Is there no salve Sarawak can apply to Sabah’s scars?

The Sarawak State Legislative Assembly Building, taken from across the Sarawak River in Chinatown

The above mentioned title is taken from my second piece for the Borneo Post, an ongoing column that I will be writing, which will cover economic and regional relations involving the State of Sarawak, Malaysia’s largest state, located on the island of Borneo.

As I type away, the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly Building (pictured left) stands stoically outside my hotel window, across the Sarawak River with The Astana also in plain view, the official residence of the  Yang di-Pertua Negeri (governor) of Sarawak. From this side of the riverbank, souvenir and trinket storefronts dot the covered sidewalks; a back alley reveals a Chinatown bursting with red banners and lanterns that indefatigably shout of Chinese New Year — no matter the season.

It is evident that tourism is at the heart of this state, part of majestic Borneo, a name that seems to have become a byword for exoticism and far-flung nature of an alluringly alien kind. As in Sarawak, so does its sister state Sabah rely on tourism receipts to generate jobs, a fact all the more worrisome ever since a band of rag-tag intruders from the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines took up camp in Lahad Datu, Sabah, instigating a deadly conflict for territorial rights just north of Tawau, a popular diving site in the region.

The incident has brought light to a darker side of ASEAN, a dimension absorbed more by protean politics that much-heralded economic stability. For in a region that has become a major growth engine juxtaposed to a world in the throes of economic uncertainty, basket-case politics and sporadic conflict are still a mainstay.

Sarawak, as Sabah’s sister state and a key player in Malaysian politics, has the ability to curb nationalistic sentiment on the peninsula and Sabah, reminding its fellow Malaysians that the ASEAN dream can still progress through what it is best known for: economic vitality.

Below is a reproduction of my latest piece wit the Borneo Post, part of my weekly column published through Inside Investor:

The Sabah incident has instigated an unfortu­nate wave of ground-up acrimony in two prominent Asean nations – unfortunately because it whittles down at the foundation of an already intrinsically disparate group that is a central clog in global growth; evidently acrimonious because of the parading caskets of the fallen and scores of other preventable deaths.

The claims exhumed by self-styled Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III over Sabah serve as a vivid reminder that the 10-nation Asean bloc has dis­turbingly potent skeletons in the closet that can ebb away at the economic credibility of the US$2.3 trillion powerhouse.

For all its economic prowess, the factious nature of Southeast Asian politics – both visible through infighting and interna­tional conflicts – has the ability to offset intra-trade, bilateral communication and tourism, ultimately fraying the fabric of the Asean dream.

Directly in Sarawak’s back­yard of eastern Borneo, ten­sions are at times equally as palpable as if the incident had occurred within the state, namely because of the show­ering attention the bloodiest of the conflict had gotten in national and local media.

As an observer, Sarawak can act as a third-party to salve the rising tensions, but in order to do this Sarawakians must not succumb to the kind of myopic tendencies that have now geared the Philippines to take a more defined stance.

It is important for Sarawak to act as a mediator in this sense, kneading the bruises of the situa­tion through clear-headed discus­sions that inform people of just how crucial maintaining healthy bilateral sentiment is.

Resulting bias against Filipino visitors, both on the tourism and business level, would bring back hopes of sound integration a notch. Treating the incident as isolated while maintaining a business outlook that promotes trade in the face of ongoing politi­cal dialogue is how Sarawak can act as a leader on Borneo.

There are doubtless challenges to mount in achieving this goal. Despite the incident being far-flung from Kuala Lumpur and Manila, ground-up parochialism has engendered jingoist senti­ment, prodding governments to make political gestures to appeal to their respective electorates – especially crucial during the precarious election year in both Malaysia and the Philippines.

Stepping into a cab in Manila one week ago, my Catholic taxi driver, who was born in the capi­tal told me, “Sabah belongs to the Philippines. It is ours.”

While this is a sentiment not carried by the upper-middle class in Makati, Manila’s finan­cial district, it is apparently an interpretation of some Filipinos that has caused enough noise to give the central government headaches.

Acting on cue, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs recently called on all government agencies of the nation to no longer refer to Sabah as part of Malaysia due to the Royal Sultan of Sulu’s pre-existing claims.

Pointing to a 2008 memoran­dum, Foreign Affairs Spokesman Raul Hernandez said that the re­quest was an ‘existing regulation’ and must be complied with by all government departments, agen­cies, and instrumentalities.

On an insidious note, uncon­firmed rumours – and specifically just that – abound that Aquino’s opposition armed the Sulu rebels with the intent of spurring chaos in the lead up to mid-term elec­tions on May 13.

In response to the ongoing events, President Benigno Aqui­no III announced that he would spend his Holy Week vacation to “draw up a peaceful (solution) to Sabah claim” instead of on retreat in Baguio City now that his administration had taken its new position.

Indeed, any gestures made to mitigate further damage are not to be overlooked, whilst the region find itself in an every deepening schism. Observers need only look to other examples of deteriorating bilateral relations in Asean to see the damage at the cross hair – as well as the solutions that have been found.

Thailand and Cambodia have had a rollercoaster history, underscored by their on-again, off-again bickering claims over a clutch of temples on Cambo­dia’s northern border.

Yet the two nations have witnessed increased bilat­eral trade and investment, with Thailand business associations promoting investment deals in their eastern neighbour as a destination where manu­facturing is cost-effective and cultural norms similar – all this in spite of the festering temple incident.

Here is how Sarawak can guide Sabah forward by ex­ample. If Malaysian states continue to promote trade with the Philippines through their respective associations, then Asean will stick to what it does best while leaving the politics to those locked away on weekends.

Malaysia & Thailand: The Odd Couple

Buddhas in Bangkok’s temple district

Over the past few years I have spent extended periods of time on both sides of the Thai-Malay border living in the two neighboring countries that bisect the Malaysian Peninsula. Sitting up my last night in the garment factory/townhouse I have been lodging at on and off in Bangkok for the last month before heading back to Kuala Lumpur, the striking contrast of the two capitals seems to become much clearer.

Walking out the main assembly floor everyday past young Thai workers sewing together everything from bean bags to garment straps offers a visual of the first major contrast. Atop of the main production area is a small wooden platform with a Buddha solemnly perched hands over knees that looks over the tireless crowd in a pious gaze past an odd variety of incense and food offerings stacked in front of it.

Thailand is over 95 per cent Buddhist, much like most of the countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion. The narrow border that splits the country from Malaysia in the south plays a much larger role than it appears to have, acting as a greater divide that sections off Southeast Asia: one majority Buddhist to the north and the other majority Muslim (consisting of Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei) to the south, with the Philippines taking up the role of the majority Christian outlier.

A large swathe of southern Thailand is Muslim, but the majority Buddhist country’s relations with the minority group has not been one of peaceful inclusion. Southern provinces have been rocked by bombings and related violence for decades, a frightening historical precedence that could reiterate with similar religious tension being seen today in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Malaysia is a majority Muslim nation, but too often undersold as the most diverse city in the Far East. This contrast in ethnic diversity becomes noticeable as soon as I walk out into Bangkok any day of the week. It is a Thai world built open elitist Chinese traditions, lacking conspicuous outside influence having never been colonized by the West.

Kuala Lumpur, while absorbing some of the mercantile Chinese traits from migrants hailing from Fujian, is a colorful collage of Asian faces that cannot be matched by even by other British colonies such as Hong Kong or Singapore, the latter of which is approximately 72 per cent ethnic Chinese. On Kuala Lumpur’s increasingly crammed overhead rail system, Indian faces in traditional saris blend together with Muslim Malay women in their electric-colored hijab, who in turn can be found standing beside a Chinese flipping through that morning’s Sinchew, a Mandarin daily newspaper.

It is this mix of multiculturalism that has bestowed Kuala Lumpur one of its finer assets: a competitively high English proficiency level. Dangling along cabs or tuk tuks in the sea of Bangkok traffic, it is near impossible to have an English conversation. Indeed, Thailand has one of the lowest English-proficiency levels in the region. Service sector workers across the city will be bound by monolingualism.

In the lead up to the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015, it is this particular shortcoming that has Thais on the edge of their seats. Inability to communicate using the world’s business medium will give Malaysians and Filipinos the upper-hand in a liberalized job market, a part of the greater integration planned for the AEC.

Leaving Thailand tomorrow for the short time being, it already becomes clearer how much more the former state of Siam will have to broaden itself to compete in this new community, all at the same time finding a way to allow new immigrants from the region to assimilate while not succumbing to exclusive nationalist policies seen in Kuala Lumpur.

Education Malaysia: Formal Mondays

A page from a student guide detailing a typical dress code enforced by schools in Malaysia

IN one of those “through the looking glass” moments I get being an expat in Asia, I was handed a student guide last week which outlined the enforcement of a “Formal Day” every Monday at the university in Kuala Lumpur I am (thankfully) leaving soon.

The  rules of Formal Monday instantly struck me as being directly juxtaposed to what schools and offices in the US would encourage: Casual Fridays. You can pretty much flip any inherent norm attributed to an American Casual Friday, and you’d have yourself a pretty well outlined “Formal Monday” in Malaysia. As shown above, anything resembling “casual” dress is forbidden, and subsequently punishable by formal (there is that word again) warnings and “one-on-one advice.” Reeducation, after all, can be a facet of education.

Doning flashy duds does come by default to some cultures in the Far East (China and Japan come to mind), as even when joining the most friendly outings they convey strictures of prestige, affluence and, to a lesser extent, power. Dressing in sandals and in faded T-shirts with some off-base phrase or picture connotes the opposite. What’s the difference in this Occident/Orient divide you may ask? For a man, not dressing to expectations in Asia would mean that he is perhaps not well-born and probably poor, whereas in the West there is collective memory that serves us and says: This is not nessecarily the case. For women in Malaysia’s case, as some of my Western expats friends have noted, lets just say it wouldn’t draw the right kind of attention. How Chinese Malaysians get by in this context I have yet to discover.

Lynas: The Rare Earths Ruckus in Malaysia

A momentary deference of impartiality for a photo op during the Bersih 3.0 rally. Sometimes they are just too hard to resist.

Until recent debate gave life to the sodden term, the only thing rare about rare earths was the existence of general knowledge surrounding the commonly occurring 17 “tacked-on elements” found at the bottom of the periodic table. China’s current grip of the market, responsible for producing 95 to 97 percent of the metals necessary for a host of modern technology, ranging from LCD televisions and smart bombs to “green technology” such as wind turbines and solar panels, has spurred governments across the globe into a scramble to secure access to steady sources while citizens increasingly question the containment procedures of its low-level radioactive by-products. The US, once a powerhouse for rare earths production before it began systematically being undercut by China, and Malaysia are set to bring new processing plants online.

Next June, Lynas, an Australian rare earths mining company, will open up a refinery in Gebang, Pahang, in Peninsular Malaysia, which will be the largest of its kind in the world. The Gebang plant will weaken China’s stranglehold by supplying one-fifth of the world market. But possible excitement over this news has been drowned out by the vehement “Stop Lynas, Save Malaysia” (SLSM) movement, who incense themselves with the memories of the radioactive poisoning caused by a rare earths refinery in Bukit Merah nearly three decades ago.

At the massive Bersih 3.0 rally last month, anti-Lynas protestors made their presence visible, dotting the sea of yellow shirts with green — the chosen color of their cause. In the kerfuffle of the well-documented afternoon, I spotted a placard held by a young ethnic Chinese man which read: “Lynas, Go back to Australia!” For many, the Australian mining company’s Gebang project feels like a reiteration of policies past to move dirty industry into the so-called Third World.

Lynas has made attempts to allay fears using social media, stating on their Facebook page that Malaysia was chosen for logistical and economic reasons.  However, the fact that international law forbids the cross-border transportation of radioactive waste (a law eagerly signed by Malaysia at the time) in the wake of the Fukushima disaster hasn’t helped to impart a sense of safety.

At the top of the list of demands being made by SLSM is the need for a “permanent” waste storage facility. While a long-term contract for an above-ground facility lined with high-density plastic and a clay layer has been agreed upon with the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC), protestors have explicitly expressed that this does little to ensure the prevention of contamination. This has lead to accusatory rhetoric being lobbed at Lynas, which in turn has taken up legal action against SLSM for unlawful defamation.

Elemental Irony 

So why the giant fuss? The abstrusely named 17 chemical elements (lanthanum and neodymium, for example) at the center of the issue happen to be necessary in the production of modern electronics, including “smart” military technology. Without these refined metals, miniaturized magnetic motors in gadgets wouldn’t spin, colors on LCD televisions wouldn’t pop out, and hybrid car batteries wouldn’t have the capacity they need to run a vehicle.

Perhaps most ironically, the generation of radioactive waste is intrinsic to the production of hybrid cars and other so-called “green technology” such as solar panels and wind turbines. What the equivalent output of radioactive waste is for a field of solar panels or wind power farm is doesn’t get its due attention in the media yet.

Until an alternative solution is found for refining these metals, the best consumers can do is to call for safe storage of waste. That or take a step back from our “smart phones” and “green technology” and realize that these evocative labels of modern technology are more clever wordsmithing than sustainable solutions.

#BersihStories : Tear Gas Hits Police, Lynas Protesters Make Visible Presence (PICS)

A cloud of tear gas wafts into Bersih protesters in front of Masjid Jamek just after 3 pm, Saturday, April 28

Recap

The Malaysian political wheel was splashed with shades of yellow and green last Saturday when an unprecedented turnout for Bersih 3.0 claimed downtown Kuala Lumpur, congesting street after street as groups of protesters from around the country converged on Merdeka Square. Upwards of 250,000 people are said to have attended. Despite an abrupt end to the rally, which occurred when tear gas and chemical-laced water cannons were fired upon wily protesters who broke a court order by stepping into the square, the opposition movement is viewed as having gained renewed clout in their call for electoral reforms.

PM Najib Abdul Tun Razak’s ruling party, Barisan Nasional (BN), which has technically been in power since independence in 1957, is accused of offering citizenship to immigrants who register to their party, on top of lending but a deaf ear to previous demands made during Bersih 2.0 last June (the second of the Bersih protests), which include the appointment of impartial observers to oversee polling stations and the use of indelible ink on ballots.

Observations

At first the atmosphere was festive: large inflatable yellow balls bounced about the crowd like a scene from a rock concert; protesters waved around gag signs and props in jest. The scene only turned sour when police reacted to protesters an hour before the rally was due to end at 4 pm (though it was widely expected to end with tear gas regardless). A police car was overturned and several were left injured. Local media has since been absorbed by an ensuing fracas of figure pointing over the premature crackdown.

Ethnic Chinese hold up signs reading 'Give us a clean choice' and 'Police chief, please respect democracy'

Malays, Chinese and Indians from across the country were represented, but ethnic Chinese were the most visible. Some could argue that they have the most to gain by unseating the powerful Malay incumbents.

Police lined up next to the Central Market

There was a smattering of police presence around the center of the protest. This group later ended up getting hit by tear gas from special forces.

Lynas protestor mixes some green with yellow

Green-clad protestors decried the dangers of Lynas, an Australian rare earths refinery planned to open outside of Kuantan this June. Rare earth production creates low-level radioactive material that, in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, has spooked Malaysians.

Protesters flee from tear gas

Ensconced away in the only restaurant I could find open, I watched protesters trip over each other to escape blasts of tear gas, leaving water bottles and sandals in their wake. In the above picture, a woman falls on the sidewalk in the middle of the chaos. I managed to suck up some gas myself, though thankfully not more than a little bit of irritation. Other protesters hiding out in the restaurant had red blotches around their eyes and face, as if they were suffered from a cold.

The crowd in front of Masjid Jamek, the closest I got to Merdeka Square

The heat of the Malaysian sun and mass of humanity made walking through this crowd unbearable.

Police hit by tear gas

The police pictured above were also hit by tear gas.

Riot police suited up and ready next to Merdeka Square

With the Orwellian gas masks and gear prepped, riot police stand ready to push back protestors. This picture was taken after tear gas was released at the other entrance to the square. Protestors I spoke with were already preparing by putting on surgical masks and placing their electronics in plastic bags.

A protester looks out over the street that leads to Merdeka Square

Malaysia: ‘Street Rally Guide For Beginners’ Published Before Bersih Protest (PICS)

Ground zero? / Source: http://www.travelfish.org

A Malaysian friend of mine caught glance of a great piece of social media flutter today on Facebook that is just begging to be posted here. Suaram, a human rights organization in Malaysia, has published a ‘Street Rally Guide For Beginners’ just in time for the much-trumpeted Bersih 3.0 sit-in protest planned for Merdeka Square this Saturday.

Last June, Bersih 2.0 (the second of the Bersih protests) rallied 10,000 to 20,000 people in downtown Kuala Lumpur — though numbers vary even more than that — clogging major roads which led to clashes with government forces who used high-pressure water hoses and tear gas to disperse the crowd. Bersih (‘clean’ in Bahasa Malayu) protests began in ’07 when the group first began calling for election reforms and transparent democracy.

Perhaps wielding a bit of foresight for the events that lay ahead, Suaram’s comprehensive (and at times comical) guide offers basic safety tips and sensible advice for protestors. If you plan to join the Bersih protestors (or any rally for that matter), do yourself a favor and scroll down through the selection of pages I’ve taken out of their guide.

Never know when those running shoes will come in handy

Police will appreciate the fresh breath too

Watch the old folks... Not much different than being in a Chinese tour group

Don't stray from the herd. Haven't you ever watched Animal Planet?

Think zen

Beware of gas

Beware of water too

If it's 'UM - NO' -- then walk away

Be obdurate, be vague

And most importantly... Stay vigilant

How Sanctions Are Affecting Iranians in KL — And Why Nobody Cares

Source: fineartamerica.com

Stroll down the painstakingly polished corridors of the Pavilion shopping mall in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, and you’ll undoubtedly brush past crowds of Iranians: the men donning their perennial five o’clock shadows, the women with their excitedly applied make-up. But unlike most of the other Middle Eastern faces around and outside the main entrance on the clogged sidewalks of Jalan Bukit Bintang, the majority of the Persian population isn’t on holiday.

There are over 130,000 Iranians working and studying in Malaysia, according to a source of mine that interviewed Anifah Aman, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In recent years, the Persian community in Malaysia has mushroomed due to relaxed visa regulations and a common bond between the countries for halal food and other Islamic norms. Exiles and opportunists alike have flocked here with grand ambitions in mind, designating Malaysia as their first stepping stone towards more social and economic freedom. However, with the recent round of EU-backed sanctions, effective as of Saturday, March 17, 30 Iranian banks have now been barred from using SWIFT, the international money wire service based in Brussels, tangling opportunities abroad by rerouting remittances for students’ fees and loans into the hands of both illegal and legal money exchangers (depending on the case).

Those shopping in Pavilion now take great care to no longer attempt payments with an Iranian banking card, avoiding any possible awkward dismissal from the cashier. Just across town in trendy Bangsar, an Iranian restauranteur siting in her dining room amongst paint cans and wooden planks in various stages of construction wonders how she will muster up US$100,000 to finish the renovation.

I spent a good month intermittently researching and interviewing people for this story, but in the end was unable to gain any traction. Time has written a very humanistic piece on the Iranian population in Malaysia, but during my research I found some conflicting data and areas that could be developed. Compounded with the experiences of Iranian business owners in Kuala Lumpur, an update about the effects of sanctions on the Persian community in Malaysia should be considered a relevant topic for Westerner readers. The ripples created by the political warheads lobbed at Iran are devastating and humiliating for Persians, and Americans especially should realize just what is being mulled over in the corridors of power when these weapons are used.

But the information chasm will persist. All of the media outlets I write for answered me in a similar, terse fashion: “Sorry, it’s a budget problem.” Sure, that and worries about capturing readership. I understand. Not everyone cares. But nonetheless it is disquieting to run into this wall. Journalism’s pocket money has been on the decline, and budget woes beget greater concerns with appeasing advertisers. But in the end, I may be coming off too idealistic. Who really wants to listen to the tribulations of their “enemy” anyways?

Yet sanctions are only effective at achieving the desired diplomatic pressure about 30 percent of the time. The author of Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, Gary Hufbauer, was recently on NPR’s Planet Money discussing “successful” examples. These countries are small, lack a strong network of secret police and usually devoid of primary natural resources. However, where the political wishes of Western cabinets have been fulfilled, instability tends to take up camp.

In Iran’s situation, and indeed in many other countries, the first thing sanctions succeed in is further entrenching a despotic regime. But when given the choice between war and sanctions, many governments find consensus in applying the latter first — though the situation may disintegrate into war regardless, as was the case with Iraq. Self-righteous governments will continue to ply unruly regimes with sanctions in hope that one day the people will take action or the autocrats themselves have an anomalous epiphany that leads to a detente. In this way, Myanmar is becoming the archetype. Let’s see how long it will last.

Facebook Addiction Disorder in Malaysia, Newsweek (Japan)

Hope you can read Japanese

While waiting for Facebook’s astronomically dizzying IPO, I started to do some research about FAD (Facebook Addiction Disorder) in Malaysia. After making a pitch to my Tokyo contact for Newsweek (Japan), I was assigned a story to be printed in an issue that, perhaps unfairly at times, does a bit of social media demonizing. Nonetheless, Malaysia makes for an intriguing case study in social media addiction and privacy norms.

Below I’ve reproduced the article which was printed on February 22 in Japanese since their site doesn’t have an English language page. Originally meant to be 500 words, I pushed it so I could jam a bit of extra information into what is quite a broad topic. (Note: Japanese translation may not exactly reflect English text.)

Update: Newsweek (Japan) published this story online on April 23.

Malaysia’s FAD

The global growth of social networking sites (SNS) has changed how we connect, allowing us to instantaneously converse about where we “share,” what we “like,” and who we “follow.” But increased interconnectivity is not without its pitfalls, as many avid users are finding out. On a medium where many young Asians find comfort in expressing private thoughts, personal information can unknowingly become public and public sentiment can quickly turn personal.

A recent study concluded that Facebook addiction amongst university students is prominent in Malaysia, especially with females. Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD) is a term that was first conceived by American psychologists to describe those who take the leap from social networking to social dysfunction, a trend purportedly on the rise. Last month in Kuala Lumpur, Dr. Nivashinie Mohan, a neuropsychologist, held a FAD forum at Gleneagles Hospital. The event received an inundation of media attention.

The problems born of the social media landscape tend to be varied. “One of my clients was hooked to Facebook games,” Dr. Nivashinie said, “and this interrupted their day-to-day work.” Couples are citing Facebook as a major cause of their break-up, Dr. Nivashinie also noted. Finding messages from paramours or suspicious photos creates friction. And at the rate Malaysians engage in SNS it wouldn’t be hard to discover. Malaysia was dubbed the country with the most social network friends in 2010, and Facebook accounts for 77% of social network users. For Malaysians, online friendships appear to be blossoming.

Since this is a new phenomenon it is easy to go undiagnosed, which may exacerbate already serious conditions. “Many teenagers are using [Facebook] as an avenue to express themselves and get caught up in the extra attention,” Dr. Nivashinie explained. I had one client who was distressed when he concluded that “his real life did not match up to his Facebook persona, which led to his depression getting worse.” This then turned into “suicidal ideation” – or the formation of suicidal thoughts.

Taken in moderation, experts realize that social networking is a legitimate form of communication. However, in Southeast Asia, where social media enjoys a wide following and some of the highest penetration worldwide, it has been proven that it is possible to share too much.

Last month, two students were detained in Malaysia following separate incidents for allegedly writing threatening messages about Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on Facebook. The 20-year-old university female student who was part of the second incident had her hand phone and computer seized by the police. The students likely learned a similar lesson: on Facebook, where unknown persons can see your comments without consent, a sarcastic quip can become virulent.

Yet many Malaysians enjoy sharing personal musings and indulging in political discourse. According to Burson-Marsteller, a PR and communications firm based in Singapore, 42.2 percent of Malaysian Internet users are on blogspot. Timothy Tiah, the 28-year-old Malaysian co-founder of Nuffnang, Southeast Asia’s largest blogger community, has seen his company expand rapidly thanks in part to added traffic from Facebook and Twitter. So when it comes to those in his community endangering themselves, Tiah takes a step back to explain his perspective on privacy. “In our Australian market, bloggers are more concerned about privacy so they blog much less about their personal lives,” Tiah said. “In Malaysia though, the vast majority of blogs are personal lifestyle blogs because we’re generally more open about our lives. It’s not that we don’t care about privacy. Maybe it’s just a bit less of a concern to [Malaysians].” Perhaps in rapidly developing Malaysia, where new technology quickly supplements shy tendencies, expressing yourself behind a screen is more favorable than standing face-to-face, despite the hidden risks.

Thaipusam, Batu Caves, Malaysia: A Burdensome Path

View from halfway up the 272-step staircase at the Batu Caves on Thaipusam

I won’t pretend to understand everything that Hinduism stands for. When faced with such a foreign belief as this, I’m inclined to fold. That’s how attending Thaipusam made me feel at least: present, yet oddly unaware. Since moving to Malaysia about eight months ago, I had etched out in my mind a specific set of questions I wanted to know before seeing the festival, but few answers prepared me for what lay ahead. On the full moon of the Tamil month Thai, a legion of devotees in Kuala Lumpur end a 48-day fast by embarking on an arduous march; skewered through their cheeks with metal spears known as vel, bearing hooks and pins on their back, chest and arms, they set out across the city in trance while entirely barefoot.

Before I surmise the images, sounds and smells that this festival entails, I feel compelled to share with the reader a nugget of wisdom I carried with me to the Batu Caves on that day, site of the ritualistic denouement where devotees relinquish themselves from trance and unhook their kavadi, burdens borne for the sake of imploring Lord Murugan, the Tamil god of war and victory. In his book Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria observes:

Every family forges its own distinct version of Hinduism. You can pay your respects to some beliefs and not to others. You can believe in none at all. You can be a vegetarian or eat meat. You can pray or not pray. None of these choices determines whether you are a Hindu. There is no heresy or apostasy, because there is no core set of beliefs, no doctrine, and no commandments. Nothing is required, nothing is forbidden.

While not applicable to Thaipusam whole cloth, Zakaria’s understanding is helpful to have when participating in any Hindu festival. It is in essence the rough outline of a belief that is ambiguous, a formula that allows open doors for foreigners like me to intrude into moments both intimate and raw.

Man carrying a milk pot (paal kudam)

It is said that devotees take up this onerous ritual only if there is something climactic and/or catastrophic happening in their lives. To have Murugan’s blessings, they need to evoke him, and this display apparently gets his attention. There are several ways worshippers do this during Thaipusam, most of which usually require carrying or hauling something: light half-circle structures that are hoisted on the shoulder; milk pots (paal kudam) placed on the head; larger five-meter alters (kavadi) that weigh approximately 55 kilograms and resemble parade floats that are strapped to the shoulders and waist of a devotee. Then – the most gruesome burden in my opinion – there are those who are held by numerous cords hooked through their back to kavadi or, alternatively, by another worshipper that reins them in like a musher driving a dog sled.

Starting from before dawn, the precession needles through Kuala Lumpur; it’s already 10am by the time I reach the first gateway, and a mob of local and foreigner onlookers numbering in the thousands congests the narrow pathway that leads up to the 272-step staircase at the base of the limestone caves. From afar, the peacock feathers adorning the top of kavadis seem to bob in the crowd like dark lime green shuttlecocks caught in the current of a shadowy sea. Next to the staircase, a 42.7 meter golden statue of Lord Murugan – the largest of its kind in the world – overlooks the mass sagaciously, as if he were shepherd keeping tally of his flock one-by-one.

The smell of acrid incense hangs heavily in the air. Indeed, some devotees are being flagellated with lit sticks as they advance in a somnambulistic daze under constant assault from the oppressive sun. After entering the fray, I move forward, tailing worshippers banging drums to a hypnotically melodic tempo. Without music, a Malaysian Indian colleague had informed me, their trance would be broken. To add to the hysteria, the monotonous droning of the drums occasionally gets lost in the air by competing stalls pumping Top 10 Hits like carnival game booths vying for attention. Amid the cacophony there is a certain festive atmosphere that disguises the otherwise shocking display of punctured flesh with the high spirits of a sporting event. Worshippers are visibly amused; there are food stalls selling snacks, plenty of places to rehydrate (water is offered to devotees for free) and even a booth advertising Air Asia tickets. The path to the staircase is already littered with trash of the thousands who have passed before me.

Devotee being flagellated with incense

Man taking a break from carrying his kavadi

I manage to mount a small clipped iron-rod fence and jump into a well-trodden patch of grass alongside the precession route. From this vantage point, I watch the blur of sweat and strident color pass. Over music, the paced chatting of vel vel pierces the air as the crowd cheers the devotees onward. Some devotees, as if being kicked from behind, move forward in elastic jolts; others swirl and hop. A gaunt middle-aged woman masked with maroon powder makes a sudden shrieking howl in mid-turn. She is summoning the spirit of a monkey I am informed. Her teeth click and her jaw clatters as she sways in a circle, all the while balancing a milk pot on her head with one hand. Trudging down the path behind her, a young man with eight hooks strung to his back approaches in continuous – albeit sporadically slow – motion, sometimes leaning so far forward that if the blue cords pulling the skin of his back weren’t being held by another worshipper, he would fall down. Both tongue and face are covered in an electric red powder making him a ghastly sight to behold. Occasionally Indian participates stand in front of him and grab his hands, pulling and pushing each other in a sadistic tug of war that belies its intended amusement. All the while the young man’s flicking tongue and darting eyes shift in erratic directions as if individually possessed by separate spirits. For a moment I shiver; not physically, mentally.

Covered in red powder, a devotee marches with his tongue and eyes flicking about

It is a scene filled with such violent hues that — viewed through Western lenses – it bears an uncanny resemblance to The Passion of the Christ. When witnessing Thaipusam for the first time, it is not uncommon for onlookers to feel nauseated – whether local or foreign. But the likelihood of getting sick from this sight, I realize, isn’t the only thing that we share. Showing obeisance to a maimed figure stapled to wooden planks that is hung in a house of worship must be equally shocking to the unfamiliar. Who are we, I lapse into a moment of detached thoughts, to call one religion cruder than the next?

At the summit of the staircase, devotees cross the spiritual finish line. Plastic chairs are placed inside for those shouldering kavadis to sit while the artifice is unscrewed.  I spot a pair of devotees with tens of limes and oranges hooked onto their chest and back collapse to their knees from exhaustion after the last step. The two are greeted by a man holding a silver tray full of hand-rolled temburni leaf cigarettes and white powder. These items are part of the final ritual. Devotees only partake in them after their burdens have been carefully removed, vel and hooks unattached. Deeper within the dimly lit cavern, men line up in front of priests and worshippers holding these trays and waiting their turn. When they’re up, some greedily inhale several cigarettes, disappearing behind a cloud of smoke that stream across a trickle of sunlight leaking through the top of the cave. A priest approaches and presses his forehead against theirs. Both let out a guttural roar that resonates through the caverns and the devotee faints upon the sticky surface of the milk- and dew-covered floor, lying their several moments, eyes closed, before mustering the strength to stand up again. Hinduism being ambiguous as it is, there are “no core set of beliefs, no doctrine, and no commandments” stating how you have to fall or if you have to scream or if you have to smoke cigarettes: the individual holds primacy. Across the low-lying center of the cave, some devotees faint into contorted, arguably aesthetically regressive poses; others lay supinely in intense ramrod figures. A foreign photographer taps the shoulder of a wide-eyed devotee with a large trident vel through his cheek to ask for a photo. The devotee responds, exhaling an exasperated hiss at him through his teeth, eyes unblinking.

Peace at last

After the dramatic show is through, priests and/or worshippers wipe white powder on the parts of the body that were pierced. I watch and wait to see how much blood, if any, appears, standing behind a larger man with a rolling gut to watch the proceedings: hooks unattached, cigarettes smoked, scream, faint. White powder is applied to his back as he stumbles about to his feet. I wait not even a minute before three freckles of blood seep through the dense, chalky layer. But that is it. Several more moments go by and the extent of his visible blood loss has reached its climax.

A bright saffron sheet is then wrapped around devotees’ bodies as if they had just gotten out of the shower. Spirits now pacified, their faces portray the mind of someone finding solace within themselves, impervious to the din of fellow followers around them being released from trance.

The statue of Lord Murugan watches over those coming and going from the caves

Graphic cigarette warning labels in Southeast Asia and Taiwan: Are they effective?

Cigarette boxes from Taiwan (far left), Malaysia (center), and Singapore (far right). Guidelines for pictorial warnings vary considerably from country to country.

Over the past three months, I’ve amassed a few cigarette boxes from my travels with large warning labels that — when placed side by side — string together a grotesque gauntlet of images ranging from gangrene-ridden feet to cancerous mouth sores (not all of which I’ve blessed your eyes with above).

First implemented in Canada in 2001, pictorial warnings on cigarette boxes are now enforced (note: a good source of warning images) in a handful of Southeast Asian nations: Thailand (2005), the Philippines (2010), Singapore (2004), Brunei (2008) and Malaysia (2009). Taiwan (2009) is currently the only country in North Asia requiring such images.

With pictorial warnings slated to be introduced in the US this September — and a pile of samples sitting right in front of me — I began to wonder whether or not their implementation in Asia has fruited any results.

In most patriarchal Asian cultures, the male portion of society still tenaciously cling onto their cigarettes. Smaller countries in the region (Cambodia and Vietnam, for example) aren’t quite ready to actively confront their habit yet, while others have skirted around full use of pictorial warnings thanks to the assiduous urging of the tobacco lobby. Economic juggernauts South Korea, Japan and China carry only text warnings. China has such bedded interests in smoking that decline in tobacco sales would likely hurt domestic investment: construction of the Canton Tower in Guangzhou was largely financed by a state-run tobacco company.

It turns out that private interests may have some reason to be concerned. According to a 2009 study by the Society of Research for Nicotine and Tobacco on the effects of text warnings in Malaysia, smokers who already forgo cigarettes regularly are twice as likely to quit. However, some participants were “non-significantly” effected even when they thought about the harm of smoking.

Pictorial warning on cigarette boxes in Thailand / Source: http://www.tobaccolabels.ca

Insert a pictorial warning and those thoughts will directly increase, studies show. A bulletin released by WHO in 2009, which surveyed smokers in 20 countries, concluded that when placed on cigarette packaging pictorial warnings are “(i) more likely to be noticed than text-only warning labels; (ii) more effective for educating smokers about the health risks of smoking and for increasing smokers’ thoughts about the health risks; and (iii) associated with increased motivation to quit smoking.^“

The same bulletin also suggests that a more visual format may have great potential in countries with high illiteracy rates.

Though shocking they may be, these nightmarish images have already been confronting smokers in parts of Asia for several years with little record of their success, as of the time of writing. This could be because Asia is still widely a smoker’s haven: in open-air restaurants, ashtrays come wedded with utensils as a due courtesy.

Some experts claim that the effects of such policies should be measured in the long-term. But I foresee a greater problem occurring by then: people will have already become conditioned. Indeed, smokers I know in Thailand and Taiwan tend to ask salespeople to pick out their favorite brand — along with their favorite warning picture.

“I go for the pregnant woman usually,” I remember my expat friend in Taipei saying. “Doesn’t creep me out as much.”

There are further reasons to doubt the impact of graphic pictures. In selecting the six images to be placed on boxes in Malaysia, officials had trouble finding smoking victims with Freddy Krueger-esque afflictions. In the end, they decided to borrow the required images from Singapore and Thailand. This syncs up nicely with popular suspicions of smokers: the images being force-fed to them are representative of a very select few. To some, they even appear faux in nature — perhaps Photoshopped.

The most effective tool against smoking may be economical and social pressure. In countries where a pack of cigarettes effectively taxes your future health bills and all public areas ban you from smoking, life is tough.

A picture may say a thousand words, but warning images could use extra help in Asia to reach the goal they’re intent on.