Before getting a car in Malaysia, I was quite nervous about driving on the left side of the road. Now that I've been a left-side driver for more than a week, I can say that I've transitioned surprisingly well. Admittedly though, the bar is set pretty low here: Malaysian drivers only occasionally stay within the lines... so I fit right in.

I will say that there is one very vexing thing about driving on the left: Turn signals. They're on the right side of the wheel.

My typical turning process in my left-sided car (where everything seems backwards): 
     1. Check mirrors/blindspot
     2. Flip the signal switch on the left-hand side of wheel
     3. Realize that I mistakenly flipped on the wipers
     4. Play-it-off 'cool' to Tiffany with a little comment that "I meant to do that."
     5. Flip the proper signal switch (right-hand side of wheel)
     6. Turn

During Tiffany's first left-side driving experience, she also flipped the wipers instead of the turn signal. She didn't even try to play-it-off cool, though. We just giggled it out in solidarity.

Traffic Flow Explanation
Traffic here is similar to other places we've traveled in Asia: at first glance, the unimaginable entropy quickly breaks your sanity bone. Then, you sadly realize that you are the only human in the hemisphere who cares.

One way to help mentally create order out of the road chaos (so you don't go berserk) is to think about car traffic as busy pedestrian traffic back at home. At an airport, for example, people generally stay on the right side of the walkway. But, if you need to cut across the tsunami of speed-walkers to get to your gate, you just beeline it at the slightest gap. People slow down and adjust to let you pass, and most folks don't think twice to do so. This is like car/moto traffic here; local drivers constantly adapt to the car/moto/pedestrian flow around them. 


My first walk into a deluge of oncoming traffic in Asia was a real test of faith (Phnom Penh Cambodia, 2000), similar to the video above. Sure enough, the only way to cross the street was to step out into the sea of motos, trusting that they'd go around me. The trick is no sudden movements while crossing; be predictable. If you take a quick-hopping 'Frogger' approach, you may break more than your sanity bone.

If you've never celebrated Holi before... get on that. It's an Indian holiday that welcomes the spring and honors the victory of good over evil. Both are great reasons to party, no matter your cultural heritage. It's also known as the 'festival of colors,' aka the festival where you throw powdered paint at everyone within arms' reach. It's super fun.

This Holi party was at the local beach less than a mile from our house and consisted of maybe 100 friendly folks. Noticing our clean faces upon arrival, they kindly greeted us saying, "Happy Holi," and smeared the brightest paint imaginable on each of our faces. We all smiled (except Cosie who needed a little convincing).

When we got our own bags of powdered paint, our smiles grew even bigger. Then, we chased. We lunged. We dodged and danced in the sand. We were, indeed, going to get our new car terribly terribly colorful... We learned that the paint doesn't wash out of our skin/hair/clothes as well as we had thought--oops! But we just went with it, because: "hey, too late!"
The green was the most stubborn color to get out. Even with a few intense sand scrubs, we still looked like some sort of odd mix between Elphaba and a diseased Brady Bunch. Needless to say, we turned a lot of heads as we walked along the beach toward our car.
One local Chinese man stopped us, laughing, and asked what had happened to us. Unimpressed by my explanation, he looked at Meilin and said: 

"You look like one of those things in the movies... you know... an alien!"

We thanked him for his hilarious joke, and continued on our walk of shame.

Seriously though, we are so glad that Malaysia is culturally diverse, jam-packed with some of the coolest cultures in the world. This was in fact one of the main reasons we chose Penang as our new home. We may have different beliefs, but we can still embrace the good in all people.

This is what failure looks like for me this morning. Kyle awoke with the alarm to pick up Charlie from his cub scout campout. The kids started waking and coming into my room asking me to get up shortly thereafter, and met the typical lack-of-response. As the minutes turned to hours, conflicts ensued, whining became more shrill and varied in form, and hunger pangs heightened everyone's discomfort. Kyle returned home, but is still so weak and exhausted with Dengue that he collapsed on the bed. Ellie desperately pleaded for us to get up and help make breakfast. Nothing.

The sad truth is that the more the kids need me in the morning, the less I want to get up. Facing even a pleasant morning feels laborious, but if it's fraught with screaming, whining, messes, and hunger strikes, leaving my warm bed sounds like a supreme masochistic feat, and one requiring the discipline and resolve I've just never had before 10am.

The saddest part to this morning's tale is that I stayed up late last night decorating the whole house with leprechaunish mischief. Our resources are low here, but I gathered together everything green in the house and strung it from ceilings, staircase railings, and door frames, all employing one single strand of green yarn (that was Ellie's entire ball of yarn). I scribbled notes on mirrors and piano keys in washable green marker, overturned chairs, and left Erik's fiddle out with a bowl of green peas in its place. It's not my grandest display, but it required a grand effort still. This is particularly so because I was in the process of falling asleep when I remembered I needed to decorate. Actually yesterday was St. Patrick's Day but I rather forgot about it and discovered Erik crying the next morning that the leprechauns hadn't visited. Since it was before 10am, this initially vexed me, but by the time 10pm rolled around, I was looking forward to mischief-making.

Anyway, all this increases the pathetic nature of this morning's dynamic. I wasn't even awake to witness their discovery and delight in my effort. By the time I rolled myself off the bed, they were over it and on to being cranky and tearful about everything. Mom fail.

But is it? How can a mother who remembered her kids like leprechauns at 11:30pm at night while trying to fall asleep so she hoists herself out of bed and decks out the house until 1am really be a failure? And yet this morning, I was completely and utterly a failure as a mother, and I can't have a redo there. I just plain missed the magical moments I worked hard to create. Kyle at least has Dengue to blame for his sluggishness. I only have selfishness.

I want to change, I think I really do. How, though? Change in terms of circumstances outside of my control? I can handle that. Indeed it hardly phases me. Change in terms of core character traits is a different beast altogether.

Indeed, one is on the way! I spent much longer than it would’ve taken to peruse the actual physical grocery store last night shopping on the local supermarket’s website. They deliver groceries for $0.75! The website explains that it requires a good deal of time and effort for their employees to locate and pull the specified grocery items, package it nicely, and deliver it to my doorstep, and that process is reflected in the price. Of $0.75. Yeesh, they need to pay their employees more if you ask me! 

Anyhow, until this point, we’ve been shopping from local markets, which is great, but it’s not quite local enough to get there on foot (which we learned the hard way our first visit, taking nearly an hour in the dark to walk home sans sidewalks with five exhausted kids. Let’s not do that again). What’s worked better is Kyle taking a jog to the market then an Uber back. He typically brings back enough to get us through a day or two of meals. Still, it’s no Costco run, and we’ve been highly supplementing with meals out. 

For instance, this delicious meal cost us $0.25 each.

As we suspected, it’s very difficult to resist eating out when we can consistently feed our family a ridiculously delicious dinner for under $10. The hawker centers here are flush with stalls frying up tasty yums in every permutation of Asian flavors. Our favorite strategy has been to order 5-7 dishes and put one in front of each person, gobble it down for 30 seconds, then rotate. My favorites so far have been Curry Mee and Char Hor Fun (both soups). I love me a good soup, but these are better than good! It’s a million degrees outside and all I want to do is eat hot, steaming bowls of soup! See how unappealing slaving in the kitchen sounds when delectable everythings are so readily and affordably available?! I love this place.

P.S. The title of this blog post refers to rojak, a local dish of fruits, veggies, and fried dough, plastered in a sticky black sauce that's peanut-y, ginger-y, spicy, sweet, sour, and fishy all at once. I'm not joking. I mean, I've been known to throw multiple unrelated containers of leftovers into one pan and pretend it's a cohesive meal. Still, rojak was a somewhat unsettling assault from every angle even on my tastebuds. Rojak simply means "mixture" and it's an accurate representation of Malaysian cooking styles, demographics, languages, etc. Also my blog post writing style. 

Georgetown, the capital of Penang, is a very eclectic former British colonial town, recently recognized by the UN as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of our first adventures led us to seemingly never-ending alleys of street art, a "must do" cultural experience in Penang. In 2012, the Georgetown Festival commissioned international artist Earnest Zacharevic to paint the walls, telling the everyday story of Penang. Public response has been phenomenal.

In my opinion, the genius of his work is the designed interactivity of his pieces. Zacharevic integrated the use of real objects, like bicycles, basketball hoop, swings, etc., allowing visitors to add to the artistic frame with their own creativity. 

My kids absolutely loved it. Most museum art is roped off, but here they are encouraged to jump right in. This made it a very personal artistic experience for us all. 

Here are a few of our favorites:
   

  

And of course, the obligatory "Chinese tourist photo with our 5 kids." 

There's no way of knowing how many Chinese tourist photo books we've made in over the years... Here's one with some nice ladies from Beijing.

I took my first bite and was pleasantly surprised at the mild sweet flavor but then the aftertaste kicked in. It tasted like moldy lime with a dirty sock base. I immediately regretted it. After the taste melted off my tongue, I forgot all that my mouth experienced and I was filled with curiosity not unlike what I felt before I had my first bite. 

I feel like the stakes this year are higher than ever before in my life. This year, I’m not trying just to get by or simply to achieve some symbiotic happy home life. I am attempting the nearly unattainable. Chartering our paths through a foreign land with all the accompanying adventures and challenges while starting and growing a business we know nothing about while homeschooling and raising our lovely but emotionally needy (and delinquent, in some cases) children is a lofty goal indeed. Good Lord, I am scared out of my mind.