A Quaint Walk Around Town

Georgetown, Malaysia

Greatest Moment: In a day, we explored many streets and museums and have come out the better for it! There are moments in a great day that initially come to the forefront of your memory as you look upon it, and whether those were the ‘greatest moments’ or not, depends. For Kathy, the beginning of the day was wonderful. We visited the illustrious Blue Mansion (the home to a tycoon whose fortune is long since squandered, however his home is an impressive form of Feng Shui), and then we went to the chocolate factory. There her fast growing interest in coffee was built upon further. We learned that only in Malaysia can you acquire White Coffee, a coffee made from sugar and palm oil. With it in hand, and both perspiring, she loved walking casually through the streets with nothing on the agenda but hitting all museums and street art! That is the beautiful thing about Georgetown, because as you walk its cultured streets you see touches of British, Scottish, and Spanish design throughout all buildings. All you need is a local brew in hand and walking shoes on foot.

As for Jamie, her love of the town was fortified at the end of the day, as we both sat down and smoked hookah. She chose a strawberry and mint flavored tobacco, and smoking we sat looking out toward the busy road in reflection of the day. There in front of us, rats ran to and fro from one crack in the street to another. It was not in excess, but enough to give our time at that restaurant an added flavor. In America, seeing a rat while we sat to enjoy our moment would typically not be calmly looked upon. However, these rats were actually cute, small, and thriving. Maybe Southeast Asia has numbed us to animals roaming wildly, where domestic animals can survive in the jungle, and the monkeys of the jungle can live amongst the populous. These rats are looking for food, for survival and living within their territory. At that moment, we did not think of the diseases they carried, but that they were creatures sharing the same place and purpose as we were. And at the moment they belonged there just as much as we did.

Worst Moment: We will not go in depth here, however those who know what stereotypes we are referring to will hopefully, silently agree. When it comes certain cultures, I am at a loss to understand their method of exploration, and we have quickly learned to plan our trips to sites according to huge groups. Every members of the groups each carry a selfie-stick of great lengths that inevitably creates a scene of chaos. The selfie-stick pictures are of only themselves with little care of what is behind them. We may seem harsh in our opinions of how some travel, but it has developed against our will. Too, their conversations are to a pitch that seems agitated, and there does not seem to be respect towards the surrounding silence and beauty. Sometimes we hurry to a point if we see a caravan of mass travelers approaching, or if too late, we wait our turn till the mania passes.

Lesson Learned: A LOT! At the Chocolate Boutique we learned the process of fermenting and grinding both chocolate and coffee, and how white coffee is a Malaysian delicacy and specialty.

At the Camera Museum, we became fascinated with the ideas and innovative thought that has since produced photography. Photography, we read, began when people noticed that when light is projected through a small hole into a darkened room, an inverted image of the outdoors (wherever the light is coming from) is produced. At the museum, they demonstrated this simple concept and it was amazing to see an image come to life with nothing but light. With that observation, they recreated images by creating a small box with a mirror inside of it. When the light entered its tiny hole, the exact image was mirrored onto a plain pane of glass. That was used largely at that time for entertainment such as sketching and painting. The Girl with the Pearl Earring painting was said to be influenced by this process. From that came cameras with lenses, the cameras that we use today!

Cultural Insight: At the Blue Mansion, as I mentioned before, we learned much about Feng Shui. Feng Shui is philosophical system of harmonizing everyone with the surrounding environment, a way of organizing the energy of one’s living quarters to maximize wealth, prosperity, and harnessing one’s Chi. ‘Feng’ means water, and ‘Shui’ means wind. The mansion was built strictly according to the demands of Feng Shui. It faced to the closest water, while its neighboring houses faced the street. To be secure from your enemies, you must have a hillside behind you so that the mountain protects your back. While there are no hills in Georgetown, he built the house with a hill incorporated in it. The back of the house was taller than the front. The piping too moved water throughout the house, so that water that accumulated from the open ceilings would move slowly out of the house, but slow enough that the house maximized its presence. No bad water could be in the house, and therefore servants were to carry used water and chamber pots regularly from the house and across the street to empty them!

Georgetown was colonized by the British. Everyone here speaks very good English, and the buildings and food reflect the English influence. We have been dazzeled by the hospitality here, and Malaysia is not only convenient to travel through but you get a mixture of home and foreign taste being here. Indian, Chinese, and Western food is easier to come by than local Malaysian dishes. We have had to accept that our taste buds will have to acclimate and give justice to not just one culture here, but many.