So I Heard You Like Crabs

Pasar Malam: Farmers' Markets From Before They Were Cool

The pasar malam (night market) is a pretty important part of the Malaysian experience, being more popular than its farmers' market cousin that we have in the US. At a typical pasar malam there'll be lots of fresh fresh, meat, fruits, vegetables, snacks, etc. I actually visited last time I was here in Malaysia, but I guess I didn't post anything about the experience (at least I couldn't find anything on the old blog). Here are some pics from my most recent visit to one:

Stingray!

Sting ray isn't as crazy exotic as it sounds and, actually, it's relatively friendly to eat because it doesn't have many bones. I still struggle to pick out bones when I eat fish (newb!).

Feelin' crabby?

They've got some big fish for sale

Rambutan is one of my favorite fruits; open one up and you'll see the ants like them too

I discovered rambutan during my last trip. It's also common in Latin America, so you may see it around if you look hard enough. It's kind of like a very large, very sweet grape with a big seed in the middle of the flesh. PheNOMenal!

We didn't eat all of this pile of greens

Something Exotic

Merry Christmas!

Some shots of our Christmas family BBQ:

It's a wonder everyone didn't get food poisoning with me behind the grill. I assure you all, though, that I stepped away before things got serious with the chicken wing skewers, grilled fish and mutton steaks.

I had no idea what I was doing

I prepared baked (jacket) potatoes. If you add a lot of butter, cheese and seasonings, you really can't mess them up. 

Baked potatoes: So easy, even Jake can make them

 Merry Christmas to my entire family on both sides of the Pacific:

Ho liao!

I Finally Get Some Satay

Oh yes I do:

It was good too:

Penang Food Hawkers By Moonlight (Street light?)

Some photos of Penang's famous hawker stalls at night:

Here's the raw version of the cockles I described in a previous post:

Cockles

Satay is skewered meat and it is amazing

Durians hanging

One interesting thing that happened on this night was that an older, mustachioed gentleman suddenly came upon us in the dark and asked if we knew where the good street food was. He was badly in need of some fried rice, apparently, and after we showed him the way he went from stall to stall until he got what he was looking for. Malaysian food: Sometimes you just gotta have it.

Eating Tang Yuan

One special kind of food I've had this trip was tang yuan. Tang yuan are basically little sticky balls made from rice flour (imagine tapioca, but softer). Normally tang yuan don't have any kind of filling, but these days they can be stuffed with all kinds of different things: Black sesame paste, lotus paste, red bean paste, green tea paste, crushed peanuts, etc. They're typically served in a sweet, gingery syrup.

This was a cool spot: They were blasting Christmas music

The gang's all here

The yuan in tang yuan has the meaning of "round" or "reunion". Thus, tang yuan often come to symbolize family togetherness and they are often eaten with family and at certain important holidays.

Close-up of the tang yuan: You can see they come in many colors

Pewtersmith: A Tour of Royal Selangor

One cool thing I participated in this trip was a tour of the Royal Selangor experience workshop. Royal Selangor has the official endorsement of the Sultan of Selangor, which is why they added the "royal" to their name. 

Royal Selangor: Where the cheapest thing they've got is RM 130

A wall of tin and some bells made from different materials so you can hear the sound they make

Molten pewter in the visitor's workshop

Our tour guide actually scooped the molten pewter into a mold. The pewter cools and sets pretty rapidly (about 2 minutes?).

Shaping tools: Check out the tiny sports car mold

Tin Shavings

Each one of these divots was hand-hammered

It's maybe kind of a cheesy, touristy thing to do, maybe, but I thought it was neat.

Culture Shock: Open Drains and Litigious America

I've got a picture below that perfectly captures one of the biggest things I've been culture-shocked by here in Malaysia: Everywhere you go there are open drains along the side of the road. This is as true in the suburbs as much as it is in town. If you look closely at the picture below, you'll see that the sink Wearn's mom is using directly outlets into the open drain that runs along the side of the restaurant, between the sidewalk and the road. You can also see the small bridge used to cross this drain in the distance.

Open drains are common across Southeast Asia

I think there are probably several reasons why Malaysians have chosen to utilize this kind of infrastructure. One thought I had related to lawsuits. Malaysians are definitely way less litigious than we are in the US. I could probably do a whole post on this, but I see all kinds of stuff that would definitely not fly in the US, some of it to our loss because it is cool (flat magnetic escalators that hold your shopping cart down as you go upstairs) and some is not so cool (there are all kinds of blind steps everywhere). In this way, they don't really care; if you're dumb enough to let your baby fall in the drain or drive your car into it, that's your fault.

Another idea was about drainage. With as much rain as they see here, the costs of having a drain back up are pretty high, so having an open ditch conceivably makes it much easier to clear the waterway and accommodate higher flow levels. Also, let's face it, it's probably just a heck of a lot cheaper to do it this way than installing metal or plastic pipes. Another win for path dependence.

If you can debunk my rubbish theories or provide a better explanation, let's have it in the comments!

Some Mamak Food From Penang

In between historic spots, we grabbed some lunch at a mamak stall:

A view from the street

Mutton biryani

Chicken biryani

Mamak is a term for Indian Muslims stalls are very popular in Malaysia because they're usually open late and they serve tasty food that meets most dietary restrictions. I'm a fan.

I'd be remiss in my humanity if I didn't point out that I saw a beggar on the sidewalk immediately to my left as I took the picture at the top of this page. He lay on a mattress, prone and shirtless. It was a stark reminder of the kind of poverty that persists in this place. Still, you don't see nearly as many folks like this here in Malaysia as you do in San Francisco.

A Short Account of the Baba-Nyonya

The next place we checked out on our whirlwind tour was a wealthy baba-nyonya mansion.

Side entrance to the house (main entrance for tourists)

You can see the opulent and detailed wood carvings in the foyer

Baba-Nyonya  here refers to the descendants of Chinese and Malays who intermarried. Baba refers to the men and nyonya refers to the women of this culture. Often these folks, being fluent in many languages and customs, acted as middlemen in the flow of trade from Asia to Europe. As you can see, for some this was quite a lucrative arrangement.

Probably I wouldn't have been invited to dinner dressed like this

Close-up of some of the wood carvings

Wearn and a bonsai

Huan Wei explores the foyer

The mansion was originally built in the late 1890s and was set up as a museum as recently as the 1950s. That should give you a little context for the following images:

A gigantic camera; probably very expensive and state-of-the-art in its day

It made me very sad to see an opium pipe on display

Golf clubs! You can also see an old TV peaking into the frame at right

The owners of the mansion built a family shrine in 1900 which is attached to the mansion, behind the servant quarters:

Main shrine

The shrine had a ton of these very artfully carved wooden dioramas all along the edge of the ceiling:

More amazing wood carvings

I found the mansion to be a cool look at a very special segment of Malaysian culture and history.

A Much Abridged History of the Beginnings of British Intervention Penang

As I noted, Penang is a state in Malaysia and George Town is its capital. The name alone is pregnant with the history of the place (as it is with all of the other places named George Town). I hope that you know by now, but Malaysia has a long and interesting history with the British and George Town is, predictably, named after King George III of the United Kingdom. George Town has been the capital of Penang state since it was founded by Francis Light, on behalf of the British East India Company, in 1786. Light built Fort Cornwallis around that time, and Fort Cornwallis was one of the first historic sights we saw:

Wearn and I at the entrance to the fort

"Ang mo" means "Read-head"; I'm not sure how you get "European" out of that...

Francis Light: Privateer and Corporate Lackey

The accompanying plaque says that if you put flowers in this cannon's barrel, you can cure infertility

All in all, Fort Cornwallis kind of reminds me of Sutter's Fort back home in Sacramento. You can tell it was once kept up very nicely, but it looks as though the elements have taken their toll on the fort.

Jungle Trek!

Okay, it's not actually that far from civilization at all, but today my siblings-in-law and I went on a little jungle trek. It was a pretty tough hike; although it probably wasn't more than a couple miles round-trip. More pics after the jump.

Baby caravan

Fish Head Noodle Soup

Today I ate some fish head noodle soup:

It is a very tasty soup. The broth is made with milk, other seasoning and, I imagine, fish heads. You'll notice there were no actual fish heads in mine. The soup and the fish were very nice, but there were a lot of bones to pick out. I'm still not very skilled at avoiding those.

You can also see some iced lemon tea I had with it. The iced lemon tea is incredibly sweet. I don't even want to know how many teaspoons of sugar are in there...

Hello, Penang

Hello all! I left my laptop in KL, so I wasn't able to update on the fly in Penang, but I've got some good stuff for you. First, as always, the maps:

View Larger Map 

View Larger Map 

A lot more, after the jump.

First Week Update

My first week back in Malaysia has been relaxing, if a bit uneventful. I had a really hard forgetting about a big mess that I wasn't able to clean up (despite multiple all-nighters and lots of overtime) before I was scheduled to leave. But I've managed to find a couple of things that have helped me take my mind of work (sorry that it's a Facebook video, but I don't own it):

First Things First

Hello again, everyone! Jake In Malaysia is back in business, now with the handsome number two behind it. First things first, the old blog is now back up and running if you'd like to relive the fun from my last trip. Sorry for any dead links. Let me know if you find any and I'll try to fix 'em.