Reese Kaplan -- Mets Fan On the Other Side of the World

As many of you folks here know, I picked up and left the USA at the beginning of June for a new life adventure in the country of Malaysia.  It was the result of several months of research and planning until the task list developed took on the assigned actions and the project was officially begun.  

On June 6th I attended the closing of the sale of my El Paso home and on June 7th I was on the second trip to Malaysia in less than a month, but this time on a one-way ticket.  

It's been two months now getting up in Southeast Asia and it's still a matter of going with the flow and getting adjusted to the differences between where I spent the first 61 years of my life and where I am now.  

Understanding how things work in a new country requires a bit of give and take.  The regulations for foreigners who choose to live here are a bit convoluted, but this week I'm in east Malaysia on the island of Borneo to meet with a long term visa consultant to help in that regard.  Thus far she's been informative and had forms ready for to fill out to streamline the process.

Malaysia offers two long term visa programs, one for West Malaysia where Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Ipoh are located, and a second one for East Malaysia designed for people who plan to live there (but are not required to do so). To get the Sarawak-MM2H (Malaysia My 2nd Home) long term visa requires a certain income level or fixed deposit in a Malaysian bank.  I'm opting for the latter as it's not an astronomical sum.  

This past week I got 8 passport sized photos which accompany the application.  I also need to certify by notary page-by-page each one in my passport.  

I also need to get a Letter of Good Conduct from apparently the El Paso Texas police department showing I have no criminal background.  What makes it challenging is that I have no paper checks for my American bank accounts and I must pay $6 each for each of our police reports.  

I may have to ask my brother to pay on my behalf after I send him a photo copies of the American passport.  

People are constantly asking me what it's like living here and whether or not there are major concessions that have to be made.  Understand it is different but nothing that's truly earth shattering.  

For example, it is typical in Malaysian homes to have tankless water heaters in showers to provide instant hot water when needed for bathing, but correspondingly there are often no water heater tanks in homes which mean you get room temperature water for washing your hands in bathroom sinks and for washing dishes in the kitchen.  

Dishwashers are apparently something that have not caught on in a big way here, nor have clothing dryers.  It was amusing to me the first time I rode through the wealthy district of town with mansion-sized homes with a driveway full of luxury cars to find racks in the driveways or on the porches blocking the view holding folks' clothing to dry in the sun (in between the frequent rainstorms).  

The culture here is a mixed one between native Malay people, Chinese, Pakistani, Indian and other Asian extractions.  Westerners in Ipoh are a rare sight indeed and things you never think about in the USA become a bit of a concern for planning carefully when it comes to shopping for clothes.  

I've yet to meet a Malaysian person who is 6'1" tall as I am which means the length of pants sold correspond to the more modest requirements of the natives.  Also most Malaysian folks are rather slim and you find that waist sizes on pants in many stores end at about 34.  36 is considered huge.  

I'm fortunate to have lost a lot of weight over the past year and am down to a 40 but that's still not in the cards when it comes to shopping in Malaysia.  The same corresponds to shoes where they usually end at the European size convention of 41 or 42 where I require 45 or 46 (American size 11-11.5).  

On the flip side, folks are amazingly friendly and helpful, particularly if you show patience with their limited abilities to speak English.  I have had folks offer to drive me wherever I needed to go.  

They introduced me to their favorite stores to buy things and recommended restaurants for the times when I'm too lazy or it's simply not convenient to cook.  Tipping is not considered normal here and it took a long time to get accustomed to not doing so.  Even if you gave a very modest 10% on the balance of a check they come by to bow to you and thank you profusely.  

Then there's the matter of prices.  With the exception of feeding bad habits like drinking alcohol, the prices of pretty much everything here are uniformly low.  A typical hawker stall breakfast of a noodle or rice-based dish with chicken, fish or pork (if it's a Chinese-run kitchen -- never in a Muslim kitchen) and vegetables with beverages for two people might come to less than $4 in US currency.  

A splurge on a big meal in a sit-down restaurant with multiple courses thus far has not reached the $15 total the for two of us.  

The initial trip to Malaysia in May was done to identify furnished apartments or townhouses to rent.  We hit one that instantly felt like home the second we walked through the doors.  The landlord was highly cooperative and for a 2200 square foot unit with 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, furnished and with cable TV along with air conditioners throughout came in at a price of $378 per month.  

That's not a typo.  By Ipoh standards it's on the high side, but being able to move in with just boxes of clothing and not having to worry about moving furniture nor appliances made it very easy.  

Did I mention it's within the confines of a private golf and country club and that the rear terrace (one on each side of the unit) overlooks the green of one hole of the course and the tees for driving from the next hole?  Yeah, we could get used to this (and I don't even play golf yet).

It's not just food that's priced like that.  A great example was when I decided in my currently dog-less home to get a tropical fish tank.  As a kid I had about a dozen tanks running at once, so setting up a single one couldn't amount to much.  What really piqued my interest was walking around the outdoor flea market on Sundays downtown and seeing male betta fish (Siamese fighting fish) in plastic bags full of water for 5 Malaysian Ringgits or less ($1.25 in US currency).  

I found a nice small tank with a curved glass front and cover, stone gravel, some artificial plants, a decorative worn whiskey barrel decoration to provide a hiding place for some fish, a light, a stand, a water filter, a thermometer and fish food.  There were also another half dozen fish to accompany the betta.  The total for everything was well under $100.

Given the odd and irregular shape of the top of the tank I decided to make a lid with wire mesh cut to fit and affix to the black plastic lid that came with the tank but left large perimeter areas exposed.  I went into a hardware store to find metal screen or plastic mesh and was told they didn't have it.  

As I was leaving the store I saw a half dozen rolls of it on display in the front of the store and conveyed I wanted a small amount -- maybe one meter in length as it was already over 4 feet long in the spool.  That would be enough to make about a half dozen tank covers.  When he told me it would cost 6 Ringgits I thought I misheard.  That's $1.50.  Yes, I took it and with some heavy shears made a perfect cover for the tank.  

In my Saturday segment I'll cover transportation, an update on the trip to Kuching in Sarawak on the island of Borneo, and what our next several months should be like for us.  In West Malaysia we've seen wild monkeys on the golf course where the condo rental is located.  In Borneo let's just say the simian examples are a bit larger.  Photos to come.