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Sarah says:

We didn’t plan to go to Malaysia. We didn’t really lend it any advance thought and didn’t have much of a look at the Malaysia section of our SE Asia guidebook. But we found ourselves a bit bored of the Thailand tourist scene, saw there was an overnight train to the Thai/Malaysian border and decided to check out what we’d heard was a beautiful and much less tourist-trampled country. Early on our arrival morning we watched out the train window as the landscape grew thicker and thicker with lush green rainforest. Upon disembarking from the train we literally walked right across the border, past child-soldiers wielding massive Russian automatic riffles which led us to wonder what exactly they felt they had to arm themselves against so fiercely. We made our way in the sweltering heat to a grotty little bus station and boarded a chug of a bus to take us to a town called Kota Bharu from where, the next morning, we would catch a ferry to magical paradise islands for a few days of relaxation after this harrowing few days of travel (directly prior to this we had stayed in the Thai town that spawned the Accidental Tourist entry and served as inspiration for my Ode to the Squat Toilet poem).

It was here in Kota Bharu that my fixation began with the headscarf. This is my first time visiting a predominantly Muslim country and Kota Bharu is a very conservative Muslim town. I was immediately transfixed by the headscarves. They intrigue me and, I have to admit, they frighten me. Well, they don’t frighten me. My ignorance frightens me. My own ignorance frightens me which is a change since most of the time it’s other people’s ignorance that frightens me. All I know about the Muslim faith and culture is what I learned during a tri-religion course I took in college where Islam had to share a tightly-packed semester with Christianity and Judaism. So, suffice it to say, my knowledge is from a book and not much is still in my little brain. Here, though, it was alive and I was in the middle of it feeling very inappropriate in my western clothes with exposed shoulders. I tried to make sense of what I saw: girls seem to be able to pick the color of their headscarf to match their outfit and I’ve since surmised that there is probably an entire world of accessory shopping that I’m not privy to. I wonder how many of these scarves the average woman has and if it’s a shopping addiction like shoes or purses. There also seems to be a certain age at which girls begin wearing them and I wonder if it’s around puberty because I saw a lot of non-scarved young girls with scarved mothers. But then I also see a lot of really young girls in school uniforms where their heads are covered so perhaps it depends on the family or how strict they practice. I also wonder if practice dictates the rest of the woman’s outfit because most women where western clothes but some where the long dresses over long skirts as well. I think it’s funny to see a girl who looks a bit tom-boyish in baggy jeans and a football jersey wearing a lacey pale-pink scarf. But there is something about not being able to see the woman’s hair that is so mysterious - I’m just obsessed with curiosities. Does she keep her head covered in her own home? David thinks perhaps not unless she has guests. For western woman, our hair is so much apart of us, our identity, how we express ourselves and our personal style. There is something hugely private, gated, about never showing the outside world what your hair looks like. I’m assuming that most women have very long hair tucked up underneath since, from what I’ve seen, most SE Asian woman keep their hair quite long. There is something sensual and intimate about there being such a huge part of one’s identity kept hidden from everyone except her immediate family and her husband.

Aside from these aesthetics, though, I can’t seem to overcome on my own the feeling that it represents a blinding difference between cultures. It’s a feeling I’ve not encountered before to this degree and I’m embarrassed about it. I’m very self-conscience that they are looking at me with disapproval because I don’t cover my head, I’m nervous to enter a Malay Muslim eatery staffed by all women because I’m afraid they won’t want to serve me. I’m so overcome wondering what they think of me and what they think I think of them. All through this journey so far I’ve not felt any hesitation in striking up a conversation with a local to learn about them and their lives but my curiosities here seem too personal to ask about, too foreign, too…….maybe I’m just scared but I can’t really say what I’m scared of. I see Muslim women and Malay Indian and Chinese women in friendly interactions all the time, young girls of all sorts giggling together so I’m sure that my paranoia is ridiculous and, if only I had the courage and could figure out a way to broach the subject tactfully, I could learn something. But, I fear that I will leave the country in 2 days time not having learned anything. Granted, our interactions with Muslim Malay women have been a bit limited to that of drugstore cashier, buffet-line server and the occasional hotel receptionist and those aren’t really conducive to meaningful conversations. However, I feel like a bit of a failure for spending over 3 weeks in their country and not learning, expanding, or overcoming my ignorance……

To close on a happy note and to bring this entry full circle, we did make it to the paradise islands. They are called the Perhentians and they are divine little islands with white sand, jungle interior and the warmest, most crystal clear water. We spent a glorious 5 days there doing a bit of snorkeling and David did some diving. We saw sea turtles and sharks and lots of gorgeous fish, had some great food and watched pirated DVDs every night. Funny that we saw Pursuit of Happiness when it’s not even been released in this country yet. Please don’t think less of me for my admissions here. This is my journal, after all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 4:35 am and is filed under Global Travels, Malaysia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.