Visual contradiction

To my great joy, I recently discovered a dairy farm 30 minutes from my home, which will sell me milk from organically raised, free range cows, milked, packaged and sold on their very premises. This saves me the anguish of having to choose between driving to Kota Kinabalu once a week just to buy fresh milk, or staying in Ranau and buying the standard Malaysian UHT milk, shipped from god-knows-where, boxed in Kuala Lumpur, and air-freighted to Sabah...

The best thing of all is that Malaysians, while not great milk drinkers, have an eye for the photogenic location, and thus the dairy's secondary purpose is as a backdrop for newly-weds' photoshoots, the cool mountainous air, pale green fields and gently strolling Friesians making for a peculiarly English scene amongst the usual colourful and frenetic Sabahan landscapes. It reminds me of the Korean English Village I once lived in...

Dairy farm as wedding portrait venue. Oh Asia - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Lemons and Love

I picked up a whole pile of crazy the other day on my way to the village - an old woman who squeezed my cheeks, and when we got to her bus stop, refused to get out of my car without some cash from me, until a stranger came up, dragged her out, and apologised to me, without apparently being connected in any way to the woman.

But she's hijacked this story. This story is about a whole different woman, who was hitch-hiking on a particularly bad piece of road today. It was so bad, I was almost stopped anyway for fear of falling into a pothole camouflaged in a puddle, and disappearing entirely forever, so I wound down my window and said "Hello! Do you want a lift somewhere?" "Why yes," she said, "thank you ever so much." Well, okay, so I'm taking the liberties of an unlicensed and entirely unqualified translator here, but I'm sure I'm not entirely off the mark. She climbed into the passenger seat bearing the usual basket, handbag, stitched-up umbrella and long pointy stick, and she squeezed my cheek. Then she smiled, and took a deep breath. "Do you know what I was doing today? I was playing with unicorns! It was ever so much fun. That's why I'm so muddy, you see." She paused to show me a bit of her skirt that was, indeed, muddy. She touched my cheek. "I wish you had been there to see it," she said mournfully, "although I must say, I'm rather achy now." She groaned and touched her back, her arms and her head, moaning pitifully and yet still smiling. "Maaf," I said, I'm so sorry. Then she gave me lemons, and when I said, "Berapa?" she looked horrified and presumably said (still in Dusun), "Please do not dirty the memory of the unicorns with mention of money. These are a gift for you, my child." 

Ok, honestly, I have no idea what she said for twenty minutes. Except the achy part, I got that, and the mud. Also the gift of lemons. When I showed appreciation she took out two more and for the rest of the drive I sat with four lemons on my lap, her garden prizes sweetening the air until we reached her house. As she got out, she groaned again and I said "Maaf, maaf." She smiled, shook her head, and said goodbye.

Padi Scarecrows

The rice fields have been growing for some time now, getting taller and greener day-by-rainy-day, and they're just getting to the point where greedy birds are an issue. The farmers near me are amazingly inventive about keeping these scavengers away - there are black plastic bags strung up on wire, lovely homemade wooden windmills (which I haven't yet been able to photograph) and old t-shirts. I took this picture at dusk on my way back to town from the villages.

Some have made scarecrows - and they wear hats that I would scavenge, were there not family members living on-site to protect their plot.

On my way home from a relaxed walkabout on the mountain last weekend, I passed one that was bright and red and beautiful amongst the rich greenery - I wish my photos did it justice...

New Year Number Three

The Islamic new year was celebrated very quietly in Malaysia last November. The Western new year was celebrated in the big cities with fireworks and a few drinks. Finally, though, we've reached the most impressive new year of them all: the Lunar new year, the Chinese celebration of the move into the year of the Water Dragon. This is such an auspicious year that midwives and baby equipment suppliers are already hiking their prices for the expected rush of Dragon Babies. 

Muharram was a single sober day, New Year was a few hours of celebration. The Chinese in Malaysia have been partying for two weeks. It began on January 23rd with children chucking firecrackers in the street, loud karaoke in the Chinese cafes, outrageous shopping sprees and a sudden explosion of red - an auspicious colour. Even the traditional Malay shops - shops that cater to Muslim women - got in on the action.

The celebrations have been a little more muted than those of Hong Kong, Singapore, and China itself. My experience of lunar new year has been one of glimpses - a glimpse of a man wearing the golden legs of a lion after performing the lion dance, the sound of drums as a lion dance finishes, the discarded confetti after a lion dance has been there. Yes, the lion dance occurs a lot. It is fundamentally to scare away the evil spirits and to attract luck and fortune, and dance troupes travel the country during the new year visiting businesses and organisations. They are rewarded with ang pow - the little red envelopes containing money that rival the lion dance for sheer visibility at this time.

Last night was our little town's official celebration. I was invited with my colleague and some other long-term homestay residents by the owners of our homestay, who are delightful and warm and friendly and who have the added ingredient of being ex-politicians, and pillars of the community. A friend who came to visit this weekend also came along. I probably didn't prepare her enough, in retrospect, but then even I didn't expect to be driven through the security barrier to the steps of the hall, where we clambered out in front of an audience of lesser persons, and were greeted by our very own lion dance - and when I mean our very own, I mean they performed for just three groups - the head of the Chinese Association of Ranau and his entourage, the Member of Parliament for Ranau and his entourage, and Doctors Lungkiam and Othman and us. The plebs just walked in a side door and sat on benches or rows of chairs. We were guided to one of five tables in the centre. We were, you might say, the centre of attention. Haha. Ahem...

The evening started with a lot of speeches by the proper VIPs (they had white coverings on their chairs, to differentiate them from the RIPs (the Relatively Important People) - that's us) whose pictures were prominently displayed on the stage. Then each table received a large plate with neat and tidy piles of various shredded food, like ginger, and onions that had been dyed green - and we all stood up; the MC counted down from three, and we all grabbed our chopsticks and gleefully and communally mixed up the "salad". 

Then we got to eat it while the povo looked on. That wasn't uncomfortable at all.

The lion dance was the main draw of the evening for me. The lion is made up of two men, one in the rear, one in the head, and it is a mastery of martial acrobatics. The head is the most ornate part, with enormous eyes with blinkable eyelids that turn to eye out the audience and other lions, giving him a remarkable character and personality. The mouth opens and closes, and there's a mirror on his forehead - demons are frightened off by their own appearance. Our main lion was black, and he leapt over the stage and strategically placed tables, twitching in time to the energetic drums that waxed and waned throughout the performance, building up to crescendos and then suddenly falling away to almost complete silence.

Pretty spectacular. I think, though, that next year I will leave the glimpsing behind and head for the centre of the action in Singapore...