Looking Back on Fond Memories of a Summer in Malaysia
Cindy Tran | September 22, 2008
Cindy Tran shares her birthday cake with children in Belau Village in Malaysia.
Although Malaysia was amazing, I am glad to be home in beautiful California. The first difference I noticed was that my common sense keeps telling me we are driving in the oncoming traffic lane! I get a little tense when driving on the right side of the road because I have become so accustomed to the left side. Also, Penang island is so in tune with nature that it now feels a bit strange to be living an urban lifestyle again. I sometimes find myself looking back on my last weeks in Malaysia and some memories stand out.
One day, we hiked for 2 1/2 hours on amazing trails that lead to Monkey Beach. It was like nothing I had ever seen before: jungle vines everywhere, orange mushrooms, enormous trees, as if we were in a movie. The hiking trail had breathtaking views overlooking the beach and just enough danger in the climb to keep our adrenaline rushing. A bit of humor was added to our adventure when a team of wild monkeys stole our picnic food.
Then late one Wednesday night, I woke up at 1 a.m. because the fire alarm was sounding in our hostel. As lights from police cars flashed through our 10-story window, I could hear a man speaking into a megaphone from below. Since he was shouting in Malay, I could not understand what he was saying. My roommate Vicky and I got our laptops and walked downstairs with all the girls in the entire building in our pajamas thinking it was a real fire.
We noticed that nobody else carried any stuff with them and found our neighbor, who informed us that it was only a fire drill! We looked at her incredulously and didn’t know whether to be relieved that we were not going to die, laugh at ourselves for thinking we were, or be annoyed that they decided to have a fire drill with police cars and fire trucks at 1 a.m.!
Tran rides an elephant with fellow UCSD student Vicki Yang in Thailand.
Also this summer, I got to celebrate my 20th birthday in Malaysia. My friends bought me a gourmet cake and we went to Belau Village, where we regularly visited a school and encouraged students to puruse higher education. I will never forget the faces of all the children when they laid eyes on my cake. After they sang “Happy Birthday” to me in Malay, I cut the cake into 1 inch square pieces but it still was not enough to go around.
There were about 80 kids crowded around me, each pushing and shoving and trying to get a piece of the beautiful cake. I have never seen kids so excited for cake, but I realize that when you have never had a cake like that before, it is pretty amazing. I gave all of my cake to the children and didn’t even try a piece because if I can make kids so genuinely happy from just a piece of cake, then my best birthday gift was being able to give them such a treat.
Now back in San Diego, I view this as just one of many memories that made for a wonderful cultural experience in Malaysia as a student in UCSD’s Pacific Rim Experiences for Undergraduates program.
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Cindy Tran does research in Penang, one of Malaysia's states . |
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