Kuala Lumpur: Mary and Harvey as Buddhists and British Colonists, for the day

Grammy Harvey joining us at our favorite neighborhood Buddhist temple

Abraham taught Grammy Harvey how to pray

Watching the Buddhist monks pray, chant, and sing

Our Buddhist temple serves an extremely cheap, fresh lunch!
Mary's holding our favorite fresh lime juice

Harv found the Chinese noodle soup lady. Made him so happy to have the best bowl of noodle soup he's had since his culinary trip to China

Abraham's lunch 3 days a week at the Buddhist temple:
Pork, Some sort of sweet potato, egg roll, Pumkin cookies

Green tea soup!

Water monitor slithering through the water at Lake Gardens

Pre-tea stroll in the gardens

Ah, the Colonial life. Hey, wait, where's my guy carrying an umbrella over my head all the time here?
The elegant maitre-d at the British Colonial-era high tea at the Carcosa Seri Negara hotel in Lake Gardens

Carcosa Seri Negara hotel at top of hill overlooking Lake Gardens and KL

Running up and rolling down

April 3, 2011

Kuala Lumpur: Mary and Harvey get a taste of our life in KL!

Harvey and Mary arrive!

Happy hugs

Early morning school bus pick-up

Subway ("LRT") trip to the kids' school

International School of Kuala Lumpur

Griffin's soccer field - he plays twice a day, three times on Tuesdays!

Alice, proud of her Grammy reading

Grammy and Harvey reading Alice's book on Komodo Dragons

Alice's Komodo Dragon diorama

Boom's snack time, always outdoors!

We joined Boom to chase him and his friends at recess

Boom's class has pretended to camp in his class, using the blue tent in the back

The girl on the left has a crush on Boom

Taxi Dog!

Alice and Boom's friend, Valeria

Boom's recent artwork: "I am the driver on the boat. My mommy and daddy are drivers. Cousins give people food and drinks. Friends take food away."

A book documenting Boom's progress over his school year.

See the change in Boom writing his name from top to bottom, from beginning of school year to now

Alice's complex jump rope recess activity

3 Generations of Women in Asia!

Durian is an extra stinky fruit, loved or hated

Chinese Steamboat dinner (boiled seafood in soup, you boil it yourself) and chili crab

Petronas towers in distance

April 1, 2011

We were SO relieved to have Mary and Harvey come to visit us for 11 days. We really really miss them. We were so used to having them be such an important part of our lives, with their weekly babysitting for an afternoon and night and more in NYC. We thought they weren’t going to be able to visit but were surprised when they decided to come, pretty last minute. And, they are joining us for our trip to India!

But, first they got a taste of our life in KL, so they could know what our year here was like. We scheduled them to read to Abraham and Alice’s classes, and we made sure they saw Griffin play soccer during recess. All the kids were so PROUD to show off their grandparents, and Mary and Harvey didn’t disappoint, reading with dramatic enthusiasm and relishing seeing how the kids were thriving at school. For example, Alice has bloomed from an insecure, non-reader to a reader and writer this year, under the tutelage of a dynamic, fun, affectionate 1^st grade teacher named Ms. Thompson. Alice showed Mary and Harvey the book she wrote about komodo dragons, index and all! It was spectacular. We took them to lunch at a local street-food outdoor Indian restaurant, Ken’s favorite with lots of roti (fried dough with Indian dipping sauces).

The next day they held Ken’s hand when he made our final flight reservations back from KL to NYC. It’s complicated for lots of reasons, and their support helped Ken over the hump. Truth is, Ken’s often felt isolated here in KL, and he needed his parents’ love and support and conversation a lot. They talked over coffee, lunch at our favorite Buddhist temple across the street from our apartment, high tea at the Carcosa Seri Negara Hotel in Lake Gardens, on a walk through Lake Gardens, and over dinner at Hakka, a big Chinese-Malaysian seafood and “steamboat” restaurant on the other side of the park from our apartment. They figured out what took us a while to understand – the best thing about Kuala Lumpur may be the food, and the diversity of it.

With the kids, Mary and Harvey took them on a few swims in our pool, leaving them amazed by how Boom’s swimming as taken off. He’s been taking weekly swim lessons at his friend Arthur’s home, and they’ve paid off. He’s now doing forward flips into the pool and diving to the bottom, in addition to learning how to breathe while doing the crawl. Every time his face lifts out of the water, a huge smile is plastered on it. And, Griffin showed his speed when he made us adults do repeated games of “Monster” with us chasing him all over the pool, with him constantly slipping out of our grip. Griffin is now running faster than either me or Ken. Our last morning in Kuala Lumpur with Mary and Harvey, they took a swim with the kids, reveling in how warm the water was after a never-ending, snowy winter in NYC. I reveled in them making us all so happy.

Kuala Lumpur: Thaipusam Indian-Malaysian Hindu Festival

Little boy in training for carrying the Thaipusam burden,
in honor of God Murugan

Why the fruit and herbs attached?
Looks painful but they didn't seem in pain.

The little boy did not have to walk far and he seemed so proud. Many men were helping him along.

A man is holding onto these ropes attached to his skin

48 hours beforehand -- Shaved head, Purifying food eaten, Celibacy,
Long Pilgrimage for 24 hours carrying Thaipusam Burden

Carrying a very heavy burden and hooks in his skin

On right, man smoking something to help him along, having his back skin pulled by a man on the left

A tough balancing act

January 20, 2011

Let’s be clear, India has stopped the practice of self-torture on the Hindu holiday called Thaipusam. Only Malaysian Indians continue such seemingly barbaric practice. In fact, I was told Kuala Lumpur is the only place in the world where you can see any Indians practice self-torture on Thaipusam.

And, they probably wouldn’t call it self-torture, but I still was dreading seeing the skin-pulling and cutting practice live-in-bloody-action. I’d rather take a pass on that. But, every expat in KL told us we had to see it, but to see it without the kids. That means the white people recommended it. The Indian-Malaysians seemed leery about my seeing it, if not mildly concerned. I think they felt protective of me. So, I clearly had built up in my mind the Thaipusam procession before I ever arrived.

Some years ago I think I had also briefly glanced at and then away from videos of the Thaipusam skin-pulling rituals. Let me just say that skin-pulling looks much worse on video than live. You’d expect the opposite, I know. I can’t explain why. They just seem to be either okay with the pain or in a deep trance that keeps their attention away from the pain. Mostly, they seemed proud. They were the focus of much attention and awe.

Each self-tortured person either hung heavy items from hooks on their skin or had someone pulling ropes attached to hooks in their skin, pulling them like they were a team of horses who had to be reined in. They were surrounded by at least 3 or more people spotting them from falling, pouring water into their mouths, and dancing around them to boost their morale. It was an incredible bonding ritual, all moving like one long snake, one after another, weaving their way throughout the night from a Hindu temple in KL all the way to the Hindu holy site of Batu caves outside of KL.

You can see from the pictures that they are adorned and carry painfully huge, heavy decorated frames in honor of Hindu gods over their heads. Thaipusam is in honor of one goddess in particular – the Murugan goddess. And, they socialize their younger boys from a young age to carry such heavy items, with honor and lots of men helping them walk a shorter distance from the end of the procession to the Batu caves -- see photo above. Click HERE for a video of the young boy's Dad helping him balance his burden. The boy's clearly really excited to be a part of the procession.

I wondered if the Indian-Malaysians clung to this ritual, even when India had given it up as inhumane, as a bonding ritual for their smaller minority in Malaysia. Indian-Malaysians are seen as the bottom of the totem pole by Muslim Malaysians, especially. And, they are typically the most poor. Some speak English but for many of them, they only speak Tamil, because their schools never taught them English. The Muslim Malaysian government rarely gives opportunities for non-Muslims to rise, so the Indians have stayed down – think of them as the lowest caste in Malaysian society. They have held a couple protests against the government here. But, this ritual is a day of spectacle and spiritual, public commitment to their clan.

Click HERE and HERE for videos of men dancing in procession carrying burden. Click HERE to watch the musicians getting pumped up for the procession.