Hello (:
7 months have passed and I almost forgot that I have a blog which I should update.
4 months since I last posted here, well I finally pulled
myself together to give it another try and to update !
There is way too much to write about so I just decided to
describe the last few bigger events... Lately I was able to get an inside look
of two other cultures, the Indian and the Chinese one. Both experiences where
very interesting and something new since I normally live in a Malay family. One
of the reasons why I love Malaysia: to get to know so many cultures in one
country is awesome!
The longer I live
here the more I love it and I
couldn't be happier with my host family and my whole environment. I am so
blessed to be here and just..thank you to everyone who makes it possible.
What I have been doing the past two months..
2014 started with some dazzling firework in Putrajaya where
my family and me went for New Year and soon after that school began again. I
was probably rarely so happy to go to school again ! Holidays were long and I
missed friends and school. Well okay after one week I had already to ponteng
sekolah (skip school) for the AFS Mid stay-Camp where half of all exchange
students of Malaysia met up and stayed 3 days together at the West coast in
Sekinchan. We had lessons about Intercultural Learning, a lot of talking about
our own experiences and playing games and it was so good to meet up again (some
of them I hadn’t met in since Arrival because they live way further up north). Exchange
students are mostly open minded, interested and maybe little crazy people from
all over the world and if about 30 meet up together in a camp, it is totally
awesome. We danced and sing and talk, talk, talk a lot you learn often some
random facts about other countries , you
can exchange your good and bad experiences and just have fun (;
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| We are from : Germany, USA, Italy, France, Belgium, Canada, Argentina, Austria, Czech Rep., Costa Rica, Spain and Switzerland. |
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| Sekinchan, the beautiful setting (: |
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| Feed backs |
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| Visit to a Kuih Shop |
At 17.1. we had
another free day because of the Hindu Festival Thaipusam. I went with some
other AFS Students to the Batu Caves a
big Hindu Temple near KL and well that was just overwhelming and totally
different from everything I have ever seen... On Thaipusam the Tamil Community
celebrates the occasion that their goddess Parvati gave her son Murugan a
spear, (called vel) which made him invincible forever. He is the God of the
victory and of war, this celebration is one of the most important festivals for
the Tamil. Believers who have made their vows and prayers to Murugan will
subject themselves to sacrificial acts in exchange for an answered prayer. They
will mostly ask for help, to recover from sickness, seeking forgiveness or
childless couples will pray for a baby. For that they have to do a sacrificial
act like carrying a kavadi, weighing
several pounds which is attached to the body by skewers and hooks, that pierce
through the body. Acts like this are normally undertaken by men, but their also
smaller kind of sacrifices like shaving the head or carrying milk on their head
all the 272 steps up to the Temple Cave.
We didn’t go for the long march in the night but went in the
early morning to the Temple and could barely enter the train because it was so
full of people but that was nothing against the crowd we met in front of the Batu Caves. Thousands of
people, so close packed that you always have to move with the whole flow of the
crowd , it was soo hot and loud so that we could not hear each other and the air full of very
weird and unknown smells.
I have never seen so
many people at one place, there were Indian men carrying their heavy
burden,some of them in trance with hooks in their backs or tongue , the women
in colourful saris with pots of milk on their head and little kids on the hand
and all walking slowly up to the Caves while screaming or saying loud :”Vel,Vel, Vel”. This is to appeal to their
god for an easy steps . For me this was the first encounter with Indian Culture
and hence I got totally carried away by all the impressions! It was so amazing,
weird, tiring, scary and wonderful to see and experience that and well I think
here pictures explain more than words! We had like two hours for just climbing
up and down all the stairs and hold each others hands to not get lost in the
crowd. When we came down the steps we even got interviewed by a Malaysian TV
who ask us questions like why we are here and how we like Thaipusam..well it is
overwhelming and the most…different festival I have ever seen. Actually I
wanted to post a video but well my videos are all quite shaky and so I ll only
show some pictures...
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| Batu Caves |
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| View from Upstairs |
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| Our Interviewers |
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| Inside the Cave |
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| Kavadi |
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| With my host siblings |
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| My Birthday (: |
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| Kampung Wedding in Pahang |
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| Family (: |
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| Our Cousin's wedding |
What was next…? From the 29.1 to the 2.2. I went to Roxanne's family, she is an AFS
Volunteer from my Chapter, to experience
Chinese New Year together with another exchange student from Spain. CNY was
again a very different kind of culture and traditions. We learned how to do
simple calligraphy and how to eat with chopsticks (still not very skilled) and
had so much fun together! We were
welcomed so friendly and nice from Roxanne s family that I was amazed once more
how hospitable, nice and interested so many people in Malaysia here are!
Through being an exchange student I mostly depend on people showing me around,
helping and teaching me about their lifestyle and it is incredible how many,
many kind and caring people I have met on my way here!
On the evening of Chinese New Year we went to see two
beautiful Chinese temple and for a really good family dinner. Chinese Food is
for sure as good as Malay and Indian food and I really loved the Chinese tea
they offered everywhere. Back at home we played with a lot of firework and
prayed together with the family to celebrate the start into the new year. To
pray we had to burn the joss sticks and to give 5 different fruits to the gods.
Roxanne s family is Taoist and well I didn’t know much about Taoism myself but
BBC has a pretty good definition of it:
“Taoism is an ancient tradition of philosophy and religious
belief that is deeply rooted in Chinese customs and worldview.”
Taoist have a lot of different gods and goddesses, to which
they pray and each god has his special field in life. The temples are really
really beautiful and worth seeing!
On the next two days we went to visit a lot of relatives where we enjoyed a lot of good food, learned how to play Blackjack 21 and collected amazing amounts of Angpow, which is money the married people give to all the kids in pretty red envelopes for Chinese New Year... We even got visited by a lion dancer group!
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| My Chinese Host family, all in red. |
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| Chinese Dinner (: |
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| Lion Dance |
So these were some of the bigger events of the last two months...I did not include the Travel to Ipoh last week but I am probably gonna catch up with that later :) I hope you enjoyed reading and looking ...
Sincerely
Hannah
PS: Not all of these photos are my own, some of them are
taken by friends, because, well, I am not that much of a photographer.
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