March 2005
Saturday, March 5, 2005 — Egg vending machines
A neighbor of mine, Mike, is having a photo exhibition in Naruto, a town north of Tokushima, so Sally and I hopped on the train this afternoon to go check it out. Mike was a Tokushima City ALT last year but his contract wasn’t renewed, so he moved out of his apartment upstairs from me into another one, one on the same floor as mine, and became a private ALT. His exhibit was of photos he’d taken on a recent trip to Italy.
When Sally and I got out a at the train station, I pulled out Mike’s postcard with directions to the café where his photos were kept. I really REALLY thought I was reading the map directly but after a bit of wondering, the only thing that had caught our eye was an egg vending machine. That’s right; you put money in and a package of eggs comes out. Japan really DOES have vending machines for everything! Sally couldn’t resist taking a photo.
A lady pulled up with some business at the structure right next to the egg vending machine, something that looked like a shelf with vegetables that could be purchased on the honor system. Take a batch of sweet potatoes, leave some money. I really don’t know if that’s how it worked, but that’s sure what it looked like. I asked the lady for directions, showing her the map (which was in Japanese) and she said we were going in the completely wrong direction. I was pretty shocked and embarrassed that I had been so off in my navigation. I SWEAR Mike’s postcard was WRONG but there was no one except a chortling Sally (who found my “misdirection” immensely amusing) to tell that.
The lady said she was familiar with the café and that it was nearby. She invited us to hop in her car and she’d drive us there. Part of me thought, “If this were the U.S., I would SO say no. You don’t get in a car with strangers!” But this was Japan and instead, Sally and I cheerfully got in. The things that are considered normal here.
She dropped us off at a café that was, indeed, nearby, only in the opposite direction we’d been trudging from the station. Inside we perused Mike’s photos and signed his guestbook. Then we returned to the station and headed all the way to Naruto, since the café was on the outskirts of town. Sally and I wanted to find something hearty to eat but after wandering around the city’s main station — a place that is usually overflowing with places to eat — we came up empty handed. We did spot a giant supermarket, though, and decided to get materials for burritos and quesadillas to make back at Sally’s place in Tokushima.
I found taco shells at the supermarket — very exciting! — and got some random other things: sour cream, cheese, flan. I’m a BIG fan of the individual-serving flan they have here in Japan.
We took the train back to Tokushima and walked to Sally’s apartment, where Sally made bean burritos and I made chicken quesadillas. Soooo yuuuummy.
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 — Soooo happy
Today was the pre-graduation cleaning day, which meant a period’s worth of school cleaning rather than the usual 10 minutes. I went to the music room, where I usually clean, to find it deserted. I guess the students who usually handle it had other tasks to do. The second-grade teacher I usually clean with had to manage an absent teacher’s class. So it was just me for a while.
Then two second-year boys, Kensuke Yoneda and Tomoya Okabayashi, passed by in the hallway. Tomoya greeted me in his usual bizarre, but highly amusing, way: by flapping his arms and saying “Gobble, gobble!” It’s a holdover from a Thanksgiving-themed game we played LAST year. The most recent thing he’s learned from me is how to say, “He smells bad,” in English. It was at his own request that I teach him that! The two boys moved on. But a few minutes later they were back and Tomoya, who’s English is quite good, said, “I’ll help you.”
I thought he was just playing with me and said quite skeptically, “Reeeeeally?” Hahaha, Tomoya looked a little shocked by my doubt. “Really!” he said, grabbing a broom. Both he and Kensuke started sweeping alongside me. Then Tomoya asked if I wanted to see a sumo match. Hahaha, how could I say no? The boys put their brooms down and did the preliminary stomping motions that sumo wrestlers do in the ring, and then leapt at each other. It quickly degraded into silliness, but was so funny.
I also tried speaking in Japanese to Kensuke, but Kensuke was shyer speaking one-on-one with me than his friend. While we were cleaning, I casually mentioned to the two boys I’d be leaving this summer. A lot of my students don’t know that, so I’m slowly trying to spread the word. Tomoya said, “I’m sad!” Awwww, sweet kid! Slightly wicked since of humor, though.
That evening, there was a knock on my door. I thought it was a friend stopping by but instead it was the mailman — WITH MY LAPTOP! I had been waiting for WEEKS for my laptop to get fixed and sent over and HERE IT WAS! I was so ecstatic with happiness that I was clapping and cheering as the mailman handed the box over to me. I’m sure that didn’t reinforce any errant stereotypes about foreigners for him at all. It didn't matter; I was BACK ONLINE WITH MY COMPUTER AGAIN. I mentally hugged my laptop.
Sunday, March 13, 2005 — Paralysis by tea ceremony
As spring approaches, the plum blossoms have started to come out. Soon the peach blossom and finally the cherry blossoms will dot the landscape, too. I’m looking forward to them and the advent of warmer weather. If definitely showed no signs of being around the corner this weekend; a touch of snow fell both Saturday and today.
My calligraphy teacher invited me to a special tea ceremony event at Tokushima Castle today. Though the weather was quite chilly, the sun was out. I rode my bike down to Tokushima Park, where the castle is located. Inside, Kurohashi-sensei pointed me to a tatami room and asked me to wait for the next session of tea-making.
In the waiting room, guests were asked to write haiku. Kurohashi-sensei tried explaining what was required of me but I was all panicky that I’d have to write in Japanese, which would have taken forever. “No, no — English!” she reassured me. I wrote, “The cherry blossom/trembles in the cool, spring rain/Winter fades from view.” Kurohashi-sensei said I thought like a Japanese person.
You know how Japanese women make me feel gauche and ungraceful? This was one of those moments. When I looked up, I noticed that while I’d been holding the brush-pen, a large drop of black ink had fallen onto the pristine tatami. A woman immediately offered some tissue to me and Kurohashi-sensei reassured me it was okay, even as we tried cleaning up the ink and succeeding in only smearing it. I felt really, really bad. There were several children who’d written haikus and THEY hadn’t had any problem handling the pen. <sigh>
The tea ceremony was nice. It was the same style I’d learned last year, when I was studying tea ceremony. One woman sat in the center preparing the tea but because there were far too many in the room for her to serve, several other women, all dressed in beautiful kimonos, served them tea. They also brought out tea-ceremony sweets.
All this time I was sitting seiza, a kneeling position. All the other Japanese people in the room looked at ease in this position. I told myself if they could do it, I could. But the thing is, Kurohashi-sensei lets me sit however I want when I do calligraphy and I only sit seiza for a fraction of the time. So I wasn’t really used to sitting that way for long periods of time.
By the end of the ceremony, which lasted about half an hour (but felt waaaay longer due to the agony in my legs), I couldn’t feel my legs. I couldn’t feel my toes, let alone wiggle then. It was an alarming feeling. It was not going to be pretty, getting back up again. Everyone stood when the ceremony was over. Kurohashi-sensei came over to me to chat and I slowly, painfully, fumbled my way to a standing, or at least, crouching, position. She wanted to walk over to a flower arrangement but I told her to give me a minute. Kurohashi-sensei was most sympathetic.
Monday, March 14, 2005 — Updates, updates
I just got my laptop back this past week, so I’ll be working on posting pictures from past weeks. I’ve finished December, where you can see pictures from my special needs Christmas party.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005 — A boy with a sense of humor
I have one elective English class for the second-year students, which means these kids willingly choose to take a second English class in their schedule, which means they WANT to be there. I really love the elective English class because these kids are really bright and I teach it with a teacher with whom I good friends.
All year long we’ve had these kids working on group presentations on foreign countries. These kids never do presentations for their other classes — NEVER — so I had to show them what kind of information would be necessary in their presentations, and HOW to do a presentation in front of the class, from how to start out to what kind of visual aides they would need.
Now that we’re nearing the end of the school year, the groups have been giving their presentations. Personally, they could be a lot better — eye contact and a easy-to-hear voice are sorely lacking — but I’ve been gone most of the time they’ve been working on the presentations and haven’t been able to give a lot of coaching. Nevertheless, I’ve been quite impressed by their output.
During these presentations, Miyata-sensei has had the rest of the students write evaluations in Japanese of their peers’ work. One boy, Nakashima, apparently filled his evaluation with lots of dirty things. What they were, I don’t know — Miyata-sensei wouldn’t tell me. Nakashima is one of those boys who’s a complete smart-ass but who’se very bright. He cracks me up all the time, and eh’s always slyly smiling
Whatever the case, Miyata-sensei made him re-write his evaluation. So he did. In ENGLISH. I was shocked and greatly entertained to read his paper. He gave all the groups and group members what amounted to A’s and wrote such cheerful remarks as:
“They maked poster is the best in this class.”
“They digest under stand.” (I don’t know what that was supposed to mean.)
“They speak well.”
“Good job! They look glad. I think, ‘Why?’”
“They speaked English very well.”
“They speaked English is as well as ‘England team.’ But their smile is very cute.” What makes this comment so funny is that this group was composed of all boys.
“Their poster was beautiful.”
“Their poster was very easy, so I understand early.” (In Japanese, “early” and “quickly” are the same words.)
“Impression: I had a great time for a year.”
That made me happy to hear, that he’d had a good time throughout the year. Even if he is a smart-ass.
Friday, March 18, 2005 — Sukina koto/“Things I like”
This week I’ve been teaching my final classes on this school year with the first-year and second-year students. I’m sad because the second-years are my favorite grade, due largely to the fact that I’m good friends with the second-year English teacher. Next school year they’ll be third-years and too busy to enjoy English. They’ll be too wrapped up in tests and high-school entrance exams. The first-years will lose their cuteness as adolescence starts to wrap itself around them and they get all tall and the boys’ voices change.
I taught my last two classes of the school year today with the second-year students. Their in-class assignment was to write about a favorite thing of theirs. Here are some of their compositions, with my corrections or explanations in parentheses:
“My favorite food is somen. It looks like Takashi Nakagawa. His dinner is always it. And he soaks it in shoyu. He is very poor. It’s (He’s) very bad, dirty, weird and smells bad.” Not surprisingly, this was by Tomoya Okabayashi, the smart-ass, writing about a good friend of his. Thank God. If it had been about someone he wasn’t friends with, that would have been much worse.
“My favorite fuman (human) is Mr. Yoneda. I like him because he is very kind. He is very interesting. He is the coolest all over the wold (world). But he smell’s bad. He doesn’t have a future.” This was by Takashi Nakagawa.
“My favorite charactor is Mario. He is in this classroom. He uses fireballs. He loses power without his hat. Everyone please look it (at him).” And, bringing the insults full circle, this was by Kensuke Yoneda about Tomoya Okabayashi.
“My favorite food is rice. I like it because it’s very good. I eat it everyday.”
“My favorite season is spring. I like fall better than winter.”
“My favorite movie is Back to the Future. Because it’s a powerful movie. So it’s amusing. My favorite movie is No. 1. This movie is from Nov. 1 to Nov. 3. Please watch it again.”
“My favorite friend is Natsuki. I like her because she is very interesting. She can make cake. It’s very delicious.”
“My favorite friend is Kasumi. I like her because she is very talkative. She is very cute.”
Sunday, March 20, 2005 — Rice to order
I spotted a rice vending machine today!
Oh yeah, and remember the porn vending machine I mentioned that was down the street from my apartment? Well, one day I noticed the bookstore it was stationed next to had been torn down … and the vending machine had disappeared. Dangit! I KNEW I should have listened to Satoshi and taken a picture of it (for posterity’s sake, of course ;-) while it was still there! And now I’ll never see it again …
Monday, March 21, 2005 — Updated
Okay, my photos from January until now have been posted. The most recent additions were the February international fashion show I did, the TIYEA oyster party and the Sapporo Snow Festival.
Thursday, March 24, 2005 — Sad
Today was the last day of school, which meant I had to say goodbye to my two favorite English teachers because they had been reassigned to other schools, along with a third of Kamona’s staff, in the district’s annual upheaval of employees. Since my first days at Kamona, these two teachers have always been so kind and friendly. They’ve openly spoken with me and looked out for me. I’ve worked well with them and laughed with them even more. So it was with a heavy heart that I spent my last day at school with them.
To Miyata-sensei, the second-year teacher, I gave peanut butter cookies. She was always saying how she hates cooking and only does it because she has to, and that whenever she gets home from work, her kids are like, “Mom, I’m hungry.” I warned her in the note that they were super-sweet and that they went well with milk. Japanese sweets tend to have much less sugar than American sweets. She told me she really liked sweets and looked forward to eating them. She also gave me her e-mail address, which was really heartening for me. It gave me an easy way of getting in touch with her. I find phoning Japanese people, even those who speak English well, to be really nerve-wracking because I’m always afraid I’m calling at a bad time; e-mails are much easier.
Since changing from a homeroom teacher, a role that requires a great deal of time and responsibility, Miyata-sensei has acted as my liason between the school and school district. She would tell me when there were meetings and explain why certain events were happening. Not all ALTs are so lucky to have a teacher or supervisor automatically take up that role without being asked. I cleaned with Miyata-sensei in the music room every day after school. We discussed at great length our shared fear of and fascination with scarey movies. Because I had such a great relationship with Miyata-sensei and I saw the second-year students relatively frequently, I also had a strong rapport with the second-year students. They have been my favorite students since they were first-year students. They may be smart asses, but they are also quick to catch onto things, cheerful, friendly, talkative and, I think, really responded to the fact Miyata-sensei and I made a good team. She’ll be teaching at an academic high school next year.
To Morita-sensei, the third-year teacher, I gave Girl Scout cookies I’d had sent over because her daughter was a Girl Scout but Japanese Girl Scouts don’t have the cookie tradition. Morita-sensei was the teacher who introduced me to my calligraphy teacher, something for which I am immensely grateful. Morita-sensei became a homeroom teacher this year, which meant she was the busiest kind of teacher because third-years have high school entrance exams with which to contend.
Even so, Morita-sensei always made a point of sitting down and chatting with me when she had a chance. You could tell the responsibility weighed on her but that she was doing her best. She was refreshingly honest with her opinion but always so sweet about it. I didn’t see the third-years very often because they were busier with more pressing things than English class, but when I did see them, they were relaxed and easy to work with.
I, too, swapped e-mails with Morita-sensei. She is moving to another junior high school. But I’ll see her around; her kids go to calligraphy class with me and her daughter will be a first-year student at Kamona in April.
I knew that the new English teacher — only one new English teacher would come to Kamona to replace to the outgoing teachers — may very well be cool, but it was still hard to see my two favorite teachers go. Since I’ve sworn off crying (excluding, of course, sad movies!), and the Japanese probably don’t react well to such shows of emotion anyway, I just made sure to tell them how much I’d enjoyed working with them. True friends in a foreign country are hard to come by when you are still learning the ropes of how to get by.
Friday, March 25, 2005 — Escaping the chill
I went to Malaysia today for my final international trip while in Japan. My destination: Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia in Borneo. Before I planned this trip, I didn’t even know where exactly Borneo was, let alone that Malaysia was divided into two land masses — the island and the peninsula — or that Borneo constituted of ???. Kota Kinabalu is on the island. Kaula Lumpur is on the peninsula.
The flight to Kota Kinabalu was uneventful and actually quite pleasant. Malaysia Airlines lets you pick what movies you want to watch, and when you want to begin watching them. Among the many movies you could choose was “The Grudge.” I was tempted, so tempted. It was, after all, an ideal situation, at least for me: a plane full of people, broad daylight, lots of ambient noise. But I couldn’t commit to the movie. The person next to me, however, was watching it so while I had on “Finding Neverland,” I peeked over at “The Grudge.” Even with no sound, it was still creepy!
Getting off the plane in KK, as Kota Kinabalu is known, as like getting off the plane in Vietnam: a rush of humidity blanketing you. It was quite the shock because I swear, as I was biking to Tokushima Station to catch my airport bus in the early morning chill, flakes of snow were falling on me. I had arranged for an airport pickup with the hostel. I don’t know how the hostel manager, who picked me up, knew me, but he just did. I came out of the arrivals area, we made eye contact, and he motioned to his van. Impressive.
The hostel was called “The Beach Lodge.” I found it on Hostelworld.com. On the 15-minute drive from the airport, I noticed that Malaysia, too, had great deal in common with Japan with its mix of old and new. On the one hand, there were these simple wooden houses on stilts built over the water. In contrast to such almost primitive simplicity was the glut of construction projects and apartments so brand-spanking new they hurt the eye with their starkness. Like Vietnam, there were lots of people loitering in the streets eyeing passersby like me, kind of making me a feel a little uncomfortable. There’s just something about warm-weather countries that gives people that year-round luxury, I suppose. It made me realize in Japan and the U.S. alike, you don’t really have people just hanging out in the streets, at least where I lived.
The Beach Lodge was in a great location, right next to a grocery store and lots of shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, it was also on top of two karaoke bars, and the walls were thin.
There was a mall around the corner with money changers. I exchanged my U.S. dollars there for Malaysian ringgit. It was surprisingly easy, and there was no fee for the exchange. Aside from a quick look at the shops, changing my money and grabbing dinner, that was about all the time I had for dawdling. I had an early flight to catch the next morning.
Saturday-Tuesday, March 26-29, 2005 — Semporna
Domestic flights in Malaysia are remarkably cheap. I ended up getting three domestic flights on Malaysia Airlines for less than USD $100. Bus transportation, which I also used, I learned is also quite easy to arrange and it’s a fraction of the price when not associated with a tour group.
I flew from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau, where I went by van to Semporna, a sea-side town. The scenery was fascinating: Rather than acres of jungle, it was just endless hilly fields of young palm trees lined up in rows, sometimes broken up by deforested hills where the palm trees had been cut down. Apparently palm oil is quite the industry here.
Semporna is an entry point for travel by boat to nearby islands with idyllic beaches and, from what I hear, spectacular scuba diving. One of the islands, Sipadan, is world-famous for its diving. I had no plans for anything beyond snorkeling myself, having attempted scuba diving in Rota last summer and found it extremely uncomfortable. Semporna also has an unmistakable military presence because of its proximity with Indonesia. The military polices the waters for illegal activity and immigrants.
I stayed at a hotel known as the Dragon Inn, which is built on stilts over the water in the harbor. I spent a couple days here, mainly just wandering around the market or relaxing at the hotel. I ended up reading two books, the first of which was Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True, which I gotta say is not easy vacation reading. His prose is easy to read but the topic was not. Imagine me discovering an opening scene with a schizophrenic man hacking off his hand and his non-schizophrenic twin brother relating the story of what it has been like, having to take look after his sibling. The other book was Howl’s Moving Castle, a story by an English author that had recently been made into a movie by Hayao Miyaki.
There are no beaches around Semporna. To get to a beach, you have to take a boat. I took a boat out one day to a tiny island you could have walked around in half an hour. People lived on this island on little stilt houses. I was told there were military people on the other side, so I stuck to one half of the shore. For a while, I snorkeled in the water. Snorkeling in the sea is such a disconcerting sensation. It’s like finding yourself in this other dimension, one where you float above everything. In the afternoon, I lounged on the beach, alternating between reading, eating and dozing off. Oh, and reapplying sunblock, of course. ;-)
The hotel staff was very friendly but it was odd to see so many people, most of them non-guests, lingering around the hotel. There was a long, open-air corridor you had to walk through first to get to the front desk, and there were always characters hanging out on the benches of this walkway. The corridor had more of a public-park feel than that of a hotel.
Rooms at the hotel were something else entirely. The floors were slats of wood wich enough space, you could see the water below. When the sun hit the water at the right angle, the reflection danced on the walls and ceiling of the room. The room was quite dim because the lone window had no glass. You either kept the A/C on and the window closed, or you opened the window and turned off the A/C. The walls were made of what looked like strips of tree bark. And the bathroom! It was open-air — covered and private, but with the rife tang of the sea. I was a little horrified to find that when I bathed, the water simply splashed into the sea-water below. I am loathe to think of what happened to the toilet water, although there were signs of plumbing for the toilet. There was a window next to the bathroo, and I could sometimes see fish swimming below us. I guess the water must not have been too polluted. YET.
Malaysia doesn’t really have much of a winter, although they do have monsoon season. I had come, fortunately, after the monsoons. The damp heat made me glad I hadn’t come later in the year to Malaysia and that I hadn’t gone to Vietnam during the summer. Imagine how miserable that would have been! In the marketplace, I bought some baked goods that turned out to be quite tasty — some some sort of blueberry pastry and also a Malaysian version of a pig-in-a-blanket. I chatted with the bakery’s proprietors, who asked me about my background.
I didn’t speak much when I was out and about. Sometimes, by the looks people gave me, I was sure they could tell I wasn’t from around there. I was, after all, walking around wearing a baseball cap and shorts. Malaysia has a substantial Muslim population and many women wore coverings draped over their heads that left only their faces exposed. Other times, though, the store clerks would speak to me in Malay.
I met an English couple doing their scuba diving course. They were recent college graduates who were three months into a year-long travel excursion. They had already hit India, Nepal and Brunei. They had some really interesting stories.
Apparently in India, the vendors are super aggressive. You cannot show any interest in their wares or they will immediately expect you to buy something. If you ask for the price of something, they will counter with, “Well, what’s YOUR best offer?” and they will give you no rest until you’ve bought something. Laura, the girl in the couple, said she had actually had to climb over merchandise because one vendor blocked her way and refused to let her go. So browsing was off-limits in India. The opposite was true in Nepal: The merchants were very laid back and encouraged people to browse, she said. That led them to buy a lot more than they’d expected. In Brunei, they described primitive houses built on stilts similar to the ones in Malaysia. But when you looked inside, they were full of state-of-the-art entertainment systems!
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 — Turtle Islands
An 1.5-hour drive back to Tawau, then a 40-minute flight to Sandakan. Malaysian drivers like to tailgate, let me tell you that. I kept picturing my fate if the slower driver in front of us had braked, even for a moment, considering we were a scant foot or two behind them.
In Sandakan, which is on the northeast corner of Malaysia, lunch was a gorgeous buffet at a hotel restaurant. The food was primarily Oriental in origin, but it was the cheesecake that was perfection itself. I kind of wish I’d eaten less “proper food” so I could have had more of that cheesecake.
I traveled by boat to a trio of islands known as Selingan Turtle Island Park, located right next to the Phillipine border. The islands constitute a national park protected by the government because sea turtles come to lay their eggs here. Overnight lodgers are limited to 20 people a night. You come here to get a glimpse of what the park rangers do in their quest to aid the sea turtle population.
I’m glad I typically don’t get seasick; the boat ride was in rough waters that involved a lot of flying into the air and slamming down on the waves. It was pretty fun at first, but got tiring after the first half-hour. The waters were a sea-green color, with islands scattered throughout.
Upon arriving at the main Turtle Island where guests are allowed to stay, I was told you could do what you wanted until dinnertime. I spent the afternoon on the beach, which was on one side of island and populated with mostly European tourists.
Guests were told to stay in the dining hall after dinner. We were to wait there until the park rangers spotted a nesting turtle and called us out. What time that would happen was anyone’s guess. Turtles arrived anywhere from 8:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. Our wait was not long: at 9:30 p.m., we were called to the beach. Everyone marched out, murmuring excitedly, their flashlights lighting the night dimness.
Upon arriving at the nesting turtle, we were told to turn off the flashlights. Only the park rangers were allowed to have theirs on. We gathered around the turtle’s back end and watched as Ping-Pong-sized eggs dropped into her nest of sand. A ranger stood next to her, lighting the action for us, and carefully gathered each egg to put away into the hatchery, where the eggs would be safe from predators. The ranger told us that from the turtle’s tag, he could tell she had nested on the island before. That night, she dropped 99 eggs.
Next, we went to the hatchery and watched the rangers bury the eggs in sand. The eggs take several months to hatch and when the babies come out, it takes them four days to wiggle their way to the surface. The rangers brought out a shopping basket filled with 48 hatchlings that had emerged that day. It was magical, getting to hold these babies. They were no bigger than the size of your palm, but so strong and determined. I was afraid the one I held would pop out of my hand and fall to the ground, he was so strong. I quickly handed him off to the kid next to me.
Finally, we brought the hatchings to the shore. It was just us, on a beach, beneath a starry night sky, watching a bunch of newborn turtles. There was such a simplicity and specialness to the moment. The ranger gently overturned the basket. The baby turtles immediately began scrabbling their way to the sea. Everyone turned off their flashlights so as not to confuse the turtles. Nevertheless, some turtles started going in the wrong direction. They were back on the correct way. Only 10 percent would survive, the ranger told us.
Thursday, March 31, 2005 — Sandakan
Sandakan, which is the port town from which I took off to get to Turtle Island, calls itself “Nature City,” presumably because it houses Sepilok, the world’s largest orangutan sanctuary. This morning, I returned to Sandakan for a tour of the city.
In the morning, I visited Sepilok, the orangutan rehabilitation center. There are five such places in the world — three in Borneo, and two in Sumatra, Indonesia. There are two types of orangutans: Bornean and Sumtran. Most come to Sepilok as orphans. They are put through a four-stage program to ensure they can be returned to the wild and survive on their own.
I would be seeing the orangutans at feeding time, which is done twice a day. The youngest ones are kept away from people to avoid transmission of diseas. The oldest ones naturally keep away from humans. So it is primarily the juveniles that people see during feeding time.
The youngest orangutans are first kept in quarantine. When they prove healthy, they’re moved to enclosures. Their keepers often take them out so they can practice climbing and grow accumstomed to staying off the ground. Bornean orangutans spend 85 percent of their time in the trees. Sumatran orangutans spend 100 percent of their time in the trees because of ground-dwelling predators like the Sumatran tiger. There are no tigers in Borneo.
Once the orangutans get used to swinging from place to place, they are moved to the sanctuary, an 11,000 hectacre protected plot of rainforest. Milk and bananas are set out on platforms twice a day but the food is kept purposefully monotonous to encourage the monkeys to forage for their own food — fruits, leaves, insects. As orangutans become more independent, they tend to instinctively avoid humans altogether. That is when they are deemed ready for release to the wild.
“Orang Utan,” after all, means “Man of the forest” in Malay.
The tour guide cautioned the people in my group not to bring anything liquid or edible into the sanctuary. Intrepid monkeys have been known to swipe things from people, including mosquito spray, which they then drank and got sick from. Feeding time was made even more entertaining by the appearance of macaque monkeys, who come for the free food. The macaques, though smaller in size, can be aggressive and the orangutans did nothing to stop them from stealing their food.
In the afternoon, I was switched to another tour group, one composed entirely of Brits, for the around-Sandakan tour. I realized part-way that I was the only American on the bus and, beside the tour guide, the only Asian face. It was weird. The tour guide, a jovial local guy named Junior, inquired about my heritage so I gave him the usual shpiel. He apparently didn’t listen very closely, though. This is what came of it, later:
“So, I guess everyone on board is from Britain, right?” Junior said into the microphone to the group while we were traveling on the bus. “Except Vivi — she’s from VIETNAM!”
“No!” I yelled at him from my seat. “I’m from the U.S.! I’M AMERICAN!” My God, I had been very careful as always to make the distinction!
“Oh … but you were BORN in Vietnam, right?” Junior persisted.
“NO! I WAS BORN IN AMERICA!”
And then, later:
“Yes, so we have sea gypsies around here. How about you, Vivi? Do you have sea gypsies in the U.S.? No? How about Vietnam? Do you have them there?”
Siiiiiigh ...