Hi to all our family & friends,

We hope that you are well and if you’re in Melbourne, keeping warm.
I wrote this letter over a week ago and then decided not to send it, as I
felt there was not enough interesting things happening to warranty any
narcissistic discourse. Anyway, Veronica insists that I send it, so blame her
if it puts you to sleep.
Here’s a bit about us and our on-going struggle to remain sane in Malaysia.

Travelling with Lotus Bud can put some pressure on my ought for equilibrium.
The girl has a vivid imagination.
Prior to every flight , Veronica evokes a series of scenarios that all end badly.
Major headline badly. The Airline goes broke. A 20 car pile up en route to the
airport has us missing the plane. We go missing over the Indian Ocean.
We plough into a mountain. You get the idea.

We’re about to fly out of Tullamarine, when the pilot’s voice comes over the speaker.
Veronica turns to me all worried and says.  “Do you think he sounds a little depressed”?

We made it to Malaysia without incident and slotted back into life here as if it was no
more than a new day dawning.

We have been back for 6 weeks now. It’s been a busy time. The house is always in need
of maintenance. We’re teaching tai chi every morning. Lots of socialising and we have
some great new neighbours moved in behind us. I’m working on building websites and
Veronica is continuing in her quest to make the perfect sourdough loaf.
Things that we take for granted in Melbourne, like shopping, can be full day expeditions.

The latest sport to catch on at our house is cage fighting. Well, not exactly MMA stuff but
it’s pretty brutal. How it works is you put one ageing white man inside a mosquito net
with a Malaysian Aedes Egypti Mosquito and let them fight it out.
As I’ve already established in previous epistles, the local mosquito is clearly smarter than
the local human population, so this is not really a fair fight.
Hurricane Hanna up against Aedes Invisibilis. I can’t even see the little bugger as he ducks
and weaves around the canvas. I take hit after hit, itching and scratching, swinging and
missing.
I turn the light on and he’s no where to be seen. Light out and he laughs in my ear. He’s
cocky and I’m pissed.
In martial arts we learn that winning is one step closer to losing and losing is learning.
I’m a loser but my enemy is gaining weight. Eventually he can hardly fly under the weight
of my blood and I move in for the kill.
There are lots of fun things to do in Malaysia.

I have a lump in my neck. On my thyroid to be precise.
Decided to go to the hospital here and get it checked.
I rang up and explained my problem to a receptionist at the hospital.
My English being as bad as it is means I have to repeat myself many times
before they have any idea of what I’m banging on about. I usually hand the phone
to Veronica and she translates my gibberish.
Eventually it was all arranged. I was to see Doctor Wong, level 5 in the new wing.

Next day at the hospital I registered at the desk and was then ushered into a waiting
room. Apparently I would be going into room 7.
Sure enough, Doctor Wong’s name was on the door. Doctor Wong, Colorectal Surgeon.
I pointed this out to Veronica.
“Do you think they think I’ve got a pain in the arse instead of a pain in the neck?”
She immediately went to the reception desk and relayed our concern.
She returned and explained that apparently Doctor Wong was good at either end,
so we’re all good.

It seems like Veronica and I always manage to assign a significant portion of our time
abroad to visiting Doctors and Hospitals. It’s a form of time management.
We thought Lotus Bud had dengue. The doctor said it was too early to tell. It takes
about 5 days before a blood test will show a result.
He wrote out a prescription anyway.
We then went to the in-house dispensary, Veronica asked the girl what the bottle was.
“Medicine Ma’am”, she answered.
“What kind of medicine”?
“No Ma’am, just medicine.”
“What’s it for”? persisted a now plighted Veronica.
“To make you better Ma’am”.
“How? What’s it made of? What’s in it? What’s it do?”
“It’s medicine Ma’am. It makes you better.”
At this point I thought it best to just take the bottle and go.
Veronica was naturally a touch frustrated but I saw it as a brilliant metaphor for life
in George Town.
Actually, no one has a fuckin’ clue what they’re doing, why they’re doing it or what
might exist beyond the walls of their own insensitivity.

We stopped for a drink at a teh tarik stall in an alley off Hutton Lane ( no doubt soon
to have it’s name changed to something like Abdul Bin Raman Najib Razak Muhammad
Lane ) and low and behold there’s a temple roof rising over the back wall of the lane
and we’ve never seen it before. I asked the elderly proprietor of the 50 year old stall,
what the building was.
“It’s a temple sir.”
“Yes, I can see that, but what kind of temple? Buddhist, Hindu?”
“I don’t know sir.”
All these years and he doesn’t even know what is right next door. Unbelievable but
absolutely typical.

It’s so hard to get good staff here. Restaurants, cafes, trades, any business.
As a friend of ours recently explained.
“If they’re any good then they get poached or leave for higher pay.
If they’re just average, then they’ll stay with you until you have to kill them”.

I pinched this paragraph from an email Veronica sent to her Mum. It pretty much
nails everybody’s health problems here.

Every virus here is blamed on the weather, especially at this time of the year it seems.
Never mind if you have a sore throat, cough, cold, fever, headache, stomach ache,
toe ache, menopause, swollen glands, rash or probably even tooth ache, it’s all blamed
on the weather.
The heat, humidity, rain and storms are responsible for it all!!! Never mind that people
are in and out of air-con every few minutes. That a trip on a bus is deadly considering
the number of people who never think to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze
and the fact that no one washes their hands after using the toilet even if they work in a
restaurant. That the Dengue Virus has risen by thirty percent in the last two years
because people throw their rubbish in the drains and block them up so the mosquito
larvae multiply.   No, no, no, it’s the weather that’s responsible for all of this!!!

Veronica’s love of all things coffee has enriched our travel experiences no end.
When you’re walking down back streets and alleyways looking for trendy cafes, you
inadvertently discover the soul of a place. A vibrant local scene usually exists there, like a
an honest heart beating unseen beneath the skin of tourist sites.
It’s not only great places we discover but interesting people. Today we met a coffee
importer called Willy Wee. He wasn’t interesting but his name card is now a cherished part
of my souvenir collection.

I guess to understand this little story you would need to know that the best known shopping complex in Penang is called Gurney Plaza. It’s like a poor man’s Chadstone or Doncaster Shopping Town. It’s located on Gurney Drive near the famous Gurney Hawkers, all named after Sir Henry Gurney, former High Commissioner of Malaya who was killed by Communists during the Emergency.

Anyway, I needed to strip mould off an outside wall and figured that a high pressure water
cleaner might do the trick. Do you see where this is going?
I walked into a Chinese hardware and tool centre on Beach St and yes, I asked if they sold
Gernis.
They looked at me quizzically for a few seconds before one brave soul stepped forward and said, “Sir, you’ll have to get a taxi. It’s too far to walk”.

Is it bad karma to promote your own good fortune? Can positive assertions invite ill fate?

At the time of restoring our 135 year old house in Penang, we spent countless hours in
coffee shops and restaurants in the company of kindred spirits, listening to their horror
stories. Nearly everyone we knew who was also restoring an old Chinese shophouse was
having a disaster with the contractor or tradesmen or both.
Roofs that leaked, pipes that burst, ill-fitting woodwork, poor tiling, budget blow outs,
worker truancy, miscommunication and work done badly etc etc.

We would sit back contritely listening to the carnage, glowing in the knowledge that Uncle
Chan and his merry band of misfits was crafting our dream home.
This group of artisans were considered too old by most prospective restorers.
Why would you employ people who should be retired?
Why?
Because they had experience and skill. To top it off we had an amazing Project Manager
who listened to all our ideas and offered many creative options of her own.
We had a dream run.

Ok, enough smugness. There had to be some karmic payback for all that good fortune,
albeit five years later. Last Friday it arrived on a motorbike sent from hell. His name was
Yurgis, a cheerful young Indian man and he rode in with a small posse of Vietnamese foot
soldiers.

Yurgis works for Richard who possibly has some kind of pact with the devil. Richard makes old style glass windows to suit heritage houses. He came highly recommended and word of mouth is usually the best assurance. I rang Richard.

To begin with, we received a quote to put glass windows inside the wooden shutters upstairs, with the stipulation that we could retain the old shutters and the fly screens.
Similarly, downstairs the glass would have to compete with both wooden casement windows and screens.
No problem, they could build a separate frame. They would also fit magnetic sprung glass over the downstairs bat windows and fit glass frames in the upstairs vents.

We are regularly the victims of smoke, dust, chemicals, car exhaust fumes and noise coming in through the old shutters. It’s a romantic notion to live in a house without glass but you soon realise that it is seriously compromising your health. Clean air and safe living is not something that has ever occurred to most Penangites. They just mysteriously get sick and die too young. It’s an act of God or whatever deity is assigned responsibility for their particular brand of human stupidity.

A week after receiving the quote, Yurgis rings me and tells me he’s coming now to start work.
I wrongly assumed that this meant fitting windows. It actually meant that Yurgis needed to
bring someone else in to recheck the measurements.
Yurgis and his Vietnamese side kick, walked around with tape measures, shaking their heads while mumbling and grumbling in Malay ( the lingua franca for all foreign slave labour here ) until finally a phone call had to be made. We figured there was a problem. No point in discussing it with us though.
10 minutes later, in walked someone we assumed must be Richard. No point in saying hullo, we just live here.
2 minutes later they all walked out. Yurgis told me it couldn’t be done as they leave.
We actually felt relieved, it didn’t feel right.
Then for some stupid reason I said, “What about the bat windows and vents. Maybe we could just do them”?
“OK”, says Yurgis and then he disappears.

Another week passes and we hear nothing, we feel reprieved. It’s ok, we don’t want glass
anyway, do we?
The phone rings. It’s Yurgis.
“Mr John, we come now and start work”.

They turn up on motorbikes within minutes of the call. In struts Yurgis with two scrawny
Vietnamese workers carrying tool bags and window frames.
They spread themselves out without a moment wasted before scratching, bumping and
knocking over anything that might have some value to the inhabitants.

The vent windows don’t fit. No problem, they’ll just shave bits off.
One worker takes off with a saw and comes back 5 minutes later bleeding profusely from
a cut on his face.
Yurgis hands him a tissue.

They need more light. The worker who isn’t bleeding tries to force open a window that
doesn’t open.
“Stop”, I yell but he keeps on wrenching.
“Tell him to stop Yurgis, it doesn’t open”.
He stops but only after damaging the catch.

The silicon bottles are jammed and the silicon gun doesn’t work.
Bits of plastic get sawn off the tubes. Still doesn’t work. A window frame falls out and dents the floor.

Yurgis leaves, bolting our door from the outside and effectively locking us in. Let’s hope a
fire doesn’t start now. Idiot. He rides off on his motorbike and comes back 15 minutes later with a new silicon tube.
It appears to work but one Vietnamese guy gets his hands covered in silicon and Yurgis
manages to stop him from wiping it off on our furniture.
He hands him a tissue.
It won’t wipe off properly, so he goes down stairs and Veronica manages to stop him just
before he clogs up our drain.
He comes back upstairs. The window frame falls out and lands on his foot. It bleeds.
Yurgis hands him a tissue.
I can’t watch anymore and go down stairs for a break.

A terrified Veronica orders me back up stairs to keep watch.
They want to fit filthy windows. I stop them and together we clean the glass. They giggle
away in Vietnamese making fun of the silly white man.
The windows get banged into place with what seems like a lot of unnecessary hammering.

The whole circus moves down stairs.
Ho Chi Minh drags the ladder into place, climbs up and starts unscrewing the fly screens.
Veronica screams. “The fly screens must stay”.
“You want to keep the fly screens”? inquires Yurgis.
I look at him in disbelief, not sure whether to laugh or slap him.
“You are doing separate frames,” I remind him.
“Oh yes Mr John.”
“Do you have the frames?”
“Yes sir.”
“Where?”
“At the factory sir.”
“Really? Are you able to get them?”
“Yes Mr John.”

They all leave and come back 90 minutes later after making the frames.
They look ugly and need staining.
A tin of stain gets opened in our lounge room and ….
Veronica screams.  “Get out, you can’t do that in here, I’m allergic to chemicals.”
They look at her as though she’s just confessed to some heinous crime.
So they sit outside the front window on the 5 foot way and …..
Veronica screams again.
“Get away from the house you stupid idiots, the fumes are coming straight in the
window.”
They edge a little further away like scolded dogs.
I asked Yurgis what will happen once the frames are stained? Surely they will smell.
“No smell Mr John”.

They finish and bring in the frames. They stink. Veronica can’t scream anymore and
retires to the back of the house, a defeated woman.
Then the banging starts. I have no idea why but they hammer the living suitcase out
of the frames, the windows and anything else that makes a loud noise when banged.

Then it all goes quiet.
“We are finished Mr John”, says Yurgis.
First time he’s actually shared anything with me. I’d got used to trying to guess the
next step.
“I will come back tomorrow and fix the windows,” he adds.
They were fitting a magnetic catch to the bat windows, so I assumed there was some
drying time needed.
“You mean once the silicon has set,” I inquired.
“Yes, Mr John. Can you pay me now for the workers?”
He handed me two bills. I needed to pay for the labourers now and balance tomorrow.
I paid and they left.

The next day we were just leaving the house, I opened the door and there was Yurgis
standing there.  He had a small ladder in his hand and his worker friend was carrying a
trowel with a small bucket.
“How did you know we’d be home?” I asked him.
“No need sir, no problem, we just come to fix window”.
“How were you going to get inside?”
“No need sir, we can do from the outside.”
“What do you ……. ”  . I turned around and got a horrible shock. They had knocked all
the plaster out of the wall around the windows. It looked like the aftermath of an
earthquake.
“You have some faulty with your brick sir”.
“Damn fuckin’ right I do, you’ve smashed the front of our house out.”
“You didn’t know sir? Never mind, we can fix it.”
Ho Chi Minh scales the ladder and starts trowelling plaster all over the wall. More bits
of old plaster start flaking off as he applies the new. It’s an awful job. The new plaster
starts cracking as it dries. The wooden window frames are covered in plaster. The 5
footway tiles are speckled with dripping plaster and crumbling bits of wall. It’s a
disaster.
“Do you have any paint Mr John?.
“Why?”
“i will paint the wall sir.”
“GO AWAY!!

Yurgis rings me twice a day looking for his money.
“My boss wants payment.”
“Have you told him what a complete cock up this job has been?” I ask.
“Yes sir, he knows.”

The day after hell opened and Lord Yurgis, Prince of Darkness rode out from the
underworld, a bad tempered Lotus Bud and I decided to go to Gurney Plaza.
We’d ordered a fridge that was to be delivered in one week. That was 5 weeks ago.
It was time to go into their main outlet and vent some frustration. It wouldn’t change
anything, because no one gives a toss here but at least it would feel better having a
bit of a yell.
I could see that Veronica needed to let off some steam but to her undying credit she
stayed remarkably calm as we walked from store to store encountering sales people
who almost unanimously proved that the Malaysian education system is farcical.
No wonder they queue up to come to Australia to learn to read and write.

Things were going well as Veronica browsed through Harvey Norman, finally stopping
to look at a bread machine. There was a big sign next to it that said ‘Bread Machine”.
The machine itself had ‘Bread Machine’ emblazoned across it and the manual sharing
the same stand was also titled ‘Bread Machine’.
A salesman sidled up to Veronica and in a most informative way told her that it was a
‘Bread Machine’.
Veronica looked up at him. I could see the steam slowly percolating.
“I know it’s a fuckin’ Bread Machine. Do you think I can’t fuckin’ read you stupid man!”
She walked away and quite calmly added.
“I feel better now”.

As mentioned, we decided to upsize our fridge. SEN Electrical is on Level 7 of Gurney
Plaza and they gave us a pretty good deal. Stock will come in from KL in a week. That
was 5 weeks ago.
The day before we went into their store at Gurney, Veronica rings them.
“Hullo, is that Sen?”
“Who?”
“Is that SEN Electrical?”
“Hang on please.”
Someone else comes on the phone. Veronica continues.
“Hullo, is that SEN?”
“Wait one moment please, I will check.”
Veronica looks incredulous. She covers the mouth piece of the phone and tells me
that whoever she’s talking to is having a good think about the name of the company
they work for.
After about 5 minutes they come back on the phone.
“Sorry miss, there’s no body of that name here.”

Our fridge finally gets delivered. The driver was a really nice guy, even carried our
old fridge into a neighbour’s house. 3 hours later we’re walking along Beach St and
the phone rings.  It’s SEN.
“Sorry Miss, the fridge driver can’t find your house.”

Welcome to Malaysia.