Moving, Scotch Whiskey, My Two Wives Are Quarreling, and Two White People Serving Pork Sloppy Joes in a Muslim Country, by Garth

We are writing this blog to show how sometimes we still struggle with cultural differences, even though we have been in this country for over two years. We sometimes look at things through our western view of things and find some things difficult to accept or very funny. Sometimes we experience things and we don't know if they are cultural issues or just issues having to deal with our interactions with that individual. Having a sense of humor and also being laid back and accepting of things always helps in these situations.

Moving

Last Monday (Merdeka Day), I (Garth) helped the children's pastor's husband move his business from his office to his parent's home. The moving truck was scheduled to show up around 10:00 am but did not come until 12 noon. I made the joke that it must be Malaysian or rubber time (things happen when they will happen). The moving truck had a Chinese driver and an Indian man as the assistant mover. We loaded up the truck and headed for the house to drop off the office supplies. I noticed the Indian person kept looking at me and giggling. I finally decided to try and talk to him. The Chinese person told me that the Indian person spoke very little English and was from Bangladesh. I thought I would still try and initiate a conversation with him. I asked him if he was from Dhaka. He said "yes". I tried to continue talking and ask him if he has been to Chittagong, Bangladesh because one of my student's parents live in Chittagong. But he responded, "No, Dhaka". I knew that I was not going to get much more information from him so I did not ask him anything else. But he kept giggling at me when I was helping move things. At one point, he grabs my stomach and says "beer belly". I hate the taste of beer, so I know that is not what caused my belly, but he was much thinner than me so perhaps that was the cause of his giggling.

What the moving truck looked like.

Once we finished unpacking at the parent's house the couple started offering me scotch whiskey a couple of times. I finally said yes and the wife poured a bit in a glass with some ice cubes. I drank it and right away she fills my cup up again with scotch whiskey before I could say "No thanks". The first one I drank was so strong that I went to the tap and watered down the second cup she gave me. For the rest of the time there, every few minutes they kept offering me more scotch whiskey. I did not know if I was supposed to leave a bit of scotch whiskey in the cup to show that I did not want anymore which is done is some cultures, or to keep finishing it to show them my "enjoyment" of their hospitality.

The Two Wives Quarreling

The two wives quarreling was actually a prayer request in our Care group. We are in the same care group as the pastor of our church.  The father of our pastor, who is Chinese, is married to two wives. From our understanding, all three are Christian. In Chinese polygamous marriages, the first wife has more status than the wives below her which causes a lot of friction in the family. The father is not doing too well health-wise right now so both of his wives are taking care of him, which is causing a lot of friction in the household.  Needless to say, we haven't prayed that kind of prayer request before.


Two White People Serving Pork Sloppy Joes in a Muslim Country 

Background information: Malysia is made up of three different cultures: Chinese, Indian, and Malay. Throughout the history of Malaysia there has been some tension between these three cultural groups. Chinese and Indian are allowed to practice any religion. But Malays are Muslim at birth and cannot convert to any other religion. Muslims cannot eat pork.  Penang is unique from the rest of Malaysia because it is evenly split between Chinese and Malay, but in the rest of the country the majority would be Malay.

Malaysia trivia fact: Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia in the early 1960's because they did not feel the minority Malay population would have their rights protected among the Chinese majority.

An outreach event our Church does for the community is the Lantern Festival (see our blog from October 7, 2012). Last night at the Lantern Festival we volunteered to help serve food. Many Chinese like pork and most of our church is made up of Chinese people. We have some Indian families at our church too. In fact, there was only one white person, besides ourselves, at the Lantern Festival with about 200 people attending. The person who coordinated the food asked that we serve the pork sloppy joes. Here they call it "sloppy".  The pastor's wife made the pork sloppy joes and many Chinese people came back and complimented how much they enjoyed the "sloppy". I then had a Malay person come up to me and ask me what was in the "sloppy". I knew it was a Malay person because the Malay women wear head scarfs. When she asked me what was in the "sloppy", I paused for a second and then said pork. She shot me a dirty look, shook her head, and walked away.

Sloppy Joe with ground pork

One more story from Eileen:  We went to Burger King on Friday for dinner and were standing in line. When we got to the front of the line the cashier waved us over to the next cash register (where there was no one to take our order) and proceeded to take the order of the person behind us.  The customer ordered for his family while we waited.  When that customer who had been behind us in line had gotten his order then the cashier waved us back into his line again and then took our order.  It completely did not make sense to us why he would have done that, but oh well . . .