Chinese New Year

Two weeks ago (yes, about the same time as my Sabah debacle), the whole Chinese population celebrated their New Year. Seeing that after the Malay, the Chinese are Malaysia’s majority population and seeing that I had suffered an unexpected and not necessarily pleasant change of plans, what is one to do but to go and celebrate Chinese New Year in a Chinese community?!

Said and done! My good friend Joie told me to come over in her center in Johor (South of MAlaysia). She basically does the same thing as I do, only in a place called Sungai Sulog – this is literally a village made up only of one street! But it is 15min away from a reasonably sized city called Batu Pahat. Also, although she has some MAlay students, the majority of her students are Chinese. And they are also very willing to impart their culture with the silly matsallehs that don’t know much about anything.

Our party consisted of four (sorry for the language, I’m reading Jane Austen again) – Joie, Sarah (her Italian volunteer), Kayla (an American whose blond hair and blue eyes basically makes her the main attraction around here:)) and myself. And we were truly treated royaly!

We had 3 days that basically consisted of us being moved around from house to house, event to event, tradition to tradition. And in each of these places there would be tons and tons of food and of photo taking (seriously, celebrities had nothing compared to us in those days!).
From the highlights of our celebrations:
– we got to wear pretty red dresses all the time, cause everyone must wear red for good luck!
– we made money! Unlike what I’ve seen in other cultures, the Chinese New Year celebration seems to be a lot about prosperity, abundance and having a good living. All the rituals go on about it. And single people receive tiny (and quite pretty) red envelopes with money in them. So this is actually the first trip ever that I ended with more money than when I left!
– The Chinese eat a lot!! Like think Romanian dimensions for Christmas! Only that they do that for 15 days…that’s how much the CNY celebrations last!
– on this day, the Chinese do not think at all about fire safety! Everyone lights up fireworks at 12 o’clock, but they are of truly impressive size and duration and they are lit exactly above neighbourhood houses and such. One firework even went into someone’s house and we were all panicking, but everyone around was just laughing…
– Chinese kids are very cute!
– I learned to play mah jong and I really liked it! It’s way smarter and more interesting than what the internet version lets you to believe 🙂
– we saw lots of posh houses! Some of Joie’s students were quite well off so it was super interesting to see this part of Malaysia also. It is very well known here that the Chinese are dominating in terms of economic activities and the weekend definitely reflected that 🙂
– we karaoked twice! You just cannot get out of it!
– we saw these cool rituals like the lion dance and the dragon dance. Loved the music and the rhythm and the whole atmosphere of the celebration!
– we had good wine and French cheese! What more is there to say?:)

Overall, it was a super super nice weekend. Though at some point it did get a bit tiring – our hosts however were never tired of taking us to yet another event! We even went to one of the Mister’s secondary school reunion! 41 years reunion that is!! We ate there some more too(in case anyone was wondering:))
At one point however I did stop enjoying the popularity. At times it felt we were paraded around for being white…I know it might sound stupid but that was not such a nice feeling anymore. Though I am sure everyone meant well. But so you see the extent of the photo shoots happening, here is the evidence:)

Ana & the system

So, last weekend has been probably one of the most testing ones since I’ve been in Malaysia. And I owe that all to the beautiful Immigration Office in Malaysia! A glorious institution, whose officers do not know their own rules and that made me fly all the way to Sabah, only to be stopped by immigration, sleep in the airport and then go back to KL the next day.

To start in the beginning – my visa was expiring the 5^th February. SOLS (my organisation here) had applied for an extension 3 weeks in advance. I had planned to go to Sabah and climb on Mount Kinabalu on those dates (with a friend that could only make it on those dates). So I asked whether extensions are generally problematic. I received the “no, it always goes smoothly with extensions” answer. So I went and planned away – was supposed to fly to Sabah on the 4^thin the afternoon, climb on 5^th and 6^th and come back on the 9^th to KL.

Obviously, the extension had not come through by last Monday. So I called SOLS and they said not to worry! There is a pass you can get for a 2 week visa pass while they are processing my extension request. And that this can be obtained one day before my visa expires, hence 4^thFebruary. Needless to say that at 8am on Thursday I was at the Immigration Office in Putrajaya. After the appropriate waiting Where a nice lady explained to me that my extension was actually approved in the system, just that the stamp on my passport will be done next week. But that I can definitely travel to Sabah – that it counts as a visa run, so I would anyways get a 90day tourist visa when I come back to KL. To my amazed question of “But it’s the same country! How it can be?”, the lady went on a “Yes, but there’s different regulations for East Malaysia. No worry. They anyways can see in the system that your visa extension was approved”.

So there I was, fairly relieved on my way to Sabah. The flight was smooth and I was super excited to arrive when…they stopped me at Immigration. Apparently they did not agree with the KL people…I could only stay in Sabah only until 5^th February, when my visa was expiring. My desperate “but it’s in the system” thing met with “we have a different system, we cannot see that”. And with a complete refusal to let me in more than one day.

Now, I will spare you my anger, frustration and also desperation! I don’t generally panic easily but I really kind of lost it then. It all came together and collapsed at that moment! The fact that their own people completely misinformed me and let me fly all the way to Sabah just to go back! The fact that I did not know what to do – to go on visa runs from Sabah was super expensive (it’s not really a world wide flying hub!!), and to go to KL seemed pointless and a complete waste of my holiday time! I literally just wallowed in that airport for about 2 hours until I finally could pull myself together and think constructively of what to do. I ended up with the latter option since it was the most money efficient one, and I booked myself on the first flight back to KL in the morning.

I had not spent a night in an airport in a long time so this was like a blast from the past…the cold (in super hot countries the aircon in places such as the airport is turned on to an insane level!), the sleep or lack thereof, the lack of any decent food, the stares that go with it. But I had my sleeping bag and two books so all in all, it all went by in a fairly reasonable manner.

So here I am the next day, back in KL and going straight to the Immigration Office, where a guy from SOLS was waiting for me. And where again, the unbelievable happened. Another lady told me that still my visa was approved but that the stamp in my office will come only a week later. Until then, I need to carry around a letter of approval (which she gave to me), in case I want to travel or there’s random police checks. To my “but why didn’t the lady yesterday tell me this?” and “what is the procedure to file complaints here?”, the lady just stared at me blankly and could not understand why I was so amazed (and annoyed at the situation). The SOLS person then proceeded to tell me confidentially that I should file my complaint only after I get the visa!!!!!!!

I am generally of the opinion that things happen for a reason. And despite all of the above, I did end up spending a lovely weekend in rather different circumstances (more of this to follow). But I still cannot yet grasp the full logic of why I could not climb that mountain! Ah well…I will get to it at some other point I guess!