LibanOne* vs OneMalaysia

“Being in Lebanon taught me to understand that more often than not, it isn’t really the people who are at the heart of religious intolerance. It is often the state, religious leaders or political parties who are responsible for triggering and perpetuating such intolerance. Unfortunately, it’s often the people who suffer.”

Lebanon is unmistakably one of the most beautiful countries I’ve visited. At the same time, it is achingly painful when I look at the indiscriminate pockmarks on old buildings in downtown Beirut. They all bear the ugly scars of persistently long civil war and international conflict with Israel. Although it has enjoyed relative peace in the last few years, security remains a visible concern, as seen in the many military checkpoints all over the country.

Before I went to Lebanon less than a year ago, I was given the impression that the country is divided into two religious factions; Christians in the north and Muslims in the south. Beirut, which is situated in the middle, carries a mixture of both.

In Beirut, I didn’t feel such significant religious or cultural division. It was only in Tripoli, which is close to the northern border with Syria, that I felt the presence of a pre-dominantly Muslim region. To be honest, it was difficult to tell the difference between Christians and Muslims except for the tell-tale signs of headscarves worn by a number of Muslim women there.

While I was completely astounded by the breathtaking beauty of Byblos, the rustic charm of Tripoli and the humbling experience of being in the ancient Roman temple ruins of Baalbek, it was the Lebanese people who have intrigued me the most.

The Lonely Planet guidebook was a major disappointment in terms of providing practical advices and directions in Beirut; it failed to warn that the chances of being killed in Lebanon by reckless taxi drivers are higher than being bombed or kidnapped by the Hezbollah. Going about in Beirut was frustrating, as the locals didn’t seem familiar with the roads or places recommended by the book. Nevertheless, the Lonely Planet gave a true account of the hospitality and warmth of the people, which I have often found similarly ironic in other post-conflict countries that I have been.

I also found that Lebanese people are chatty by nature. Many whom I met seemed eager to share conversations even if they don’t speak a word of English. Taxi drivers often broke into a cacophony of indecipherable Arabic, much to my amusement. I particularly like the faces of elderly Lebanese men which seemed to carry well-defined lines of wisdom, kind eyes and sparkling smiles which are all symbols of the Lebanese spirit, unhampered by the years of civil and international wars. I was rather taken by the waiters at the Blue Note, a jazz bar in Beirut. One look at their aged faces made me wonder about the stories of their lives.

I was privileged to be in Harissa, situated high above the Jounieh Bay, on Easter Sunday. As one of the biggest celebrations in Lebanon, many Lebanese flocked to the infamous white-painted bronze statue of the Virgin of Lebanon. What was most interesting as I stood waiting in a long queue to get on the cable car was the number of Muslim Lebanese partaking in the celebration.

How did I know they were Muslims? Well, I asked some of them although it was obvious from the way the women were dressed, although bearing in mind that some Christians women do wear the headscarves too.

Coming from a country where Christian gospel music CDs and tapes are compelled to bear a label clearly indicating that they are for non-Muslims only; and not forgetting the controversies over Muslims practising yoga and non-Muslims using the word Allah (this was way before the High Court ruled in favour of the Herald using the word), I felt the urge to talk to some of the Lebanese in Harissa.

So instead of visiting the churches, I went around to talk to some random people I met. My questions that ranged from “Are you a Muslim or Christian? Why do you come to participate in the Easter celebration? Are the Christians happy to see you here (to Muslims)? What do you call God in your language? (to Christians)” raised some eyebrows as many were probably surprised by my “interrogation”.

It was definitely not an easy task due to the language barrier, but in general I sensed that they didn’t see this as such a big deal at all. I managed to talk to a Christian man from Beirut briefly before proceeding to find a Muslim for a different perspective.

I stumbled across an elderly woman seeking refuge from the scorching sun underneath a tree near the statue. She looked Muslim as she was wearing one of those long and loose black robe and headscarf.  I tried to strike up a conversation with her but she didn’t speak English nor French. However, she appeared friendly and eager to talk and she gestured for me to wait, presumably for someone to come along to help with the translation.

After waiting for about 10 minutes, a young couple approached the woman and the man was none other than the Christian man from Beirut.

He looked at me and said, “It’s you again. I see that you’re still going around interviewing people.” I grinned and told him that I was interested to speak with the kind and warm looking woman sitting by my side.

He revealed that the elderly woman is his mother-in-law and the pretty and charming young woman by his side is his Muslim wife. I felt as if I had hit the jackpot in my quest to understand the religious dynamics in Lebanon.

He told me that his wife and him didn’t have to convert their religions when they got married. His mother-in-law explained that she took her daughter to live in Harissa with the nuns for 6 months when the latter was a baby. Although I couldn’t get any further explanation as to what prompted her to do that, she said that she doesn’t feel her faith being threatened at all by celebrating Easter with the other Lebanese Christians. In fact, she believes that there is only one God; whether it is Jesus or Allah.

The man had earlier on told me that although in general, the Christians refer to God as Jesus, Allah is an acceptable term for it means God in Arabic. In fact, he looked appalled when I asked whether the Muslims are offended by the Christian’s usage of the name Allah.

After I thanked them for taking the time to talk to me, the man said to me, “My mother-in-law would like to invite you to our house in Beirut.” It would have been a lovely experience but since my friend and I had a tight itinerary planned for our short stay in Lebanon, I turned down the invitation politely.

In Harissa, I also asked two Muslim youths who came with a large group of highly excited and energetic friends about their own experiences for Easter. In my limited French, I managed to gather that they come to visit Harissa during Easter every two years.

The girl, dressed in long-sleeved top and pants, accompanied with a cute red with white polka-dot bareback dress, told me that she likes to come and see the crowd of people in the beautiful church, which overlooks the Jounieh Bay. It was more of the atmosphere that she enjoys but I suspect that it was the steep cable car ride that excites them more than anything else!

I have to admit that it was a highly refreshing and mind opening experience in Harissa. It made me wonder whether such seemingly pluralistic and harmonious cultural exchanges between the two main religious groups in Lebanon are felt only on the surface since the country has been seized by civil wars often triggered by religious quest for power and dominance.

A Muslim Lebanese man, who sat beside me on the plane back to Kuala Lumpur, was able to provide me with his views. When I told him how pleasantly surprised I was to see Muslims and Christians celebrating Easter together, he shrugged and said, “That’s how we have been living together for years and why not? We all have the same God. Lebanese people don’t really care what religion we are. It’s the people in power and politics that divide us. Otherwise, we just want to get on with our lives.”

Finally, when I asked him what he thinks about the substantial number of Jews living in Lebanon, whom according to the Lonely Planet, try to keep a low profile, he said, “It’s not the Jews we are against. It’s Zionism. Nothing to do with Judaism.  We welcome them like any other people.”

Being in Lebanon taught me to understand that more often than not, it isn’t really the people who are at the heart of religious intolerance. It is often the state, religious leaders or political parties who are responsible for triggering and perpetuating such intolerance. Unfortunately, it’s often the people who suffer.

*In French, Lebanon is known as Liban.

This article has been adapted and modified from a previous essay entitled “Conversations with the Lebanese” written in April 2009. It has been published in The Malaysian Insider on 20 January 2010.

Traffic jams and human rights in Malaysia

Traffic jams in Kuala Lumpur are something many would gladly live without. Surprisingly, I’m beginning to see the bright side of it. That is, if I’m in a taxi.

Traffic jams provide ample time for taxi drivers to start a calm conversation which usually ends up being a cathartic session. My own observations show that each driver has his own opinion and prejudice but they all share a common grouse and the height of their provocation is always the government, regardless of his race.

When I was asked to write about human rights in Malaysia for this article, my first thought was gee, where do I start? Truthfully, what makes it harder is the fact that I haven’t lived in Malaysia in the past couple of years to write about it authoritatively.

Thankfully, I have these taxi drivers to bring me up to speed, even if it’s only one aspect of what is wrong with our country today and in my opinion, they’re all interconnected. They also taught me that the prime minister’s ideal of 1 Malaysia fails miserably.

Most of us know that it would be fair to surmise that freedom of religion, expression and peaceful assembly, deaths in police custody, preventive detention, sexuality and indigenous rights are some of the top 10 human rights issues in Malaysia. With 1,000 words at my disposal, I’m going to cut to the chase. If you’re expecting this article to be an executive summary of the human rights condition in Malaysia, you’ll be sorely disappointed. SUARAM and SUHAKAM’s annual reports will serve that purpose.

My own conclusion is that human rights in Malaysia will only improve once corruption ends and respect for the rule of law begins.

Even taxi drivers know this and they gain this intelligence just by observing the traffic jams from the inside of their beat-up Protons. Just so you know, the short film “Meter” isn’t really a fair representation of all taxi drivers.

“Wow, the traffic is really bad!” I exclaimed from the back of a taxi I took from a shopping mall recently. It was close to eight as I rushed to do some last-minute Christmas shopping on a Thursday night.

“Hmmm… biasalah (it’s normal). You want to know why?”

I wanted to answer because there are too many cars in the city and shopping is after all Malaysians’ favourite hobby, only second to eating, but the Malay driver’s answers were more analytical.

“Thanks to our government, they allow these shopping malls to be built right in the middle of a busy intersection. Ah, you tengok (look at this). This is not new. They know how many cars are passing through here and why do they build only two lanes? Patutlah (of course), jam!”

“We are working-class people who work hard all day. Time is important-kan? Every minute wasted is every penny lost. Every construction built, is every penny earned for them. The more construction there is, the more money they make-lah!” He sighed.

As we crawled past behind the mall, a couple was seen snuggling in a dark corner.

“Eh! Apa,ni (what’s this)? Celebrating Christmas-kah?”

He shook his head and said disapprovingly, “Hmm… macam-macam you boleh tengok sekarang (you can see all sorts of things these days). Men looking more like women and women behaving like men. Ya, Allah. What is happening to this world?”

I found myself pulling the collar of my shirt tightly together for the rest of my ride home.

“You know what H1N1 is?” A talkative Chinese driver asked me a few days later and it was obvious that he wasn’t testing my knowledge of the disease. He waited impatiently for me to tell him I didn’t know the answer so that he could share his brilliant joke.

I shook my head.

He said gleefully: “Aiyah, you don’t know-meh?”

“It’s Hishammuddin1, Najib1. So if you get it, die-lor.” I smiled politely while he chuckled out loud, obviously pleased with his joke.

Before I could comment, he continued: “You know-ah. All this bird flu, swine flu, not as dangerous as H1N1, you know! What kills us are Hishammuddin and Najib!”

“Really? Why?” He finally sparked my interest.

“Errr… you Chinese, right?” Even if I’m not, I wasn’t going to admit it and spoil the fun.

“We, Chinese, will not live in peace as long as Hishammuddin and Najib rule this country. Everything is about the Malays.”

“But don’t you think it’s not just a Chinese problem?” I challenged.

“Yes, yes, you’re right. Every race has a problem. The Indians are so poor, they become gangsters. The Chinese feed corruption and Malays [they] feed off the government. What is our government doing about this? Nothing! Why should they? In the end, the Malays are the ones who untung-mah (benefit).”

At the end of my ride, I learned more about this new disease called H1N1 from the taxi driver than from the paper.

Perhaps the most intelligent conversation I had was the one with an Indian taxi driver. He blamed traffic jams on poor public transportation and bad traffic regulations. He said that if we improve on the LRT lines, provide better bus services and impose zoning laws where one-driver-vehicles are prohibited from entering the city at peak hours, the traffic would be better.

“But why would the government do that? They rather build flyovers without proper planning. The construction jams up the whole city and then, what do they do? They build more flyovers! That’s where they get all the money, what. Our government is so corrupt that nothing works in this country,” he said with genuine frustration.

“I’m telling you the truth because I know from experience. I was a police for seven years at the Thai border. I worked hard but earned peanuts. If you want to earn more, you makan suaplah (take bribes). Many people do it but I refuse. So now, I’m a taxi driver-lah!”

“Boss, I think it’s better if you keep to your left. It’s faster,” I offered my opinion as we arrived at a road I take regularly after work.

“Oohh… so now you know the roads better, huh?” he said sarcastically.

Moral of the conversations is that we can all talk about human rights abuses in Malaysia but until the problem of traffic jam is solved in this country, they will go nowhere. If our government is unable to solve a basic problem such as road infrastructure, do you honestly think it can with bigger problems like the ISA?

Happy New Year to all! Let’s hope traffic conditions will improve next year.

This article was first published at The Malaysian Insider on 2 January 2010 under the same title.

Adults do get bullied. It’s called politics!

Bullies are mean.

Bullies think they have the natural right to make others feel bad about themselves.

Bullies are cowards.

Yes, so we’ve heard.

As a child, I don’t remember being bullied much. Perhaps it was because I was bigger than most other children but mostly, I think it was because I never allow myself to be bullied.

When I was six, I got into a bloody fight with a boy who teased me in kindergarten. He ended up having a black eye while I lost my front tooth. This explains why I grew up with a set of crooked teeth.

I don’t remember crying. Instead, I spent my teenage years begging my parents to let me wear braces.

When I was thirteen, one of our teachers tried to humiliate us by defacing our faces with a piece of white chalk whenever we made a mistake in class. I would sit at the back of the class, fuming and just when I managed to sum up enough courage, I stood up and blurted out, “You shouldn’t be doing this. What you’re doing is wrong!”

“Oooohhh, you think you’re so smart? Step out now!” The teacher yelled at me and threatened me with his long metal ruler from the table.

Oblivious to the threat, I walked right to the front of the class and extended my hand voluntarily. Smack! I received a hard blow to my outstretched palm.

I don’t remember crying but the teacher probably did after he was fired from the school once a report was lodged by my friend’s parents. According to my friend, her Mom said that she didn’t spend all those money on teenage-acne-skin treatment cream just for the teacher to draw on with a dirty chalk.

So now you think that being an adult, I probably don’t get bullied around. Bullying only happens when you’re a child. Adults are too dignified to subscribe to such method of intimidation and abuse.

On the contrary, I get bullied more as an adult than when I was a child.

As a child, we often get bullied by other children or adults because we’re either smaller in size, weaker in strength, ugly, fat, effeminate, eccentric or if we possess any other undesirable human traits.

As an adult, I’ve learned that societies are taught to believe that one’s worth is measured by gender, age, social status and income. If you don’t measure up, you’re more likely to be subjected to bullying by those who think that they are above everyone.

At the age of 25, I left Malaysia to serve as the youngest female UN volunteer in Timor Leste. I was young, idealistic and needless to say proud.

Working together with a mixture of people from various countries and diverse culture really opened up my eyes to the universality of human behavior. I left feeling proud but this was soon replaced by insecurity. Being the lowest paid UN staff, it was easy for others to make me feel small and insignificant.

Soon enough though, my job taught me to understand the importance and significance of my role in the greater scheme of things.

There was one particular senior staff who tried to make me feel that being a woman, young and a volunteer, I was not worthy of his respect. Being in charge of administrative, procurement and logistics coordination, he felt that he had great power and influence over anyone. Simply put, any staff who needed something as trivial as a chair, had to seek his authorisation.

Upon realising such power, many staff tried to gain his favour by giving him favours. He, of course, thrived on all the special treatment.

Being young and naïve, I did not quite understand the need for anyone to kowtow to him. I thought that it was simply his job to attend to the administrative and logistic needs of his fellow colleagues. Hence, I never bothered paying him more attention than needed and maintained our relationship strictly professional. I could not bear to be in his company since I questioned his intention and integrity.

Needless to say, my indifference towards his power and position eventually hurt his ego. I began to notice that it took me more effort than anyone else to request anything from him. He would snub me in public and found ways to make my work difficult.

The extent of his dislike for me reached a climax when he denied me access to a driver, truck, chairs, equipment and additional staff I needed in order to organise an important event.

His excuse was, I did not provide him with sufficient notice and it was a weekend where the word “work” meant nothing to him. It was of course an excuse used to make sure that I would be held responsible for a failed event since the word “weekend” did not exist in such a humanitarian work context.

I was given an ultimatum, to submit to defeat or to rise up to the occasion.

I chose the latter.

Instead of breaking down and pleading to him, I gathered all the strength and courage I had to put together all the resources I needed on my own.

That weekend, I spoke with some locals who agreed to lend me all the furniture and equipment I needed from the local community hall, drove my own assigned vehicle to painstakingly transport all the materials and hired additional workers from my own pocket. It was a lot of hard work. I could have made my own life easier but I chose not to compromise my dignity and pride.

The event was a huge success and the biggest battle won, was one of personal triumph. The senior staff soon learned that I would not be broken down and what I lacked in age and position, I made up in strength and determination.

There are many forms of bullying and for adults, they are politics in disguise. They may not always appear in the form of someone who is bigger, prettier or simply mightier, but often in the form of a senior person in a position of power. We are taught or made to feel that we are not good enough due to the fact that we are younger, uneducated, poor or simply being a woman.

However, if we learn to have respect and belief in ourselves, nobody can take that away from us no matter how hard they try. Bullies may break our physical being but hopefully they will never break our spirit. We can either submit to their prejudices or we can always prove them wrong.

Perhaps what we should think about is why there will be some people who love to put us down? I personally think that it is often the only way they know how to deal with their own insecurities.

The good thing is, there will always be a few people who will recognise and acknowledge our hard work and potential and those are the people who really matter.

My experience as a UN volunteer has taught me that every person, no matter how low they are in the scale of things, they each have an important role to play and they should never let other people try to convince them otherwise.

Always serve with pride and dignity because that’s the best weapon you can ever use to throw bullies off balance.

Bullies have no respect for themselves.

This article was first published on The Malaysian Insider on 18 December 2009 under the same title.

International Migrants Day - Migrants in Malaysia

Someone once told me, “The world is filled with assholes. Well, at least ninety percent of it.”

It’s a strong statement, but believe it or not I think it’s close to the truth. Boy, what a scary thought it is.

It’s International Migrants Day today. Personally, I don’t know what that means except that the many Indonesian migrant workers I met yesterday do not know or even care that a day has been dedicated to them. There is no reason for any celebration whatsoever.

What do you think are the odds of a migrant domestic worker being employed by an asshole?

Megawati

This is the story of Megawati, a 22 year old Indonesian girl who came to Malaysia with hundreds of thousands of others in search of a better life.

“How long have you worked here?” I asked her.

“Four months,” she replied shyly.

“So, is it a bad majikan [employer] or agent which caused you to end up here?”

I was curious what brought her to the shelter at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. More than 100 Indonesian women and children are being sheltered at the embassy while waiting to be deported home due to the absence of work permit. In fact, they wouldn’t have overstayed in Malaysia if they had their passports.

The many women I talked to share the same stories. They are there because their employers or agents had held them and their passports hostage after their contracts expire. They are there because they managed to escape. Many of them have friends or know someone still being detained illegally by their employers or agents.

These are not just the horror stories.

Megawati continued to tell me that her employer is a bachelor who hired two maids. She was one of them. God only knows why a bachelor needed two domestic workers.

After only working for 3 days, her employer started to abuse her.

“How did he abuse you?” I asked her solemnly.

“He kicked me in the stomach,” she said reluctantly in the beginning. “Sometimes, he hit me on the head with a vase. He also splashed me with boiling water.”

I gritted my teeth as I listened to her. She must have told this story a million times because she said it with such an even tone. For those who are not there to see the scars on her arms, would have thought she had rehearsed her story just to gain sympathy.

I held her right arm and inspected the clean but unnatural discoloration. “This looks old,” I said.

“But when she arrived [here], it was filled with pus,” a woman sitting beside her intervened immediately. She must have thought I didn’t believe Megawati.

“Show her. Show her.” The woman encouraged Megawati.

Megawati’s hands went up to the top buttons of her vermillion red shirt with batik printed collar. As she was unbuttoning her top, she told me that she has burn marks all over her chest.

“It’s OK. I believe you,” I said while I held her hands to stop her from having to undress in front of me just to prove the abuse she had suffered.

“Why do you think your employer did this to you?” I asked.

“Because I made mistakes. Whenever I made a mistake, he would get angry.”

“Did he sexually abuse you?” I had to ask.

“No,” Megawati answered. I was not convinced.

A few seconds later, Megawati told me that her employer made the other maid cut herself up with a knife.

It seems that once the agent found out the unmentionable acts committed by the employer, she was immediately sent to the shelter. The police was notified and her case is still under investigation.

When I asked Megawati whether her parents know what has happened to her here, she told me no. When I asked her whether she would ever tell them, that was when tears started to well up in her eyes.

In a croaky voice, she said, “I would never tell them. They’re old. I don’t want them to suffer.”

Dayanti

Not everyone has a good agent like Megawati. Often than not, they are probably one of the worst perpetrators when it comes to migrant rights.

Dayanti told me that her passport is being detained by her agent. On top of that, she has given RM1,200 to the agent in return for the promise of going home safely at the end of her contract. Until today, she’s still stuck in Malaysia. She has not received her salary for five months and mean time, her agent has also borrowed RM1,760 from her. In total, she has paid a huge price for working in Malaysia for 2 years.

Before arriving at the shelter, Dayanti was detained by the agent with 3 other Indonesian women. They were forced to work at the agent’s house without being paid. In legal terms, this is considered as forced slavery. Like some of the tough ones, she escaped and ended up at the shelter. The other two are too afraid to escape and are still being held hostage until today.

What does the embassy do?

According to Dayanti, the embassy is trying to work things out with the agent. When I asked the Labour Attache what does working out with the agent entail? He said they try to solve the problem diplomatically. If the agent doesn’t cooperate, they will issue a single passage pass to the women so that they can return home.

What about cases of abuse?

The Labour Attache said that they will report this to the police. Many cases are being solved through mediation. This means, if the employers cooperate and agree to offer compensation (usually two months pay), they won’t press any criminal charges. It seems that most cases are being solved this way.

One woman wept as soon as she talked about her 4-year old daughter in East Java, whom she hasn’t seen for a long time. “I want to go home because I miss my daughter so much,” she said with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Others told of the stories of being fed a meagre meal a day and some, were raped.

Not all stories were sad. Dayanti, for instance, laughed as she told me how she tricked her agent into believing her when she said she was going to feed the cat, when in effect, was a decoy for her great escape. Perhaps her agent’s ironic ability to love an animal has helped save her life. Perhaps, that’s why she laughed.

International Migrants Day will mean something when these assholes are being brought to justice. After all, they’re a waste of space in this world.

*All names have been changed to protect the identities of the women

This article was first posted on Loyar Burok on 18 December 2009 under the title Migrants in Malaysia.

Americano or Cappuccino?

Eight years ago, I interned with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in New York. Being in New York City for the first time, I tried to squeeze in every possible thing I could do within the short span of 3 months.

Honestly, I loved the city. I even dreamed of living there until 9/11 happened and living the American dream isn’t quite the same again.

There is still one thing about the country that bugs me, with or without 9/11. It’s the tipping system. If you haven’t been to America, be warned that there’s a fifteen percent tipping policy for services at all food and drink outlets. With this wisdom in mind, hopefully, it’ll spare you the humiliation I went through eight years ago.

I went to a bar in Manhattan (coincidentally situated in one of the World Trade Centre towers) and everything was as how you would have imagined it; chic, classy and the epitome of a Sex-in-the-City lifestyle. The women were all dressed in fashionable outfit, sipping their pink-coloured concoction while they flirted around men who resembled Big in many ways.

I refrained from being another Carrie Bradshaw and ordered a glass of red wine at the bar instead. I can’t remember how much I paid for it but suffice to say, more than enough.

Feeling rather generous, I told the extremely good-looking bartender casually, “Please keep the change.”

He took one look at my money and flashed me a menacing look. With his first and middle fingers still clinging firmly to the neck of the wine glass, he said coldly, “I’m sorry, if you want your drink, you gotta give me more.”

I thought he was joking but he didn’t look amused. Suddenly, he didn’t look that handsome after all.

Feeling flustered and humiliated, I fumbled for my purse, rummaged through it and handed him a five dollar note since it was the smallest denomination I had. It was the first and only tip which I had parted most grudgingly in my life.

I could never really understand the American system when it comes to tipping. I’ve heard many times that such policy is necessary to compensate for the underpaid waiters and waitresses. I can truly sympathise with this since I had worked as a part time waitress and bartender during my university years. I know how unjustifiably disproportionate the pays are compared to the labour put in.

But, my understanding of tipping is somewhat like art.

The price of a piece of art work is often valued by how much it pleases the buyer. Sometimes, you look at a painting and you think to yourself, “Gee, did a clown just pee all over it? And they call this art?!”

The next thing you know, someone has offered to pay one hundred thousand dollars for it. That someone is willing to pay that much money for something you consider trash, because he or she appreciates it and hence, is happy to splurge that kind of money to own it.

So, if I’m really impressed or pleased with a waiter’s hospitality, I am more than willing to tip him generously. If not, I won’t bother because he is already being paid to do a job. Tipping should not be obligatory and it’s not part of my responsibility to pay the waiter, especially when I’m expected to pay for my meal.

Frankly, I would prefer if a restaurant charges more for the food in order to cover its employees’ salary. Some might say, “Oh, but how sure are you that the money will go to the employees?” I would say that it’s really not my problem. I dine at a restaurant for two reasons, to eat and socialise, not to do charity work.

So that’s America. You’re expected to pay for something that is implied but not written. In Italy, they do it the opposite way.

Few years back, I went on a vacation to Siena with my best friend, S. We had a great meal at a restaurant and when the bill came, we habitually scrutinized the items on the bill. (We’ve acquired this habit from our parents who are rather careful when it comes to financial matters. Mind you, thanks to this habit, I’ve once managed to rescue RM1,500 from a miscalculated bill at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, which otherwise would have been happily paid by our party host, still in his drunken stupor.)

Everything looked in order except for one item listed as il corpeto. We were convinced that the restaurant was trying to take advantage of two innocent Asian girls and we were not going to let them get away with it. So, we summoned the waitress to explain the bill for us.

We pointed the item out to the waitress and told her that we did not order it. She looked confused, understandably so since she could hardly speak a word of English.

After a few minutes of creative gestures and a lot of si, she nodded reassuringly and pointed her index finger at our empty plates and glasses. She even took away the napkin from my lap, flipped it wildly and all the time repeating the word il corpeto in that strong Italian accent. “Il corpeto, si? Il corpeto?”

After what seemed like hours of gesticulating back and forth, my very intelligent friend finally understood. She whispered to me, “I think il corpeto means charges for the dining utensils.”

“Are you sure they’re not just charging us for the dish washing?” I offered a second opinion. S looked at me quizzically, trying to figure out whether I was trying to be funny.

We finally relented and paid the bill, much to the waitress’ relief.

So, in Italy, many restaurants will actually itemise your bill so meticulously that you know exactly how much and what you’re paying for. Frankly, as long as I understand what the charges are, I’m happy to pay up. At least, in Italy, they don’t harass you into tipping them.

Feel free to share any similar dining experience in whatever country you have travelled to. We’ll thank you for sparing us from looking like fools.

This article was published at The Malaysian Insider on 28 November under the same title.

Differentiating Indifferences

Zohra was 18 when she started to work as an administrative officer with the United Nations. She was bright, innocent, hopeful and idealistic. Her country, unfortunately wasn’t.

She could maintain her feeling of hope and sense of idealism because she spent nine waking hours of her life with foreigners who told her that human rights is for everyone, even if she’s a woman.

One day, she received a fully-funded scholarship to study in the United States. I remember her smiling shyly as she approached me humbly to look at her scholarship application a few months ago. I thought to myself, how proud and confident she must be, now that she had been accepted to study abroad.

On the contrary, she was forced to turn down the scholarship because her family refused to allow her to travel alone, unaccompanied by a close relative. Losing her would also mean losing a huge income for her family since she was earning more than any other average Afghan men.

No reward for chivalry

Afewark and I became friends when I took a trip to Bahir Dar in Ethiopia two years ago. We met in a rambunctious local bar playing live traditional music. He was there celebrating with his best friend who had just graduated from the local university.

Perhaps it was his age, or perhaps it was mine. Either way, he came across as a young, vibrant and idealistic man. He was well-mannered, polite and engaging, all the essential criteria which gained my trust to meet up with him again the next day.

While we were walking along a busy but dimly lit alley in between two strips of restaurants, bars and clubs, a dark figure grabbed my mobile phone from the back and disappeared into the darkness. While I remained immobile and speechless, like the rest of the unperturbed spectators watching from a close distance, Afewark made a quick dash after the culprit (no wonder Ethiopians are famed for their physical endurance in long distance running).

After about five minutes, Afewark appeared crest-fallen and ashamed for not being able to rescue my phone and most importantly for me to experience such an unfortunate incident in his country.

When we reported this to two policemen who were patrolling within the vicinity, they accused Afewark of masterminding the whole crime. He argued with them but they insisted that he plotted with the snatch thief since it was uncommon to see a local man with a foreign woman. By then, not only was he ashamed, he was also defeated.

No pride and a lot of prejudices

Walking into Tom Dy Centre in Phnom Penh, I was confronted by a lush garden and an extremely clean and neat environment. So clean that it was difficult to imagine I was in Phnom Penh. Inside, there are about 60 girls from the age of 16 to 25, faces and names I no longer remember because there are so many of them and each one looks the same as the other — long jet-black hair, dark skinned and petite.

While the environment surrounding them looked and felt clean, the girls don’t. In fact, most of them carried a vacant expression on their faces, which also explains why I find it difficult to distinguish or remember them. In conclusion, they looked as if their spirit had abandoned them.

These girls are rescued victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Most of them have been sold by their own families as sexual slaves. With their innocence, trust and dignity robbed away at such a young age, what’s left are their bodies. Some have even died from AIDS. I often wonder, how many of them still have hope in them as they hang on to each day of blatant uncertainty and a life-long of undeserved stigmatisation.

Pause, rewind and play

I’ve started work again in Kuala Lumpur recently. Being used to working in the fields of Timor Leste, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Cambodia, I must confess that this is a huge shift for me. My current work pace is nonetheless hectic and demanding, more so than in all my previous jobs. I am confronted by a different kind of challenge, more bureaucratic and professionally driven in nature — one which I would have to subsequently learn to deal with.

I spent my first week relearning how to operate technologically advanced office machines, something many of us have taken for granted. When I informed the chief executive officer that my work performance is somehow hampered by my ineptness to operate such sophisticated equipment, he quipped, “You know, we have had this machine since three years ago. It’s not sophisticated. I think it’s you since you’ve worked in countries like….” Point taken.

Then, I’ve had disgruntled office members who are not pleased with my “slow” performance while I try to deal with 10 other priorities. I try to handle all of them as calmly as I can, sometimes more calmly than others would like me to be.

I’ve sat in meetings and observed discussions and debates about issues, what makes people upset and what causes such urgency. Sometimes, I do get riled up, but often I don’t.

When my friends look away uncomfortably at a beggar standing by our dining table, I look at them in the eyes and smile politely before turning them away.

If I don’t get upset when someone screams at me unjustly or when I don’t seem to be moved by the ugliness of my surrounding, does that mean I’m heartless? Does it mean I don’t care when I don’t get frustrated with what others feel as an urgency?

It may seem that way but it’s not, because at the end of the day, I’m able to sit back and think about the countries where I’ve been, where there are real people with real problems. The pressure we’re succumbing to in our daily professional environment is driven mainly by the notion of cost and benefit.

Do I use this as an excuse not to take action for every single request I’ve received? I hope not because I do go to bed soundly every night, feeling satisfied that I have done what I can and to the best of my ability. Trying to behave like a martyr when I’m not is not my style.

Today, my best friend who works in Afghanistan text-messaged me. It says: “Just to let you know I’m OK. I’m still in Sri Lanka on holidays.”

Six UN staff have been reported dead after a Taliban shoot-out and bombing in Kabul. It could have been her. It could have been me five years ago.

Whenever I feel the urge to dramatise my life unnecessarily, I pause for a moment and think about what I can achieve today, instead of worrying about what I can’t. Then, I’m being reminded by people like Zohra, Afewark and the Tom Dy girls how easy and blessed my life has been compared to theirs.

All names have been changed to protect the identity of the individuals mentioned in this article.

This article was first published in The Malaysian Insider on 31 October 2009 under the same title.