We were told in Malaysia that monkeys fed by tourists are starting to suffer from obesity and diabetes – too much of the wrong food (and presumably, because they don’t have to search for it themselves, not enough exercise…)
And if that’s not enough to deter us, our guide explained that, in monkey communities, the alpha male is given food by inferiors. So they immediately rank anyone who feeds them as inferior and might treat them aggressively.
Ok, I’m convinced!
Travelling Frogs saw this sign in the pub at Snatchems*, on the banks of the River Lune in Lancashire, England.
Paris is the place to be?
Philosopher Alain de Botton suggests “the pleasure we derive from journey is perhaps more dependent on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to”.
I quite agree. And I think the conversation I overheard on the train* sums it up very well:
Little Boy (aged about 3): “Mummy, are we going on a journey?”
Mummy: “Yes, a journey”
Little Boy: “We’re going on an adventure!”
*the 8.39 Oxford to Birmingham, for those who like to know these things
I don’t speak Malaysian English, known as Manglish, very fluently, but I have learned some useful words.
So here’s my mini Manglish dictionary:
Tingwat? What do you think?
Yusobadwan (Literally: ‘you’re such a bad one’). That’s not very nice
Izzit? Expression of mild disbelief
Blur Confused, out of it
Noob Useless, lousy or incompetent thing or person
My favourite of all, though, maybe because it seems to sum up a universal sentiment, is:
Debladigarmen The bloody government
Many settlements in Sarawak are strung out along the rivers, and even today are reached not by road, but by boat.
Take for example a fishing village we saw whilst on a river trip. The home of 700 souls, it now, we were told, has electricity. No running water yet; some pipes were installed after the last election, the villagers are hoping they might get water after the next. It has a kindergarten, and a primary school.
Oh, and it has a sports pitch. In the dry season it’s used for football. And in the wet season when the river floods? As the driver of our boat told us, it’s used for water polo: “…and the crocodile defends the goal”.
Oudomxay – Laos, 10 November 2017
An intriguing piece of information I came across recently. There is a trend in the USA for naming baby girls “Malaysia”. It seems it’s a rapidly accelerating trend which started around 10 years ago, and in 2013 630 babies were given the name, in 2014 810.
Now, I think it’s a very pretty name, Malaysia, with all those fluid open vowels, that soft ‘m’ , that gentle ‘sh’ sound. But, I wonder… how will it be shortened? Lots of names seem to be, whether or not the parents intend it*. May? Lacy? Layshy? Shia (maybe not, depending on her religion).
And what if little Malaysia, at some point in her life, ends up living in – Malaysia? I remember some English friends whose daughter was (rather fashionably) named India. There was no end of confusion registering for visas and schools and the like when the family moved to Mumbai. And little India used to get quite cross when people asked her name, then thought she was telling them where she lived…
*Unless the name is so short already it gets lengthened, of course. But that’s another story….
According to novelist Pico Iyer, India is the “most chattery nation on earth”. Well, I wouldn’t like to try and judge that, but the wonderful, inventive, vibrant, use of Indian English is always a delight.
In Kolkata, for example, we saw the Victoria Memorial, which according to the taxi driver is the ‘Taj Mahal’ of the city. “Taj is Raj”, he said, neatly summarising the relationships between architecture and colonial power…
Kolkata is well known for its intellectual and literary culture. We wandered, and browsed, on College Street: “College is knowledge”, our driver sagely told us.
We’d come across this glorious Indian habit of playing with rhymes before. “I’m going shopping-whopping”, for example, or “oh, not another meeting-sheeting”. Perhaps it’s even catching: one of the TFs, faced with a group all chattering away at once, added his own, magnificent invention: ‘Will you please just stop talking -squawking!’
Many countries around the world have laws to protect animal wellbeing, sometimes framed in general terms, sometimes more specific. For example: in Australia it’s illegal to give kangaroos more than 6 bottles of beer, in Florida you can go to jail for loading livestock onto school buses (and/or having sex with a porcupine. Er, no comment). In Britain, the Loch Ness monster is a protected species. In parts of the US it’s forbidden to catch fish with a machine gun (or by lasso, or by giving them alcohol, interestingly). And although you can hunt bears legally in Alaska, it’s against the law to wake them up for a photo. In the Philippines cremations are only allowed if there is no live creature in the deceased’s pockets*.
All well and good, but I prefer the “do as you would be done by” approach to animals that we saw in Tamil Nadu, India.
*These wonderful examples are courtesy of writer Alwyn Sambrook
travelling frogs 