteered to show me his city but I was destined for other places. I was able to leave him with some pointers to thwart the threatening H1N1. Let me tell you, the Asian nations are practically paranoid about the swine flu. It is so good to know we can do more than just sneeze into our sleeves.
Kuala Lumpur lies about two hundred miles north of Singapore which means it is hot and humid here. Last time I was in Singapore was the spring of 1975. The task force I was with had just left Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where we evacuated expatriates before Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge started killing the others. We had no idea how long we would be in Singapore, but it was rumored it could be upwards of two weeks. But finally Ambassador Graham Martin said, “I want out of here,” so the task force re-gathered off the coast of Vietnam for the final act.
All that to say, I have known this type of heat. Frankly, it is like being in Alabama in July. It was about a two-hour drive up to Rambai Melaka and the medical missionary school called Aenon. It was here a very special segment of this journey began.
Many Chinese students come to Aenon and when their new facility is up and running, by next fall, they plan on having 60 students at a time. Drawing that number of students is very realistic. Not just because of the 1.2 billion Chinese in China, but because of the desire in these young people to do medical missionary work. But it isn’t just Chinese there. Of course Malaysians attend, there are three students doing a practicum from Germany who attended a medical missionary course in Germany and have worked in Venezuela and other places. There is a young man from Pakistan, and students and or staff are or have been there from Japan, Myanmar, Singapore and who knows where else.
The purpose of my being there was to be the main speaker at a family camp. Once a year the whole of the Aenon family moves to the N.U.B.E. hotel overlooking the Strait of Malacca. It was my first time working with Chinese. One young woman in the group had come to Aenon as a patient. She was so blessed she asked to remain for a while as an unpaid volunteer. This woman is a conflict manager for BP in China. She asked for an unpaid leave and they said it was against policy so she told them she quit. This woman is high caliber; BP China changed their policy and gave her the unpaid leave, and also paid her administrative fees. Can’t remember exactly what it was they paid, but she is at Aenon and her job is waiting for her back in China. Another young woman is a biochemist. Well, she was a biochemist for after being at Aenon she has dedicated her life to this work. This is a beautiful young woman. They are all beautiful in so many ways. We see the stereotypical pictures of scowling Chinese policemen holding the heads of their cowering prisoners down in submission, and the soldiers eying the camera coldly. Well, I am sure that is true, but the citizens, at least the ones I met, are the best. Talented, committed, warm-hearted. It makes the invitation I have received to enter China and help start a medical missionary school in the south all the more tempting. I am willing as God wills.
They did something interesting on the first day of the camp. Each person drew a name of one of the other staff or students. The person drawing the name was not the little angel to the one drawn, who was now called the master. So everyone had and angel and everyone was a master…except me. Somehow I was left out. The angles were to look over their masters, caring for their needs, giving them surreptitious notes of encouragement. There was a board where the notes were placed. But flowers would be delivered during meals, special food items were sent to the master’s table. It was so much fun. Then notes started appearing for me. I was doing two 1½ hour talks a day. I have done a lot of speaking, a lot a lot. But this was different. This was a whole school having a special session, and I was the guest speaker. The pressure was on. But my angel apparently listened closely and gave me such warm words of encouragement. I am one of those weak souls that need such random acts of kindness.
The last day the masters tried to guess who their angels were. A few nailed it but most had not a clue, and I was one of those. Who was mine? The BP woman. She noticed two of us did not have angels so she became our angel as well as her own master’s angel. When an example of caring for others. I encouraged the gathering not to stop this habit but to expand it, not to just one person, but to commit one act of random kindness every day. How much brighter our world would be if we tried that.
I did have a unique experience the second day at Aenon. They prepared me a small super if fresh fruit. I like fruit, even love fruit. But when I saw the plate, I had no idea what it was; had never seen any of it before. There were two piles of nut looking objects. One the size of a walnut or larger and very dark, the other smaller and lighter. The third looked for all the world what I imagine a poached rat would look like after its appendages had been removed. It was a ghastly yellowish color, a bit wrinkled, about the length and girth of a rat. Not, I knew it was not a rat, but that is a hard image to erase from your mind. But there was another image ever stronger I had to try to erase once they told me what it was. That’s right, at last I have tried durian. My computer dictionary defines it as, “an oval spiny tropical fruit containing a creamy pulp. Despite its fetid smell, it is highly esteemed for its flavor.” It was the “fetid small” part I had always heard about. Then, feeling I had to try it, the texture was a bit challenging. It was a cross between creamy and pasty. Frankly, it wasn’t all that bad, once it passed the nose. One thing I will say for it; the flavor stays with you. For the rest of the day I could taste and smell it.
The walnut sized fruit I had to be shown how to open. It sounds as if they were calling it mongeese or mongoose. You squeeze it between your hands till it splits. So my friend showed me how to open it and turned her attention to another conversation. The inside is a reddish purple; looked rather tasty. So I scooped out a worthy spoonful and poked it in my mouth. Even bitten an unripe persimmon. So astringent, so unpalatable. A rat and a green persimmon; things were looking grim. I commented all alum tongued something about how it would take some getting used to. Discovering what I had eaten, she told me the big white thing in the middle was the fruit, not the inside of the husk. Oh well, bitter is good for the liver. It tasted much like a lichee, as did the other fruit.
Aenon is building a whole new center because civilization is encroaching all around them. The first morning I was there I awoke to the most unearthly noise I have heard in a long time. I was still very tired from the trip and it took a while to recognize what I was hearing were twenty imams calling the faithful to morning prayers. Not one of them could carry a tune in their turban, and they made such a racket that when they were done, every rooster in the province was crowing as if the KFC had just closed. I normally like hearing the call to prayer but here there is no premium placed on quality, only volume. Besides the noise, the rubber tree plantation what once served as a screen from the rest of the world had been mown down and replaced with a rough scrabble field of manioc.
This email was begun in Aenon where I left last night at 7 PM for a taxi ride to Kuala Lumpur. Just after midnight the flight began to Incheon. From there I flew here to Japan. Tomorrow afternoon the long flight to Africa begins. Narita-Minneapolis/St. Paul-Atlanta and on to Johannesburg. The next morning, the 21st I will fly on to Lusaka.
Sorry the travelogues are a bit Spartan and even boring. It has all been so exciting but I am just tired and need to let the few who have read this far go out and get some fresh air. If anything of note comes to my memory, I will be sure to let you know.
See you next time at Riverside farm, Zambia.
God bless
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Posted by WorldMighty on 2009-10-28 13:36:22 | Rating: | Views: 5
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