A more colourful shade of pale

Back from travel and still owing people one wrap up blog from my trip, the recent turn of events in the Australian political landscape has meant that blog will have to wait until I've ranted at length on something else.

For those of you living overseas or in a cave, back in December over 30 refugees died while trying to reach Australia and the right wing of the media and politics exploded when the government funded the funerals of the refugees and the transport of their family members of the identifiable victims from where they were housed at Christmas Island Immigration detention centre- the funerals were held last week. Aside from the issues that this raises with regards to Australia's immigration policy and the lack of compassion of some individuals in the politics and the media, it has lead to discussion of the "negatives" of multiculturalism and, more terrifying, the re-emergence of the One Nation Party. For those unfamiliar with this debate or just wanting a catch-up on its current status, check out the February 21 2011 episode of ABC's Q&A while it is still available online on iView (www.abc.net.au/iview - it'll be available there until March 7 2011- sadly it is geolocked but if you are overseas maybe you can find it on YouTube). Last night as I watched it, I felt the urge to add my thoughts to the multiculturalism debate and oddly today a lot of people I've spoken to have raised the issue again so clearly it has edged its way back into the collective consciousness.

I feel the urge first to say that multiculturalism is a misnomer. When most people says "multiculturalism", what they mean is not just being made up of many cultures but also being made up of either many races or many faiths so technically they are also speaking about multiracialism (I don't think that is a word but it should be) and mutlifaithism (again not a word but it should be). "Culture" is a word so misused that people have almost forgotten its root definition- it is about having a shared identity and experience so when you talk about multiculturalism you could just as easily mean the difference between different generations within the same racial and faith community. Semantics I know but still it slightly annoys me.

Australia as a country has always had a difficult relationship with the idea of being a society composed of many cultures, races and faiths. Australians have a reputation (and in some ways a deserved one) of being at least mildly racist. As most primary school aged children know, the one of the first policies passed at the Federation of the Australian Parliament in 1901 was not a resounding "All men are created equal", it was the White Australia Policy (not to applaud the US as "all men" didn't include women or African American men who were counted as 1/8 of a white men at the time). The White Australia Policy is the profoundly racist immigration policy that was part of Australian politics which officially still on the books until 1973 (though it was progressively watered down following World War II). It favoured the immigration of white immigrants from Western Europe especially the British Isles. Not surprisingly in persecution of breaching of current immigration policy, refugees from the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia who arrive by boat are placed in detention while Western Europeans and Americans who overstay visas but arrive by planes are usually not. While Australia was one of the first countries to give women the vote, Indigenous Australians were not allowed their democratic right to vote until 1966. We may have a better record than South Africa but compared to most other Western countries we are way behind and that's even without factoring in hideous events like the Cronulla riots. In America, race division in society may have been part of law until 1960s but racial divisions in terms of voting rights were abolished in 1870 by the 15th Amendment (almost 30 years before we even had a parliament independent from the English one). Canada and New Zealand both have much more progressive and solid multiculturalism policies than we do- both like us with the combo of a distinct indigenous culture/s and an immigrant community from all around the world to incorporate in their policies. We need to better on this issue...in fact I'd go as far as to say we must.

The irony of the myriad issues some Australians have with multiculturalism is that Australia has for most of its 70000 year history between multicultural by the strictest definition and also to a certain extent multi-faith. The Australian Indigenous community- like many indigenous communities- was and is divided into small grouping of individuals which formed their own distinct and geographical distant cultures with slight different interpretations of faith or belief, and their own languages. This is something the white community often completely fails to understand or respect but in recent years people have been slowing opening their eyes to this. With European invasion, not only did we became multirace but also we added several more cultures to the mix (the culture of a Irish convict is very different to the culture of an English soldier). Before the introduction of White Australia, we also had waves of immigration from various countries adding to the mix such as Chinese immigration in the late 19th century during the Gold Rush and middle Eastern and Indian immigration especially in the Northern Territory as part of the camel trade starting in the late 19th century. There are many Australians of non-Anglo Saxon descent who have been in Australia for many more generations than the three generations that the paternal side of my mother's family have been but to those who decry the notion of multiculturalism my white skin would give me a right to be Australian while Australians of Chinese or Middle Eastern descent who are four or five generation Australian on both sides of the family they would not. The oddity of it boggles the mind.

Getting slowly to my main point, if you are of British descent, Christian (nominally or actually practising) and you speak English by your blood, by your religion and by your language you are more multicultural and multiracial than you think! You are probably more multicultural than the individual from the Middle East, Africa or Asia that you sit next to on your morning bus or train.

To start why if your ancestors are form the British are you multicultural? Well to quote Alf Stewart from Home and Away, we are "flaming mongrels" and I'm proud of it. Most racial, cultural and religious groups in many parts of the worlds, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, were for many generations very self contained- people lived their entire live within the cultural group and very rare did outsiders join this cultural group. On the other hand, Western Europe and especially the British Isles were less self contained. The indigenous communities of the British Isles- the Picts or Woads, the Celts, etc- were first invaded by the Romans many of whom, after initial wars, stayed and intermarried as they had across Europe. Later they were invaded by Vikings and the Normans and the Saxons who also often stayed and intermarried after a fight. So at this point, the "British" blood line contained not only that of the indigenous community but also that of people from Italy, Scandinavia, France and Germany, and that hundreds of years before anyone thought of sending prison ships to a giant island far across the sea. Also this means that all people of British descent are the great (multiplied by hundreds) grandchildren of illegal immigrants who overstayed there welcome...think about it!

What about Christianity? What is multicultural about it? Firstly it is a religion from the Middle East so that any Anglosaxon people practice it at all means that there has been multiculturalism in action to get to that point. Secondly if you read the bible you will see that nowhere are Christians told to lock themselves within their own community. In fact they are told the opposite, Christ tells his disciples to "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:10 NIV translation- bold text my addition). Before the first major public address by one of Christ's followers following his death, resurrection and ascension (Peter in Acts 2), the followers of Christ are heard to be talking myriad languages by visitors to Jerusalem. Christianity as spoken of in the New Testament does not speak of walling the Christian community off nor does it speak of the abandoning of cultural specific languages in order to worship God, it speaks of being a religion for the world regardless of language. If you are going into all the world, by extension you are meeting, mixing with, trying to understand and reasonably debating with people of all cultures, races and faiths.

Finally the English language, what is multicultural about it? Well like the people of the British Isles it is a bit of mongrel. To paraphrase a confused former US president, "The English have no word for entrepreneur". We don't it's a French word. We also don't have words for doppelganger (that is German), vice versa (Latin) or kamikaze (Japanese). There are thousands of words in common use in English which are not Anglosaxon words. It is a language that steals from so many others. If you look at other languages you will see minor theft from English (e.g. the t-shirt in German is "das t-shirt") but overwhelmingly it is in the case of very recent additions to the lexicon. English is great master multicultural thief of language!

So if you are a white Australian who thinks of themselves as Christian, you are the king or queen of multiculturalism in your neighbourhood so give the other cultures, races and religions a fair go and stop listening to One Nation and the pundits of right wing talk back radio! Like "white" light coming through a prism, we Anglosaxons can be spilt into many colours. Still not sold on the idea, well think about this. We are all genetically human and, regardless of your views of the creation and evolution of the human race (whether you believed that there was an Adam and an Eve or whether you believe in the Out of Africa theory that links us all back to six common mothers or a combo of both), we originally come from a very small pool of genetic stock. This may not be a happy thought on the dating scene but when thinking of multiculturalism just try thinking about everyone as your distant cousin and think about whether you really want to treat your family member that way. Also remember that genetics demonstrates that white skin can come from black without the original genetic markers for white skin being present but not vice versa. This means that the original humans were black not white so what right do white people have to declare that they are the "best" race?

So what do I think? If you want to live in Australia in my opinion, to quote the genius that was Michael Jackson, "It don't matter if you're black or white"- or Asian or Middle Eastern or any other race for that matter.

Land of shopping malls, butterflies, humidities and decent food

Sydney's recent heat wave seemed to be acting as a reminder that I am yet to write my promised post about my time in South East Asia. Time to rectify that problem me thinks....

Mall Theme Park

So when I left you, I had just made a madcap night time dash from Paris to London in order to get an early morning plane from Stansted. Not being a morning person, having to drag myself out of bed at 4.30am and crawl from central London to Stansted having to take one tube and one actual train to get to my 8am plane was less than my idea of fun. People may wonder why I was catching flights so early in the morning and why I was flying from London to KL instead of straight to Sydney. The reason for this lunacy is Air Asia. Air Asia is a budget airline based in Malaysia which was offering A$420 flights from London to KL (it had been offering A$480 flight from London to Melbourne but I missed out on those), and so it turned out that I could fly with China Airlines to London then on the way home fly Air Asia to KL and send some time in KL and then fly Jetstar home, and even with having to pay extra for food on both Air Asia and Jetstar, it would work out much cheaper than buying a return ticket. It is good advice for budget travellers who don't mind spending a few days in a random city- buying flights for individual legs can work out much cheaper. I was expecting Air Asia (which with being so cheap) to not be a very good airline so though I had paid for food, I decided not to pay for entertainment and just to sleep/read for the 12 hour flight. It turns out Air Asia is actually quite a good airline. There was more leg room (slightly) than there was on Jetstar and the food was not just edible but also not bad (quite the step up from China Airline who couldn't deliver edible let alone good).

I tried to prep for the shock to the system to I knew Malaysian humidity would be after European snow but nothing can really prepare you for the combo of jet lag and the change from below 5 degrees 8am dry winter in London to 25 degree 100% (or close to) humidity 5am summer in KL. Malaysian summer feels like walking/living in a sauna and  to the unprepared body it hits you like a falling grand piano. I felt like I could barely stand and then discovering that KL is actually 80km from its airport and I would have to take hour and a half bus ride and then two train lines before the four block walk to my hotel was quite the depressing idea. I was barely with it enough to notice the great change in my surroundings and was just lucky that the hotel let me check in several hours before the permitted check in time so I could crash into my bed at 10am and sleep for the next 8 and a half hours. That night I got just enough energy up to explore the hotel. I was staying at Citris Hotel which is 3 and a half star hotel in budget hotel part of KL, and booking it through Wotif netted me not just a decent room but also a special deal with access to the hotel's privileged guests floors. The privileged guests got fruit on day of arrival (was expecting tropical fruit but was still happy with the two apples and an orange that arrived- decent fruit was a thing I had greatly missed in Europe), access to the special privileged guest room where there was free food and drink and computers for internet access all day (as well as a great view of the Petronas Twin Towers), and cheap laundry/ironing services (I didn't use either but it was there if I had decided I needed it). The hotel, though cheap, was quite good and its restaurant, though not as cheap as others in the area, served very good food at cheap prices (I ate there every night and the cost of a large meal with a drink and on a few occasions a dessert was between 7 and 12 Australian dollars).

Petronas Towers

First actual morning in Malaysia and I was faced with the excitement of Asian breakfast. People had warned me that what with never having been to Asia before I might to shocked when greeted with dishes I would consider lunch or dinner dishes at breakfast time- people in Asia don't really eat cereal they told me. Instead of this freaking me out, I thought it was awesome. I love Asian food (the complexity and freshness of Asian spices was something I had greatly missed in Europe) and am not the biggest fan of cereal. So when I arrived to be faced with a breakfast of dahl, fried rice, noodles, chicken curry, porridge with savory sides, dim sums and freshly cooked Asian style omelettes, I was psyched. I will say my hotel did have cereal, croissants, pancakes, French toast, fresh fruit and regular bread/toast- some of which I ate though not the cereal or regular toast- so you could have had a typical Western breakfast if you wanted (I never did and instead embraced the combo). This first morning I also got to take in the differences in my surroundings to the European winter I had left only a little over a day early. I got see the tropical vegetation and hear the flies and watch

After all this I made the cliched decision and decided to do what Westerns do in South East Asia...SHOP. Shopping in KL takes two forms- street shopping and mall shopping. I have haggling-a-phobia and so I was not up for the street shopping but supposedly there are awesome deals to be had especially in the China town district of KL. Mall shopping in KL is still cheaper than buying the same goods in Australia but be warned if you are averse to haggling or super pushy sales people, steer clear of the open areas in malls as there are often stalls of the same kind as street stalls in these areas in malls and if you step too close, the vendors will forcible try and drag you in to their stall- I'm not kidding, one woman grabbed my arm and tried to pull me into a cosmetics stall to look at fake eyelashes, fortunately I was stronger than she was so was able to pull free of her hand but not without light scratches from her talon like fake nails. By the end of my time in KL, I had spent several days in various malls which was mainly due to the fact I was too tired to do anything else. I've seen all kinds of malls from the high end, designer mall next to the Petronas Twin Towers (Towers themselves sadly closed for maintenance for exactly the week I was in KL) to the mid range malls near the classier hotels to the low rent malls near my hotel. I discovered two awesome things- firstly the coffee shop chain, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, which is found in Malaysia and Singapore and serves the best chain store coffee EVER (so much better than the swill served at Gloria Jeans or Starbucks and cheaper than both, but that said it is more expensive than a lot of other drink options in KL), and secondly theme parks in malls!! I actually only found one of the latter but for A$11 I could ride a roller coaster in a shopping mall and if you offer me a roller coaster I'm there. I also discovered that malls aren't a good view of Malaysian culture as they are too full of Western and that dodgy shops on main streets have more interesting stuff for cheaper.

On my second day in KL, I found the KL Butterfly and Bird Parks. Getting to both of these, which are in the quite beautiful gardens on the outskirts of the city, is a bit difficult at first glance as none of the city's train or monorail lines go that close to them. However I discovered the benefits of the KL Hop On Hop Off Tourist Bus- usually I hate Hop On Hop Off buses, but the one in KL is about 30MR (A$10) for a 24 hour ticket and does the loop of all of the tourist sites many of which aren't that close to buses, trains or monorails- I used it to get to the Butterfly and Bird Parks and back one day, and to the Craft Complex the next (the latter isn't that exciting so skip it if you aren't up for a lot of shopping)- I'd say it is definitely a must for those travelling with kids and wanting to see these and other sights particularly the KL Museum and the National Mosque. The Butterfly Park was very pretty, even if you are not an insect lover like me, and the Bird Park (the World's Largest Outdoor Aviary- it is topped with a net) is a lot of fun though the peacocks are posers and try and get into all your photos. On the walk between the two, I angered a mother monkey by accidentally scaring her baby so keep an eye out for monkey rage! 

Butterfly on hand

I didn't get to the National Mosque or the Islamic Craft and Textile Centre which are quite close to the Bird and Butterfly Parks as I felt I wasn't dressed appropriately for either when I was out near them (in my singlet and shorts) - I was astounded at how few Westerners realised that their summer dress style was not culturally appropriate for a Mosque as I watched a family pile off the bus with the women in short dresses and/or shorts and singlets, and everyone wearing sandals and thongs (though this was nothing on the cultural inappropriateness I saw a few days later of a woman in a short see through dress- she wasn't visiting a Mosque but still not the best clothing choice in a Muslim country)- I shocks me that people can't put two and two together when visiting a Mosque. Note to everyone out there, if you are visiting a Mosque- covered shoes (regardless of gender) and, for women, long sleeves, long pants and covered head...How hard is that to figure out?!?

My biggest disappointment in Malaysia came a few days later. Sucked in by the lure of getting to ride an elephant, I signed up for a tour out to the country which was supposed to include visiting an elephant conservation park and Batu Caves. It cost 240MR (A$80)- which was a rip off to beginning with- but that wasn't the worst of it. It was Hindu New Year that weekend so Batu Caves was packed out and the tour guide said that we would skip it in the morning because of the crowds and get back to see it in afternoon- ultimately it was late when we got back and so we stopped for 20 minutes and didn't even have time to climb into the caves- by the afternoon I was feeling so ripped off that, had I not been brain numbingly tired, I would have screamed at all involved. Having skipped Batu Caves, we went to the next two stops a pewter factory and a Bitak factory- I was thinking we'd get to see a demonstration of both but no it was all sales pitch. After that it was an over an hour awkward car trip of silence (I slept though most of this as brain was telling me it was 2am back in London) to a Deer Park (not to be confused with the free range deer park near the Bird and Butterfly Parks in KL). Now I have mixed feelings about animal parks and zoo at the best of time and I think that they can be done profoundly badly, this was possibly the worst one I've ever seen. It was 10MR (A$3.33) on top of the original cost of the trip to go in- rip off again. When the tour guide said you could hand feed a sun bear at this park I was like "But Sun Bears can be quite vicious that doesn't seem right", the sun bears in question had had all the bite willed out of them by being stuck into cages that were barely big enough for them for most of the day. The other animals (aside from deer which ran wild) were mainly domestic animals and all in tiny cages. It was hideous and I just wanted to run around and free them all. After this we stopped for lunch- the one thing that seemed to be included in the cost of the tour (aside from petrol and tolls) but as it was only 3RM (A$1) a plate, I'd like to know where most of my 240RM went! The elephant conservation centre was worth a visit (though not the cost of my tour) and ride an elephant I did, but I had not been forewarned that I would be charged another 10RM to get in there- the tour guide said he would cover the cost as I had no cash by this stage and hadn't been forewarned but then subsequently demanded the money back when we returned to the hotel. I didn't complain to the complain to the people selling the tours but one of the hotel staff asked me about and when I told me about the joke that the tour was, the look on his face said that others had been sucked into this trap before. If stay at Citrus Hotel, steer well clearly of the tour people in the foyer!

Elephant Time

Most of the rest of the time in Malaysia was spent in malls and lazying in the hotel as my body refused to get on Malaysian time. The free pay TV in my hotel turned out to be mainly in Chinese or copious amounts of reality TV repeated on a seemingly endless loop and nothing makes jetlag worse than having only the same episode of the Bachelorette to watch night after night at 4am when you can't sleep and aren't awake enough to read. The good thing though was even with jetlag I could enjoy the awesome Malaysian food and laugh the waiters warned me that food listed in the menu as spicy was well spicy...clearly they hadn't met a Woodley before and didn't realise that some Westerners do like to try the spiciest dish on the menu.

I feel that I've pretty much experienced most of what there is to see in KL- including the jungle in the airport- but people tell me that further afield Malaysia has tonnes more to offer.