I arrived in KL for the first leg of my 6 week travel adventure several days ago. Yesterday was my first real day in KL and I was brainstorming ideas for my day’s itinerary. Naturally, I started at the Petronas Towers (because that is the only thing I knew about KL before arriving). I navigated my way downtown to the towers only to find that the skybridge was closed for a Muslim holiday. Poop. Anyways, I start documenting my experience via my handy dandy Canon digital. As snapping a few awkward photos am man approaches me. He asks me where I’m from, which I reply USA. Instantly his eyes light up and invites me to sit down with him and his niece. Though hesitant, I oblige. Now the man is telling me his youngest daughter is moving to San Diego for school and that he worked as a civil engineer on the Petronas Towers. After two minutes of small talk he tells me that today is a holiday and the towers are closed (tell me something I don’t know). He then invites me to his house for lunch, no he insisted that I have lunch with his family. Despite all the alarm bells going off in my head, I get into the taxi.

Now I am getting pretty nervous in the car, I have no idea what to expect. People don’t normally talk to me for two minutes and then invite me over for a family dinner. I’m thinking, “Am I going to die? Is this a plot to abduct an American by building trust with an old man? What the hell am I doing?” After a ten minute taxi ride, I actually feel more comfortable and believe they just want to learn more about the United States to ease their qualms about their relative who is moving there.

“Hello! We have a visitor!” proclaimed the old Malay as he entered his house. I was treated very well, and was told it was such an honor that I was eating lunch with them. Hmm, do they know I’m 24 and unemployed? Before we eat, the old man sits me down and starts to talk to me about an eclectic array of topics, including my thoughts on Communism. To say the least, this was odd. Lunch consisted of several dishes that were not the slightest bit tasty. I choked down the food with a smile and a constant rub of my belly. If this whole scenario isn’t crazy enough for you, it get so much better.

The old man’s nephew(late 30’s) comes downstairs, very pleased to meet me. We start chatting about nothing in particular, before long he tells me he works in the VIP tables at the casino on the mountain just outside of KL. My ears perk up since Thatland forbids gambling and I miss it. We start talking about casinos, cards, Las Vegas, pretty much anything that involves losing your money. Then this clown tells me there is a way to win 100% of the time. Um, yea buddy, not really. House always wins. Now he’s a little agitated, I just called him a liar to his face in his house! Well, he must prove me wrong. The man outlines his job in the VIP tables, telling me there are no cameras, it’s usually one on one, the Saudis and Chinese are the craziest gamblers in the world etc. Then he asks me to wait for a moment while he proves me wrong. Okay, I sit patiently and trying to comprehend what the heck is going on. Moments later he comes back and invites me to this back room.

I step into this room where he has arranged a makeshift card table out of felt. Cards and chips are in the middle. The man swears me to secrecy about the things he is about to tell me (naturally I blog about it). He begins to tell me the basics of this game called Continental Blackjack, which is a combination of blackjack rules and poker betting. Intriguing, two games I enjoy to play. His lesson progresses slowly and I am not impressed. Following his initial instructions he begins to quiz me on strategy. The man is a card shark, like Edward Norton’s character in Rounders. He can manipulate the cards in any order he wants. He begins to ask what I’d do if I knew the dealer’s down card and the next card on the deck. Naturally, this make it easy for me to predict who will win the hand and how I should bet. He kept quizzing me, and I kept giving him answers using strategy if I DIDN’T know those two cards. He kept saying, but you DO know, so how would you play (he verbally told me, dealer has a 10, next card is a 4) Finally I relented out of fear and played along with his game. “See, you can win 100% of the time” I replied, “Yea, but in a casino you’re not going to be telling me the cards, so it’s not 100%.” Boom, now comes the real secret. Remember, this guy works in a VIP room with no cameras and tons of money is at stake. He explains to me this fairly simple, yet complex, set of hand signals indicating the dealer’s card and the top card on the deck. He continues to quiz me on my strategy and the next cards. I start to pass his tests with ease and he is becoming more impressed. He even threw in a couple of trick scenarios, that involved me resisting a card that would give me 21. By resisting I would win the hand outright, if I had taken the 3 for 21 the next card would have given the dealer 21 and a draw. Now this dude is telling me he’ll give me 30 minutes in his room, one hour max. I’m thinking what are you talking about dude? (at this point, my fear has clouded my mental abilities and I haven’t put two and two together; him teaching this game and 100% winning odds) Finally he outright gives me a proposition. He stakes the money 100% and I get 30% of the winnings or we both go in 50/50. Ahhhhhhh!?!?!?!!!?!

Let me get this straight, he wants me to help him cheat the casino (on a remote mountain, where my cries could be heard by no one), cheat a Chinese gambler who is most likely linked to the mob, and place bets of tens of thousands of dollars of money I can’t cover. Um, yeeeeaaa, I’m going to pass. I tell the guy I need weeks of constant practice before I would be comfortable to do this and I’m only in KL for a few weeks. I thanked him for his offer and said I would consider it if my skills became more natural. Pleased with this answer he shook my hand, reminded me of my promise of secrecy, and had someone safely drive me back to the towers. Wheew! (in all fairness to the old man, it didn’t seem like this was an intricate plan to get me to help the guy cheat. i still believe he honestly wanted to know about American life for the sake of his daughter. it just so happened i liked gambling and pushed this nephew’s buttons)

That my friends, is my first experience in Kuala Lumpur. Randomly being taken into a Malay home for lunch and propositioned with a very illegal and dangerous offer. Let’s hope the next craziest thing I encounter here is a female backpacker with hairy legs.

In a weird and totally heterosexual way, I will miss 6 feet tall transvestites checking me out at 3 AM and saying, “Can I help you? You want Thai ‘massage’?”

Attention- I have not posted new pictures on Community Webshots for some time. I apologize for this, however there will be no new pictures posted until after my January 29, 2008 return to America. While I am unemployed and sitting at home in suburbia, I am sure I will find time to post ALL the photos I will have taken during my travels. Thanks for the cooperation.

Rice, it’s the staple of Asian diets. As Americans we enjoy it along side our General Tso’s chicken every once in a while. As an American in Thailand, I get to “enjoy” rice everyday. I’ll never forget that first day when I ordered fried rice all by myself and the little lady across the road understood my order. Since that day I’ll have enjoyed dozens of bowls of fried rice. In between the fried rice, I’ve learned to order mixed vegetables, chicken with cashews, green curry, and an assortment of Thai dishes that I will probably never eat in the US. I’ll miss ordering food from a street vendor and getting the little packets of peppers in fish sauce that I always throw away. I’ll miss the game of viral roulette I play every time I eat from one of these vendors. It’s added excitement wondering if your last meal will cause you gastrointestinal distress the following day. Even though I hate them, I’ll miss those damn pork balls that everyone in Thailand eats and all the different meats on a stick I see where ever I go. I’ll even miss all the exotic Thai cuisines that I never tried out of fear. Despite all my grumblings, I’ll miss eating rice everyday.

It’s been said that over 85 % of communication is non-verbal. My time in Thailand has made this factoid quite evident to me. My original intent coming out of college was to get a job in South America so I could become fluent in Spanish. I somehow ended up in Thailand where they do not speak Spanish. Needless to say, my Spanish has not improved. My ability to play on people’s emotions and body language has been heightened.

Naturally, I have acquired some Thai during my stay in Thailand. However, I am light years away from being fluent. I can say elementary things like directions, ordering food, and basic everyday phrases. This only takes me so far, if a conversation deviates from the aforementioned knowledge, I am up river without a paddle. Like in my previous entry about Ba Moo, I do a lot of smiling and nodding. I gauge people’s body language, expressions, and tone to deduce what they’re trying to tell me. I have been forced to be more in tuned to those non-verbal cues we give out during conversation. With all the talking we do, the real message is seldom from the words that actually come from our mouths and never has this been more apparent to me since my inception into Thailand (Perhaps I will finally understand what women are saying to me…ah, still doubtful).

I find it remarkable that I’ve spent the past year in a country where I don’t speak the native tongue and have communicated quite well. It’s an accomplishment that has been frustrating as well as rewarding. I will miss all the broken conversations I’ve had with various Thai people and sitting at dinner with five other people and still have the sensation that I was eating alone. I will miss smiling and nodding to conversations that I have no idea what’s being said. I will miss the everyday game of charades I go through to communicate with people; turning around and saying to myself with a half smile, “may kowjai” (no understand). I truly will miss all the confusion.