Last Conference Day...

Of course we began our day at the market this morning: shopping for the ingredients for Pearl's cooking course and then ordering and eating our breakfast - BIG responsibilities. We ate Kueh Kak, a stir fry of chopped rice flour pieces that were like fried potatoes and also eggs and sprouts, not leaving out our kopi o - coffee, black. As we ate at the rattly, tin table, we watched a man get ready to drive off on his motorcycle with his dog.

On our way out to the Park Royal Hotel, we passed this house, which I understand is the only house left in Penang with this kind of fancy tile work on the front.

I got to the conference in time to hear my Iranian friend give her paper on Emerson and Romanticism, after which there was a heated discussion among the Muslim Romantic "scholars," trying to determine what the Romantics meant by "God." This man claimed that God as creator is above those of us who are "creatures." There seemed to be some question about the God of the Romantics and the God of Islam - clearly not the same God, argued by the Muslims. I did ask what the difference was, but there was a certain amount of hedging when I asked why the God of Islam was hierarchical as opposed to a God that functions as the essence of a divinity, the spirit within all of us, including the natural world. The conversation got sort of stuck, but we tried to deal with the issue, and I think we did establish that without the formal obfuscation of religion, our "Gods" could be the same with respect to our ideas of a higher power. We were friends, after all.

After that session, I didn't see any that looked thrilling, most being given in Bahasa Malay, so I suggested to my Calcutta friend, Afroja, that we take a bus to the Spice Garden for a little relief. We took the tour, tasted the leaves and spices, and then saw these froggies on the lily pad. They made me feel better than the netted frogs in the market. Sigh.

When we got back and had lunch, Afroja said she had to go to her room for something, and I was left at the table with my friend who had been in the discussion about Romanticism this morning; he had gotten himself a big bowl of several kinds of ice creams with berries and chocolate sauce over the top. He was enjoying it so much that I had to take his picture, which I did, and he reminded me that everyone had returned to the rooms for prayer, the facet of Islam I had completely forgotten. Of course, that's where all my pals had gone!

I went off to the lounge to read and then took off my shoes and went out to the narrow beach to put my feet in the water. Ah... When I returned, I went to hear a man talk about Sharia law and employment and was rather astonished to learn that people who had more need were meant to be rewarded more than those who did not; for instance, a man with 5 children needs more money than a single man, no matter what the competence of each employee. Hmmm, food for thought.

After a really deadly final plenary session with a man who had gone to Temple University (!) who talked about his fear about the marginalization of the Humanities in academia. I mean, he used words like "scary" and "fear." Then he talked about the REAL troubles in Malaysia: Hell Riders, baby dumping and free sex. Mercy! This was all too much to me, and the man sitting next to me had fallen asleep, so I skipped out after trying to make it through for over an hour. Afroja and I got some tea and returned for the group photo.

Then, I left and while I was waiting at the bus stop, the man who had fallen asleep next to me walked over to the bus stop and said to me, "Oh, we were looking for you to get you some tea." I learned that he had been hired by the University from Bonn, and he was coming to live in Malaysia with his family this year. We took the bus together, and I learned that he'd spent 10 years at Yale. I never learned his name!