Orang Putih

So I'm in the classroom, getting ready to observe a lesson, and the teacher begins with writing on the board "Things in Classroom." (Articles are a problem for Malay speakers - they don't have any.) "What can you see?" he asks the children, who respond in a mixture of Dusun and Malay, the teacher translating and writing on the board.

"Eraser!"
"I see table!"
"Pencil!"
"Orang putih!" ("White Person!")

It's always such a boost to the self-esteem to be named as an object in a classroom.

"Orang putih" is a cry I'm becoming familiar with these days. My little house sits on what in this village counts as a major highway - a dirt track that leads to about half the houses from the school. The children are fascinated by me in school; the way I say hello, the way I write in my book, the way I look at their work, all of these are endless sources of laughter and amazement. So how much more interesting is the way I brush my teeth, or eat my breakfast? The neighbourhood children are at my currently-curtainless-but-not-for-long windows from 6am until long after dark, gazing through the windows, giggling if I look at them. In desperation I started to ignore them entirely - and that's when the calls started, as if I were a panda in a zoo - you know, the hordes of visitors staring into the cage, clicking their fingers and calling out "Here! Look here!" in an effort to get the panda focused on their camera lens. Well, my zoo visitors call "White person! White person!" When I ignore it, the calls get louder. One teenager rapped on the glass, but he soon stopped that - a white person might be more interesting than a local, but an angry white person is a hell of a lot scarier...

The house is slowly coming together, with some minor issues. I ordered some furniture, which got delivered by a pair of very dusty men last week, looking between the village and the orang putih with incredulity. My kitchen is still a little unfinished...

I still have no electricity as the generator I bought broke on the very first go. Made in China. I usually make an effort to avoid Chinese products, both because of the politics and the quality, but it's difficult in Malaysia, with its large Chinese population. Chinese products flood the market, and both Chinese and Malay-owned shops are full to bursting with rubbishy, flimsy, rock-bottom-prices tat - it's nearly impossible to buy good quality kitchenware in Ranau, and the first pot I bought cracked - yes, a metal product cracked - the third time I used it... The generator was promptly returned to the shop the next day, where I bullied the poor man into refunding me with threats of the consumer association. At first he refused, and said he would refund me everything except for RM100 (£25 or so), because when he resold it it would have to be as a second-hand product. "Yes," I said. "A second-hand faulty product." But he didn't seem to get the irony. "He very hard woman," he said to my teacher friend (gender-specific pronouns also being absent from Malay.) The next generator I buy is going to be Korean-made, the next pot German, and my new car Japanese.

Yes, I got a new car this week - a great big Isuzu D-Max, the type of twin-cab that's driven by young men who need a big car and bigger speakers to prove themselves. I felt ridiculous picking it up this afternoon, dressed from school in my Malaysian-style sarong skirt and pretty Australian flip-flops (thanks to my little sister Lisa!) I had to climb up into it, and when I sat behind the wheel, I felt like a little girl playing dress-up, only with a car instead of mum's clothes. But at least, unlike my Malaysian baby 4x4, I won't rattle like a pebble in a tin can when I drive out to the schools any more!