How do you say "trick-or-treat" in Malay?

This blog is mainly devoted to sharing Halloween pictures and experiences which I have to do before November closes out. As you can see from the pictures, Harrison was a fire fighter and Sydney was the dalmation for his fire truck.
Ironically we probably had a fuller Halloween schedule here in Malaysia then if we would have been back in the States. These pics were taken at the three different events we participated in. The Saturday before Halloween, the young families organization, ibu, had a Halloween party. Harrison won most innovative costume which I thought was hilarious considering I bought it for $80 ringgit (about $25) at Toys-R-Us. Unless of course they were referring to the "team" costume including Sydney's which allowed me to channel my inner Martha as I sewed a bunch of black spots on one of her white onesies.

On Sunday we went to the American Association's Halloween party and got this hilarious family pic.

I told Andy we look rather relaxed for how irritated our kids look. This will not be going on the Rusie family Christmas card.

The last event was trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. When I received a flyer that said there would be a kids party at the clubhouse, then trick-or-treating for participating houses, I figured a few Americans in the complex might be doing it. There were 150 kids. It was crazy. So H got to fill his pumpkin with all kinds of treats that we're still making our way through.

For some reason, this is the only picture we got of actual trick-or-treating. I think managing both kids and taking pictures was a little too much for us.

Since almost a month has passed since then, we have been doing well. After all the Halloween parties, every family seemed to get sick (we're thinking the apple bobbing was the culprit) so that wasn't fun, but we're all recovered now. We went to a Thanksgiving celebration last Sunday at the American Association and are invited to a friend's Thanksgiving this Friday night so we're getting our fair share of turkey and pumpkin pie.

We're also doing pretty well socially. We've been going out every weekend with various friend's we've made. Nothing beats the night about a month ago when we went to an American Association event for Oktoberfest, Andy won a beer chugging contest, we saw a guy break his arm arm wrestling, we did after hours at KL's "Bike Week" and Andy got hit on by a tranny hooker at the Thai Cowboy Bar. That night was memorable.

I've done a couple of girls' nights out, as there are a lot of fun Moms here itching to get out and drink a beer. It's interesting though. Here in KL, there's so many people to meet, your problem is actually overextending yourself with friends. I take the kids to a playgroup through the Australian club on Mondays, then have another playgroup going on Fridays with other women, then random Americans we've met who all seem to know each other. It's great and all but to some degree if you're friends with too large a number, you'll never become really close friends with anybody. There's also the reality you must accept that people constantly move. One of the first questions you get asked or ask another couple is "How long are you here for?".

But what's cool is that everyone is always traveling as there's millions of places to go so you hear about others experiences and can plan accordingly. Also alot of families will vacation together and there's a few families with kids around Harrison's age who we could see traveling with. Andy and I just got a membership at a club that's right next to Andy's office. He has a whole vision of weeknight golf because they light the course. Fine by me. Free up the weekends. It has a huge pool that I'm sure we'll hit occasionally although we do have one in the complex. And there's a few families we've met who belong there so we can get to know them a little better.

There are some more recent pictures to include but will send this off and download them later. It's the picture download part that takes all the damn time on this thing. Hope you're all well and have/had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Rusie Family 4

A little R & R in October

OK, now that all the "basic" stuff was covered in my first blog, I feel like I can get into some detail (me, detail-oriented, nooo ;). Anyway, it occured to me after sending the last one that I didn't update about the kids much and I failed to mention Andy's job at all. So the majority of this blog is about our first "trip" away when Andy took a week off toward the end of October, but have to mention a few other things.

First, (we'll start with the youngest) Syd is awesome. She smiles (as you can tell) and laughs like crazy. She's been teething, so she's slobbering and chewing on her hands all the time. At her 4 month appointment a couple of weeks ago she was 14 lbs. and 26 1/2 in. She's still sleeping through the night (rock star) and is in general, a really great, easy baby.

Harrison is doing great but going through his first serious bout of separation anxiety and it's hitting like gangbusters. But we're hoping getting back into preschool and finally being settled will help with that. Poor kid, we've thrown alot at him so we're trying to be understanding and patient with adjustments with him. But he's talking up a storm and like most 3 year olds, says the funniest things on a daily basis. He's been nothing but sweet to little Sydney, no obvious jealousy at all that we can detect, but then she's not old enough to grab his toys yet, so we'll see. In fact today, Syd was fussing and I usually say, "Syd, Mommy's here". He goes, "Syd, Harrison's here". Watching him interact with her ranks up there with the most special memories we'll ever have.

Andy's loving his job. He's the head of finance for the Malaysian market for Mead Johnson and he prefers this role much more than his last job. His work/life balance has improved dramatically and he can typically be home around 6p, with a 20 min. commute so that alone is huge for us. They had a really busy budget timing in the first month and a half we were here, which was crappy timing, so that's why he took a week off in October and we got out of town for a couple of days.

So on to our trip. I say "out of town" but we actually went to a resort that was a 20 min. drive from our house, still within Kuala Lumpur. But once inside you felt like you were far away. The hotel was attached to a mall and had a big theme park, waterpark and small wildlife park. So here's where the pictures begin.

The trip went well and it was a nice break just to be out of our house, but I really wanted to "blog" about it because it was eye opening in a few ways. First let me explain that the area we live in Kuala Lumpur is pretty mixed racially. Lots of expats, as well as the three main races of KL. Alot of areas in KL are much more segregated. The Chinese live in the same areas, as well as the Malays and Indians. Islam is the national religion of Malaysia but it's mainly the Malays that are Muslim who make up about 60% of the population. Indians tend to be Hindus and Chinese tend to be Taoists, Buddhists or Christians. Even in the progressive area we live in, we see headscarves everywhere. But what I see mainly are women dressed in normal clothing, with a headscarf that covers the head and is sometimes closed at the neck under the chin. Once I saw a woman at the mall down the street in a tight T-shirt, tight jeans and stileto heels and a headscarf. On one hand I thought, "way to not conform" but also thought, "what's the point".

Anyway, prior to this vacation, the dress I'd been surrounded by had not been that conservative. I had only seen one burka (the cloak where only the eyes show) when Andy & I went grocery shopping the first weekend here at a store with mainly locals. What struck me when we first entered the hotel's big beautiful lobby was a Muslim couple with a man as casually and progressively dressed as Andy and the woman holding his hand in a black burka, with only her eyes showing.

Then I kept seeing them. It was like Burka City. My reaction was visceral. I found it kind of upsetting and very judgementally looked upon their husbands as perpetrators of a form of abuse. OK, maybe that's a big strong, but it did bother me. What Andy and I surmised, which we've heard from people, is that alot of Saudi Arabians vacation in KL. And since many of the couples we saw looked young and the men were progressively dressed, most were probably honeymooning couples. There was a huge variety of dress. There were Western guests like me with bathing suits on, there were the regular clothes with a headscarf, there were colorful cloaks with the face showing, there were black cloaks with the face showing, then the full-on burkas.

I don't know if the woman above me was Saudi or just Malaysian from outside KL. I was taking a picture of Harrison and she wanted her husband to get a picture of Harrison too, seeming intrigued by his Western-ness or something. So I asked for a picture with her.

Anyway, back to the burkas. I was trying not to stare but I was watching these "burka couples" as I soon started calling them. What surprised me, given my initial assumptions of their relationship, was that these couples were very affectionate. They were all holding hands, or had their arms around each other. They were talking and laughing together walking side by side. To some degree, the hand holding might be a necessity. I think these women have no peripheral vision. But I was struck that I was judging the nature of their life and relationship through my own lens but started to realize that I was probably watching a young couple truly in love but with a religion who's rigidity I just can't grasp.


Although the burkas freaked me a little, here's a picture that I was so happy to get. This is when we were at the waterpark. As I got Syd into her suit, these beautiful women and girls surrounded me. They were a class from outside KL and I think this was the first Western baby they had ever seen. She smiled and they lost their minds. They wanted to hold her, kiss her, play with her. They wanted to know where we were from and I could tell they were practicing their English. I want to show Sydney this picture once she's older as I doubt she'll have any memory of the time we lived in Malaysia and show her as a baby how she was soaking up the culture without even knowing it.

Still on the clothes theme, I saw all these girls at the waterpark a little later. They were in the water in exactly what you see them in: long sleeved shirts, long pants and their headscarves and I saw a lot of kids like that. I even saw what I would call a burka bikini. In fact, I saw signs that showed "proper" dress at the waterpark. From afar I assumed it would say no thongs or something of the like, but it was the other way. It indicated the "conservative" dress not allowed in the water, like no burkas, no cloaks, I guess they could be considered drowning hazards when you think about it. But I still saw the burka couples walking through the waterpark in what was probably 85 degree heat. So these women would maybe want to get in the water, but can't.

But enough about the dress. We hit the wildlife park after that and got some great shots of little guy:

This was a big lizard I got Harrison to pet but he wouldn't hold. And I know I look rather emaciated but no one worry, it's just a bad angle.

But we were able to get him to hold a turtle. This one's a framer. He went nuts for the animals.

Not too crazy for this bird however. I guess he's a reptile kind of kid.

So anyway, hope you enjoyed another edition. Moving on to Halloween next which will mainly be pictures. Again, hope all is well and you're having a great Fall.

-RFF

Alive and Well in the Eastern Hemisphere

Hello all! This is the new plan to replace random, mass emails: the random, mass blog. Although it appears we've fallen off the face of the Earth, we've actually been here in Kuala Lumpur for about 3 months now and if I must say, settling in extremely well. I'm going to drop in random pics of the kids. Sydney is now almost 5 months, Harrison is 2 years 10 months.

Let me just say this. Kuala Lumpur is awesome. I can't imagine an easier expat experience. It almost feels unfair. Everyone speaks English, there's tons to do with small children, tons of other expats and expat clubs with activities and services and everyone is unbelievably friendly. That being said, anyone doing an expat assignment looking for exotic culture immersion, might be disappointed and find KL a bit bland. But when you're a family with small children, convenience trumps cultural experience to some degree so it's perfectly fine with me.

The climate... is tropical. KL used to be one big jungle which much of Malaysia still is. What's great about that is the landscape is extremely lush, the first thing I noticed when we drove from the airport, aside from massive construction projects everywhere. Harrison is in heaven with all the cranes and construction equipment and I get a full report of every one he sees whenever we're in the car. The heat isn't too bothersome. We're typically not out in the hottest times of the day and since this is city-living, you usually are parked in a parking garage, so out of the sun, although if the garage is underground it can easily hit 100 degrees inside.

What I think is coolest here is the multiculturalism. I love it. Everywhere you look, people look different. Although the area we live has a lot of expats so you spot each other everywhere, there's Malays, Chinese and Indian Malaysian. In my first month here, I frequented a multi-national club for young families and met mainly Australians and Europeans. I went awhile without meeting one American. Then I signed up at the American Association, attended a neighborhood playgroup and met some women at the pool, so the number of Americans we've met has jumped considerably. It's great to have someone to talk to from "home" and Andy loves to be able to talk football (not soccer or cricket) with someone, but we do want to venture out and not just hang with Americans here. No offense to all you Americans reading this blog, but if you're going to live in Malaysia, you might as well diversify.

So what I feel about this place is that it is very modern, very urban...but the new cultural experiences are still there all around you. We have a view of two beautiful mosques from the entrance of our neighborhood and can hear the call to prayer when we take a walk in the evening. We were here for the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast to show sacrifice. The last day of Ramadan is the Hari Raya celebration, the largest Muslim holiday of the year. An example of this mix of modern and cultural is I was going grocery shopping one evening and heard a DJ on one station giving times that all the provinces will stop and start fasting for the day, and the next station was playing Ryan Seacrest's American Top 40.

Another cool thing about being so multicultural is there are 15 public holidays in a year. The main holidays are Hari Raya for the Malays, Chinese New Year for the Chinese and Thaipusm for the Indians. But there's tons of other holidays sprinkled throughout like the Buddha's birthday, etc. So Andy gets a ton of days off which we plan to exploit considerably.

When we first arrived here we were in a temporary apartment but have now been in our house, with our stuff for two months now. The most common way to live here is in a condo, but we found a duplex type house in a gated neighborhood (We live in the right side of the house to the right). We still need things up on the walls but have most things in place. All the electrical and TV systems are different. We have our bigger appliances stored in a room in the house, luckily the house came with major appliances and we have US TV coming to us through the internet (don't ask me, I don't fully understand it). We have to Tivo everything since US primetime runs in the morning here but it's cut down on the TV we watch considerably.

Another observation here is that everything is tiny compared to how we live in the U.S. Appliances are tiny, cars are tiny, parking spots are tiny, the people are tiny. It's actually hard for some Westerners to shop for clothes here because sizes are so small.

We have two cars here, one company car and one we bought. The company car is very big (because we're Americans so of course we picked the biggest one) compared to other stuff here. Driving here has been quite an adjustment. A fair amount of expats have drivers here and they make me feel like a badass for feeling OK to drive myself. But we've had to adjust to driving on the opposite side (British influence in their history), the crazy motorbikes that whiz in and out of traffic and just the confusion from driving in a big city with highway systems that all interlock and criss-cross. I know my specific routes and always have fun consulting my maps and finding something new, but I still don't know how certain areas connect to others and only know one route I'm comfortable with into downtown, but that will come with time. We never get anywhere without getting lost a couple of times. I've only had two minor car incidents. The first I pulled out in front of a motorbike illegally driving down the center line and he rammed my drivers side door. The other was scraping a door in my mammoth vehicle on a pole in a parking garage. Both of which we chose to ignore and despite those slips, I think I'm doing fairly well.

As for our daily routine, Harrison started a preschool this past week and I think that will go really well. We also had our live-in Filipino maid start as well. I know, I know. We suck. It's such a common thing here. There's about 350,000 maids in Malaysia. Non live-in tend to be Malaysian and live-ins tend to be from the Phillipines and Indonesia. Our maid, Reza, worked for a family that recently moved so we scooped her up. She has loads of experience with kids, speaks and reads English and had a great reference from her boss that just left. But I must admit, after one week of it I am kind of weirded out. It's strange to have someone here all the time (except weekend days) but I've already seen the benefits. Twice she's sat for the kids after we put them to bed when we went out, and she could watch Sydney for me while I hung around Harrison's school to make sure he was adjusting OK. So the benefits should outweigh the weirdness here soon.

So we hope this gives you all a sense of our life over here. I already have more blogs to do but thought I'd get this one out ASAP. We miss everyone and hope you all are well.

-Rusie Family 4