My family moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from Newman Lake, Washington, in November of 1991. I remember the date exactly because we celebrated my sister's birthday - November 6th - in the VIP Airport Lounge in Tokyo's Narita International Airport. Back in those days, Japanese airport security was at what no one else knew was actually the cutting-edge forefront of what the international travel of tomorrow (now today) would become...the true "wave of the future," and all that. Everyone who went through the Narita Airport in those days (and still today, of course) had to pass through airport security even after deplaning - even if you were simply going to transit to a connecting flight within the airport terminal! I think this is ridiculous, and many of the other non-Japanese passengers in the days I am talking about here (early 1990s) did, too, because those of us of the era I am referring to remember when this was not a part of international air travel. Of course, nobody bats an eye at this kind of practice today, as it has become the modus operandi of world travel after terrorists won the battle of destroying all trust in your fellow man when traveling by air. This happened in the year 2001. Anyway, back in 1991 it was a big deal to go through airport security in Narita after just having deplaned - no one expected it or understood why you should do it. What, had you manufactured a bomb while you were ON the airplane and were trying to take it into the airport or on to your connecting flight? Who knows? Now that we know a bottle of water can "take down a 747," as one TSA official in the Sea-Tac Airport explained it to me once when I asked in the early 2000s, but now I am digressing more than I should. Anyway, that was the big excitement about Narita Airport, the only major international airport in the world at the time (that us Americans traveling trans-Pacific routes between North America and East Asia knew about, at least) that required all passengers to go through airport security AFTER deplaning.
Let's get back to the story here...we were in the Airport VIP Lounge because we were going to Malaysia for my Dad's work. By this point in time he had gotten on with the now-defunct Cerex Corporation, a Maryland based mid-sized biotech company. With his many years of overseas experience my Dad landed the position of Company Representative for Asia - a dream job for someone who could work solo (and enjoy it) and still get the job done. Cerex, which was expanding the market for a biomass sensor the company produced, needed Asian sales reps and wanted to cash in on the competitive contract manufacturing industry in Southeast Asia. My Dad's job was two fold. First, to recruit and then support sales reps in countries from Japan (which already had a Cerex rep who reported directly to the Maryland office) through east and southeast Asia and west as far as and including the Indian Subcontinent. Second was to oversee manufacture of circuit boards for the biomass sensor's computer controls, taking advantage of the huge contract manufacturing industry in that part of the world.
Like I say, it was really a dream job for someone with the ability to work solo and make his own schedule. His boss on the other side of the world - the founder and lead-scientist at the company - would give him assignments, like "Find us the top five most likely candidates that can manufacture our circuit boards." "Find a good, vetted (by you) corporate lawyer who we can get on retainer." "The company Vice-President is coming out for the week, arrange accommodation for him, tour him around, wine him and dine him, and make him feel comfortable." It was a networking job, a job of making corporate presentations and pitches, of generating "hot leads" that my Dad could ultimately hire to begin manufacturing and sales. The company rented us a good-sized house with an in-ground swimming pool and bought a full home bar set up (along with a full home office setup and other furniture for the family) for my Dad to install at home for "corporate pitch parties."
For a kid growing up in that environment, I am not going to deny, it was great most of the time. With his variable schedule, there were times when Dad would be home or at his office in Kuala Lumpur for a few days, and then there were weeks when he would be traveling to other cities or out of the country when we would hardly see him, so there was a bit of give and take to the whole thing - as would be expected - in terms of family life.
We lived in Malaysia from November of 1991 until December of 1996 and had many additional adventures from Malaysia as our "home base." I put "home base" in quotes because, during this whole time, my parents still owned their house at Newman Lake, and that's still where we spent our Summers.....so where was, home? Well, both Malaysia AND Newman Lake quickly became home for our family.
That first year in Malaysia is etched into my mind. I was in 2nd Grade and my world had suddenly been opened up so much, so quickly. We celebrated my sister's 4th birthday in the Narita Airport VIP Lounge, flew on to Bangkok, where we spent a night and a day. I remember our luggage had gotten lost (as I recall the airlines eventually located it and delivered it to us) and we ran to the store that night while staying in a Bangkok hotel to buy toothpaste, toothbrushes, and clean underwear and socks. That would start a childhood family tradition of always traveling with our toothbrushes and toothpaste and clean underwear and socks in our carry-ons all through the 90s until traveling with a full-sized tube of toothpaste was eventually seen as an act of terrorism in the early 2000s and ban. I remember seeing gecko lizards for the first time there on the hotel wall in Bangkok. It was November of my 2nd Grade year in school and it was my first time in Asia with any real memories of being their (no, I don't remember being a baby in Bangladesh, obviously.....see The Cabin in the Woods page if you are lost at this point!).
The next morning in Bangkok my Dad took me to the Bangkok Snake Farm, where highly venomous snakes were farmed for anti-venom production. We watched the live public demonstration of the skilled snake handlers milking venom from a king cobra. The scene of the snake's fangs sinking into the thin wall of the collection cup and then shooting poison out is still burnt clearly in my mind's eye - as clear as yesterday.
We hopped on a plane for the last leg of our journey soon thereafter and headed into Subang International Airport, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's international airport at the time. This airport would be officially renamed Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Subang International Airport just a few short years later in 1996, after the 11th King of Malaysia (since the formal establishment of the modern-day country of Malaysia in 1957) and 8th Sultan of the State of Selangor. By 1998 this airport would become designated for cargo and domestic turboprop flights only when the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang opened. And that's just how much the K.L. international airport changed during my childhood years in Malaysia!
The 1990s where a major decade of change for the country of Malaysia and I was there through it all. Changes happened fast and furiously! Biotech, computers, and tech of all kinds in general was booming - in fact, the Hewlett Packard manufacturing plant in Spokane, Washington, shut its doors in 1998 and relocated to Malaysia. When we were living in Malaysia again during my Senior year of High School (2001-2002 school year), I became known back in Eastern Washington State as "the guy who lived in the place that stole our HP plant!" Just a few years prior to 1998, a cousin of mine and I had made a point of opening up several Radio Shack remote control cars one summer when we were looking for something to do (because that's what kids do) and noticing that all vital circuit boards and chips inside had "Made in Malaysia" printed on them.
The Malay Peninsula (home of present day West Malaysia) and island of Borneo (home of present day East Malaysia) have long and fascinating histories; however, politically speaking, the modern-day country that we know as Malaysia today was only formed in 1957 - less than 100 years ago at the time of this writing - when the British pulled out of Southeast Asia.
I remember when we moved there in 1991 that the currency, though officially named Malaysian Ringgit ("Ringgit Malaysia" in Malay) from Malaysian Dollar in 1975, was still officially denoted with the symbol "M$" ("Malaysian Dollar" - as it was called when officially issued by the national bank for the first time after independence in 1967). It wasn't until 1993 that the M$ symbol would disappear to be replaced with the new official RM ("Ringgit Malaysia") symbol, currently still used at the time of this writing.
The country's national education system also underwent great changes in the 1990s, especially the early through mid 90s, culminating with the Malaysia Education Act of 1996. This act was a major piece of legislation which amended and superseded previous Malaysian education acts and legislation, setting standards in textbooks, curriculum, and medium-of-instruction, among other things, with the scope of the act reaching as far back as to bring the last holdovers and vestiges of colonial educational practices from colonial British Malaya days into modern times. The Malaysia Education Act of 1996 set the stage and the "gold standard," if you will, for a firm foundation of Malaysian domestic educational polices and practices to usher in the 21st century.
Our adventure as a family in Malaysia started November 1991 at the K.L. Micasa extended-stay hotel, spending our first Christmas in Malaysia there. My biggest memory of the the Micasa hotel was the Vision4 Malaysian hotel cable TV network and coming down with chicken pox shortly after arriving in Malaysia and starting 2nd Grade at The International School of Kuala Lumpur. There was a kid swimming in the hotel swimming pool who looked like he was just recovering from chicken pox, and then, bam, all of a sudden I had it. My Mom advised me to give it to my sister, so I remember giving her a "shirtless hug" (we also slept in the same room in the hotel, so if she was going to get it, she was going to get it. I remember a few days later, after I was feverish and covered from head to toe in itchy blisters in full-force, my sister started to feel slightly feverish and looked like she was getting a blister behind her ear. "Ok," said my Mom and Dad, "she'll be out of school tomorrow." She woke up in the morning with that single small blister behind her ear GONE, no fever at all, and feeling absolutely fine. She never got the chicken pox. A vaccine for chicken pox came out just a few months later and it became one of those childhood diseases you rarely ever heard about anymore after that......gosh, and what a time to bring up the word "vaccine" in a piece now!
And this was just the beginning......
Very soon after Christmas I remember going to Singapore for a quick trip. That was the New Year's of 1992 (1991 going into 1992), and I remember distinctly that was the year chewing gum was ban in Singapore as it was deemed a "public nuisance" because malicious punks would stick it on subway doors, effectively welding them shut; or at least that's the reason that trickled down to me in my childhood via my Mom. I remember the newspaper comic on New Year's morning (January 1, 1992) in the hotel we were staying - the famous Singapore Raffles Hotel - at of an old man and a young boy looking at a painting of a single stick of gum. The caption of the cartoon was: "Grandpa, what was a Wrigley's?" We visited the crocodile farm, rode on the Singapore MRT (which was the first time I had ridden on a subway outside of the US), and generally explored the city.
I should mention at this point that my parents had done the whole south and southeast Asia backpacker tourist "thing" back in the late 1970s/early 1980s just a few years after getting married, so they knew a bit of what to expect and a felt comfortable navigating the landscape. For my sister and I, everything was new. But, with that said, for young children everything in the world is new anyway, so in many senses it was "new," but it was also very "normal" at the same time. As a Preschooler (my sister) and 2nd Grader (myself), we had very, very few preconceived notions of how things "should be" to hold us back to the experiences of life in general at this point.
We soon moved into a rental house which would become our house for the next 5 years. Looking at my life today, 5 years seems like nothing. Five years goes by in the blink of an eye before I even know it has passed nowadays! But those years of a person's early life in elementary and middle school seem like decades at the time. When everything is fresh and new in the eyes of a child, years seem endless, like decades almost, as so much development can happen in a year in a child's life that they start the year as one person and end it as another. With that said, the same can happen far into adulthood as well, it's just that we perceive the changes differently the older we get, and we perceive time and the passage of time differently the older we get. And perception, ultimately IS reality, or so I believe...or at least our own perceptions make up the lion's share of our realities, there are some physical facts that can't be changed that easily. The point is, the two decades that have passed as of now for me from the age of 17 to 37 seem like a mere 5 or 6 years to me at this point in my life; however, those happy memories of the 5 years as an elementary school kid I spent growing up in Malaysia seem like I could have easily spent 2 decades worth of time in those experiences, with all the varied experiences and growth I underwent at that time. Like I say, this was just the beginning of said growth for me; however, I would go on to perceive the passage of time and the rate of growth differently in day-to-day life as I got older.
My early memories of Malaysia in 2nd Grade when I first arrived consisted of running around chasing geckos on the walls in the evenings, catching all sorts of colorful guppies in little streams and drainage gutters all over the residential areas of town - that blew my mind because before coming to Malaysia I had had guppies in aquariums in the US that my parents had bought - actually paid money for - at a pet shop...and here they were, free and easy to catch in the rain gutters all over town! I remember the January 1, 1992 trip to Singapore, as previous talked about. I remember eating Mentos of all different flavors packaged in foil and paper tubes - the popular candy for sale in Malaysian convenience stores at the time. I remember selling boiled potatoes at a school bazaar, complete with salt and pepper as condiment options, and I still think of that as my first real venture of going out on my own and "working for myself."
It was interesting, because The International School of Kuala Lumpur, where I attended Elementary School, was housed in their Ampang K-12 campus at that time, but they were in the midst of building a dedicated K-5 Kindergarten-Elementary Campus in Melawati, a 20/25 minute drive away on the old road system (now I don't even recognize the landscape with all the overpasses and superhighways in place the last time I visited the area on my 30th birthday). Anyway, by 3rd Grade, the very next school year, us Kinder and Elementary Schoolers were moved to the brand new dedicated Elementary Campus in Melawati, which happened to be close (about a 10 minute drive from the campus) to the National Zoo.
In 3rd Grade I had an older British woman teacher with a definite old-school style and manner to her personality and teaching methods. She had a firey temper and would yell and scream and light you up if you made the slightest wrong move or gave the slightest bit of attitude. Her big thing was not listening - especially when she would given an instruction, us kiddos would nod our heads and say "Yes, yes," but then some dufus would inevitably NOT follow the instructions and would do exactly what she said NOT to do! Uff! That ALWAYS incited her "Wrath of God" tyrranid in the classroom. Thankfully, she was a mostly fair one, as I remember. Apparently she really like me - or at least expressed that to my parents and they believed it - and she I thought I liked her. I, actually, held nothing specifically against her, and still don't, but I definitely spent my 3rd Grade year trembling in fear of her, as did all the other students in the class.
I built a backyard pond with my Dad in the backyard of our rental house (with the landlord's permission, of course - she was a very cool lady with whom my family became good and lasting friends). Ok, let's be honest, it was one of those father-son projects - my Dad built it, I was the kid who helped with the project. That was my major crowning memory of my 3rd Grade year. Construction of said pond took several months, as we did all the excavations and then later concrete mixing and pouring by hand. It was a big pond for such a manual feat, and had an even deeper filter box setup area - also excavated out by hand and sealed with brick masonry and concrete. We had a large ceramic frog fountain that sprayed water out into the pond to aerate and circulate the water through the filtration system on an electrical timer. We stocked the pond with tilapia and were able to fish in our own backyard. We also kept several turtles in the pond. In all honesty, it was great fun, but, looking back, upkeep was A LOT of work, and so was the actual construction itself, the lion's share of it falling back on my Dad.
4th and 5th Grades were great years - the Upper Classman in the Elementary School and all that stuff. Although I was a weak sickly boy with childhood kidney problems, my Dad my a point to kick my butt into gear - and bless his heart for doing so - and got me into running and swimming. Running was something I did with my Dad in the evenings, casually. Swimming was something I did both personally at home (we had a swimming in the front yard of our rental house) and competitively at school for a short time. I swam in the annual competitive Elementary Swim Carnival in 3rd and 4th Grades. 3rd Grade was great - I loved it so much I signed up in 4th Grade as well. Then, in 4th Grade, I was unfairly disqualified from one of the competitions and I never swam again. The claim was that I didn't slap both hands down onto the edge of the pool at the end of my lap, as required by competition regulations, although to this day more than 25 years later I still maintain that I did. It would take me a long time to truly come to grips with and actually appreciate the fact that life isn't fair! By a long time, I mean it wouldn't truly happen until decades later as an adult. Although I did give it plenty of lip service as a child, it wasn't until age 30 that I would realize that the only point of living was to unleash the inner beast - and then it took be 5 more years before I could even start to get that part right!
What else? Cub Scouts; fishing in various ponds, lakes, rivers, and the ocean, of course, around K.L. and Malaysia; hiking in the jungle; various trips all over Malaysia - the two Pangkor Islands, Penang, Langkawi, a road trip up and down and from coast-to-coast along the Malay Peninsula; driving to Singapore; numerous trips to Malacca (Melaka); and, of course, a few trips to Thailand and various other trips to Singapore thrown in there as well. My sister and I were both in Elementary School (I am including full-day Kindergarten which was housed at the Elementary School we attended) during most of this time period, and my parents were at the pinnacle of the "glory days" of their careers at this point in time. There was a lot that went on during these comparatively short 5 years in Kuala Lumpur that seem long enough to be their own lifetime in and of themselves.
We traveled as a family around a number of countries in Europe in the Summertime during this time period, visiting friends of my parents' and accompanying my Dad on his family roots investigations. At this point in time, a good portion of these investigations kept leading us back to the small former East German village of Muhlhausen in central Germany over several Summers in the early and mid 90s. I remember my Kindergarten teacher made a big deal about it in early November of 1989, but, of course, what could I process in my child's mind of her words: "Now these people will all be free."? The rest of the class and I were like: "Woooooah! Is it recess time yet?" as we gazed half-curious, half-mindlessly at the picture from the newspaper (that would go on to become one of a handful of famous historic pictures of the wall coming down) that she had made a point to color copy onto an overhead projector piece of plastic laminate to show us that day.
Either way, looking back now as an adult I feel fortunate to have been able to participate in that part of history. I have since heard stories from people, Americans, who visited China between 1978-1983 right after she had reopened her borders to the outside world. That was before my time, but the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the reopening of former Soviet Central and Eastern Europe was right at the beginning of my time, and an epoch of history I participated rather blindly in as naïve child, but, nonetheless, participated in and remember well at least in terms of the first-hand memories I have.
I remember the big thing in Muhlhausen in the early 1990s was people modernizing their houses, especially the old straw-mud insulation and replacing it with modern insulation - you know, the modern pink spun fiberglass stuff. It seemed to me both Summers in the early 90s that we visited Muhlhausen I was fascinated by the amount of people renovating their houses. My Dad and Michael, our long-time West German family friend who went with us (who could read old German - you'll see why this is important later), explained to me that the good citizens of Muhlhausen were modernizing their homes after decades of Communist rule now that modern homebuilding materials were readily avaialable on the open market once again. Again, in the eyes of a child, though fascinated by both their words and what I saw, I really knew no better, but I have cherished these memories with me all these years and now look back on them with fondness - like I was really participating in history.
By our last Summer in Mulhausen in the early 90s, I remember my Dad and Michael had tracked down two previous old Gross Family residences in town that had belong to our family 100+ or so years ago. My Dad spent long hours in the Muhlhausen City Hall of Records digging through documents written in Old German, with the help of our family friend Michael, to find those addresses. We went out and beat the streets to find those properties, both of them apartments. At one residence, the modern owner let us in for look around. At the other she simply shoed us off from the street.
"She thinks we're property snipers," Michael explained to us.
"What's that mean?" I asked.
"With the reunification of the country there are some dishonest people coming into former East Germany - and visa versa - claiming: 'Oh, yeah, this is my family's property that was taken from us by the Communists decades ago - hand it over!' although their claims are not true. They are conmen looking to swindle people out of their property," was his explanation. "She thinks we are probably those kind of people so she shoed us away from her balcony without even coming to the door."
I have held onto that interesting memory all these years as well.
Another memory of Muhlhausen, unrelated to family roots, was tracking down a church with one of J.S. Bach's old organs in it. You see, Muhlhausen is a fairly small town in terms of the modern population of Germany (well under 50,000 people in the 21st Century at the time of this writing); however, it's a town with ancient roots and was a thriving city of 10,000 under the Holy Roman Empire - a decent-sized city for a "hinterlands" type city of that era. Long after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, J.S. Bach was employed as the city's organist. If you blink, however, you would miss Bach's time here, as he only worked in Muhlhausen for one year, from 1707-1708. Well, we found it - the organ that Bach played - and, again, at the time in my child's mind - a child who was always very into history - thought: "Woah! Cool!" but also: "Ok, well, it's an old instrument. We've seen it. Done." kind of thing. I always appreciated history as a child; but a child's mind can only appreciate so much is what I am trying to say. It's another one of those memories that I have held on to for all these years and now appreciate so much more as an adult than I did as a kid.
Of course, there were also memories of roving around in the Black Forest and trout fishing - for none other than German brown trout - with Michael in his little hamlet in the woods in those days where he and his family lived - and he also happened to be mayor of that little town. I remember the fresh, natural beauty of it all - the Black Forest in all it's grandeur - which reminded me of Newman Lake.
Speaking again of Newman Lake, there was that fateful Summer of 1995 when my Dad, sister, and I went to Alaska from Malaysia. Ok, so, it's not what you think. Our plane was headed from the Tokyo Narita Airport to Seattle as usual, as we were on our way back to Eastern Washington for the Summer, but we were forced to emergency land in Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska. Just after the turnback point that could have seen us landing in Hawaii, but with Seattle still many hundreds of miles away, an engine blew out on the 747 commercial airliner we were flying in. Honolulu was, at that point over the Pacific, further away than Seattle, and Anchorage was 300 miles closer than Seattle at point the engine blew out. I remember as kids my sister and I were scared, but also naive, as we were also filled with a sense of adventure about it all at the same time. That was back in the days when the trip tracker on planes was still "the new, cool thing," that my sister and I watched with wild fascination (and nothing else to do on such a long flight). As soon as the engine blew and the pilot realized what had happened and made a quick decision to get to the closest airport with a runway that could effectively handle a 747 at full capacity, the plane made a sudden turn North on the trip tracker. My sister and I both looked at each other with eyes wide open and said: "We're going up!" and laughed about it. Now, looking back at the event with my memories in my mind's eye, I can fully appreciate just what a scary and razor-thin near miss with almost certain death it was. As we finally came into view of the Alaskan coast on our approach to Anchorage, I remember at the time being in awe of just how low to the ground we were - and somewhat scared - but mostly in awe, as for all that I had flown in planes as kid in my life, I had never seen such a large plane come into land so close to the ground starting from so far away from the airport.
Of course, I had never seen such a large aircraft come in to land so close to the ground starting from so far out away from the airport because they don't and aren't supposed to, as that is not a safe landing. Looking back on the event now as an adult with those images burnt into my mind's eye, I have no awe about the event (awe and inspiration that the pilot made it, yes, but no awe of the event) - just raw fear, and a sense of relief now that we survived as I remember our plane careening towards the Anchorage Airport so low from so relatively far out at sea - nearly clipping the tips of the tallest trees as the pilot fought to use the plane's momentum to give him enough power to maneuver a successful landing. At final touchdown we were greeted with a half-mile long line of various emergency vehicles and rescue personnel lined up on the runway beside us, fully prepared for a full-on crash landing, which, all praise be to God, did not wind up happening.
We taxied up to a disembarkation gate as usual, deplaned, and waited around to be "processed." There were all sorts of announcements going off asking us to please be patient as the relatively small Anchorage International Airport - though robust and well developed for processing cargo - was not equipped, especially right then at seven o'clock in the morning, to handle a fully-loaded passenger 747 of incoming international arrivals needed to go through immigration and customs channels. We finally DID make it through immigration and customs - our Dad had a pounding headache at the time - and, with 6 hours to kill before connecting on to Seattle, we went outside. It was a beautiful June day. I remember eating sandwiches at an outdoor picnic table there on the airport grounds and walking around the airport terminal (on the outside) enjoying the views - taking tons of pictures of the snow-capped mountains on the horizon on inland.
The above all happened in the Summer of 1995. My sister and I were flying back to Eastern Washington that Summer with our Dad only because my Mom had stayed behind in Malaysia this Summer to have the bunions on her feet operated on. My Dad was able to get some time off work, accompanied my sister and I to the US, used his time to perform some necessary work on the Newman Lake house, and my sister and I stayed with our paternal Grandparents out on their Valleyford farm that Summer, returning to Malaysia as "unaccompanied minors" at the end of the Summer, escorted by airline representatives. I remember we planned the return with my Dad on the way out, with him walking me - the oldest one - through all the steps to perform at each airport. It was a trip we had all taken back and forth numerous time as a family at this point, so it really was familiar territory; but I was nervous about it. Ok, I will admit, I was scared shitless! My younger sister just laughed at me the whole time - "What are you so scared of?!" she taunted. To be honest, to this day I don't really know. It was the nervous Aquarius energy that always runs under our calm, cool, collected surface brewing to the top. With the trip coming out to Eastern Washington this Summer being a near-miss with death, the trip back as unaccompanied minors was smooth and uneventful. I was shaking in my boots the whole time and my younger sister was loving it!
In August of 1995 I started 6th Grade, and was back to the Ampang ISKL campus I had started when we first moved to KL in 1991 when I was in 2nd Grade. By this point in time I had built a tree house the year before in 5th Grade (started with my friends and finished off with my Dad - with, again, my Dad doing most of the work and me assisting) in the trees in the vacant lot next door which was sort of "my domain" - my not-so-secret "hide-away." I had also built my own BBQ grill out of wire mess, old roof tiles, and an old metal flower pot stand in 5th Grade and successfully grilled chicken it, so was feeling pretty cool about that. By the end of 5th Grade I had really started to get interested in photography. Now, at the start of 6th Grade, I was into photography and photo processing and also at that weird, awkward point in life of getting to know the opposite sex.
As for taking and developing pictures, my Grandpa had given us his old darkroom set up, which I quickly fell in love with, and our neighbor down the street, my "adopted Malaysian-Chinese Grandfather" or "God-Grandfather" as we would affectionately say about our relationship, was eager to teach me all the ins and outs about how to use it, as he was a press photographer (who developed his own pictures) for his career. I will write more about dear old Mr. Yong, RIP, at the end of this section.
As for being a young almost teenage boy in this great big world of ours, well, of course everyone young, old, and of my same age was oh-so-full-of-advice as what I should do and how I should arrange my affairs in life; but, in the end of the day, we are ultimately alone in this quest - only you can live your own life and navigate this world, right?
We moved back to the US for a short period of time in December of 1996, but my Malaysia Years wouldn't end there....
We came back to Malaysia as a family for a quick visit in the Summer of 1998 as we were on our way out moving to India. I honestly remember nothing of this visit other than the fact that it happened and the city-scape of K.L. was already starting to look drastically different.
We were in K.L. again during the Summer of 2000 - the Summer of the Millennium. It was during this period that my Mom got her feet redone in Malaysia. Sadly, after her bunion correction surgery in the Summer of 1995 her feet looked wonderful for the first few weeks she after she was allowed to unbandage and walk on them, but then her bunions came right back. So, 5 years later in Malaysia again, she was going to try again - this time a more aggressive correction approach and get her toes pinned and fused. Recovery time would be a minimum of 6 weeks. We stayed in Mr. Yong's Ampang Jaya corner row house the whole Summer beside "P. Ramlee Burger" local little Malay night street cart burger joint. My Mom wasted no time and went under the knife within the first few days of us arriving in Malaysia. We visited a Chinese-Malaysian medium named Cheng Hoji this Summer and had some energy alignments done. It was Mr. Lim who had started going to the Medium and took us along as well that Summer. I also used this time to get my Malaysian motorcycle license, enrolling in the appropriate motorcycle Driver's Ed. course, doing the perscribed amount of practice, taking the test - the works. In Malaysia - at least at that time - you could get a motorcycle license at age 16 and a car license at age 17, although many people in Malaysia - indeed, in East Asia in general - wait until after their teenage years to get their driver's licenses.
The Summer of 2001 was a pivotal one in my teenage years. In fact, the Summer of 2001 has gone down as one of the all-time best Summers of my life so far. What made it so great was the fact that I actually planned out things I wanted to do and did them. I remember I came up with a list of “Summer Time Goals.” I made sure the goals were realistic and that they were within my power and capacity to actually follow through with and do. Most of them amounted to physical fitness and exploring various places around the hillsides of Newman Lake, which, by this point in my life, I was now definitely old enough to explore deep into the woods on my own. This was one of many Summers I worked for my Dad, and it was great. We also went as a family to Tofino, Vancouver Island, British Columbia to visit friends from Kodai (who were actually originally from Tofino and owned a bed and breakfast there) and go salmon fishing with them that August. That was a great time! Essentially, we went from India to Malaysia. I bought a motorcycle in Malaysia and kept it with Jerry, a mechanic and old time friend of Mr. Yong's, with the intent of having it shipped up to Penang later in the Summer/early Fall when we were to move to Penang and start school at Dalat. After a week or two in KL at the beginning of the Summer we went back to Eastern Washington, spent numerous weeks there, went out to Tofino, then went back to Malaysia, this time to Penang, and my Mom had secured at job at Dalat International School, as school she had had her eye on for years. This then started my Senior Year in High School, the school year of 2001-2002.
I returned to Eastern Washington and went to college at Washington State University (WSU) starting in August of 2002. During my three years and Summer stint at WSU, I would return to Malaysia in the Summer of 2003, when I did some Summer tutoring; the Winter of 2003-2004, when I, now a college student, went downtown and celebrated New Year's Eve with friends for the first time in Penang; and the Summer of 2005, when I put a feeler out for a job at Dalat International School where I had graduated High School from (and where my Mom was still teaching). There was a new (and already on his way out - he didn't last long) Head of School at that time who basically met with me and immediately politely shut me down on the job front right away. By August of 2005; however, he was out the door and my former High School Principal became the Head of School. He invited me back with open arms. I was already back at Newman Lake by this point in time looking for things to do, so when I heard that the chance to go work at Dalat had actually opened up, I jumped on it, starting just after September 11th, 2005 (which was a Sunday). Thus, Dalat International School kicked off my teaching and leadership career, starting out as a Science and ESL Teacher and LOVING.
I worked the 2005-2006 school year at Dalat as a 9th Grade Physical Science Teacher, 7th and 8th Grade Science ESL Support Teacher, General Beginner's Level ESL Support Teacher, Middle School Study Skills Teacher, Peer Tutoring Coordinator, and I think there were a few other hats I wore - I was basically a fill-in for little bits here and there in the Middle School and High School, with a majority focus on ESL and Science.
I would have been happy to stay on after the 2005-2006 school year; however, due to work permit processing difficulties, I was forced to move on in the Summer of 2006. Now thoroughly hooked on the teaching profession, I ended this school year with a trip with some colleagues to Perhentian Island off the beautiful and vastly underdeveloped East Coast of Malaysia.
I came back to Malaysia to visit during Chinese New Year of 2013 and 2014 and briefly in the Summer of 2015 with my wife. My last time out to Malaysia (as of the time of this writing) was two weeks in the Summer of 2019 with my wife, daughter, and son.
The Malaysia Years saw the child Andreas grow up into a young man - from child, to teen, to young adult. This was a time of learning with the overarching theme of "school" forever present in the background. I grew, developed, and underwent many changes during this time period. The Malaysia Years, essentially, helped form my very core. The biggest insights from me, a White American guy growing up in Malaysia, were: the incredible amount of diversity in our world, how the world can be as big or as small as we make it, and just how much of a fish out of water I would be in my 20s as the result of a childhood like this before I learned my place in this world and became an even stronger man in my 30s as the result. This all went back to largely growing up in a country different than my home country.
You see, growing up as a Third Culture Kid made me, in a sense, "wise beyond my years" by default from a very young age. However, it didn't mean that I always fit in with the "in" crowd, and, of course, as a kid that often pissed me off. I never quite fit in as a local back in Eastern Washington, and I never quite fit in as a local in Malaysia. I spent my time wondering what I was doing "wrong." It's hard when few people accept you - and this is not unique to childhood, but even in adulthood as well. Nobody of any age wants to be "the reject." But I was, and for no other reason than I saw things from different angles, approached problems from a variety of perspectives, and reasoned that there could easily be 150 sides to any story, because, well, life had proved it to me - Malaysia was so different than my life back in the Northwestern US, and the Northwestern US was so different than Malaysia, but despite all the differences there was a vein of sameness as well - we were all human, after all. It all sounds great when I say it out loud now; but when that's your answer to a question your peer asks you as a 10 year old, well, that's a different story in terms of a response. Back in those days, I couldn't "sell myself" just yet. Like I have said before - for as open-minded as I was as a child, a child's mind can only logic with the faculties of a child's mind. Malaysia taught me: we are all the same, yet we are all different. It would just take me 35 years to realize how I could start living that message out loud in my life!
Malaysia gave me Mr. Yong, a fellow eccentric and older "grandfatherly mentor." He died was born in British Malaya, lived through Japanese Occupation, independence in 1957, and died in ________. He spoke English and Cantonese as first languages, could communicate in Hakka (another Chinese language), and some Malay. He was as high strung as they come, and was hospitalized as for a nervous breakdown during his career as a newspaper photographer and film developer.
Let's get back to the story here...we were in the Airport VIP Lounge because we were going to Malaysia for my Dad's work. By this point in time he had gotten on with the now-defunct Cerex Corporation, a Maryland based mid-sized biotech company. With his many years of overseas experience my Dad landed the position of Company Representative for Asia - a dream job for someone who could work solo (and enjoy it) and still get the job done. Cerex, which was expanding the market for a biomass sensor the company produced, needed Asian sales reps and wanted to cash in on the competitive contract manufacturing industry in Southeast Asia. My Dad's job was two fold. First, to recruit and then support sales reps in countries from Japan (which already had a Cerex rep who reported directly to the Maryland office) through east and southeast Asia and west as far as and including the Indian Subcontinent. Second was to oversee manufacture of circuit boards for the biomass sensor's computer controls, taking advantage of the huge contract manufacturing industry in that part of the world.
Like I say, it was really a dream job for someone with the ability to work solo and make his own schedule. His boss on the other side of the world - the founder and lead-scientist at the company - would give him assignments, like "Find us the top five most likely candidates that can manufacture our circuit boards." "Find a good, vetted (by you) corporate lawyer who we can get on retainer." "The company Vice-President is coming out for the week, arrange accommodation for him, tour him around, wine him and dine him, and make him feel comfortable." It was a networking job, a job of making corporate presentations and pitches, of generating "hot leads" that my Dad could ultimately hire to begin manufacturing and sales. The company rented us a good-sized house with an in-ground swimming pool and bought a full home bar set up (along with a full home office setup and other furniture for the family) for my Dad to install at home for "corporate pitch parties."
For a kid growing up in that environment, I am not going to deny, it was great most of the time. With his variable schedule, there were times when Dad would be home or at his office in Kuala Lumpur for a few days, and then there were weeks when he would be traveling to other cities or out of the country when we would hardly see him, so there was a bit of give and take to the whole thing - as would be expected - in terms of family life.
We lived in Malaysia from November of 1991 until December of 1996 and had many additional adventures from Malaysia as our "home base." I put "home base" in quotes because, during this whole time, my parents still owned their house at Newman Lake, and that's still where we spent our Summers.....so where was, home? Well, both Malaysia AND Newman Lake quickly became home for our family.
That first year in Malaysia is etched into my mind. I was in 2nd Grade and my world had suddenly been opened up so much, so quickly. We celebrated my sister's 4th birthday in the Narita Airport VIP Lounge, flew on to Bangkok, where we spent a night and a day. I remember our luggage had gotten lost (as I recall the airlines eventually located it and delivered it to us) and we ran to the store that night while staying in a Bangkok hotel to buy toothpaste, toothbrushes, and clean underwear and socks. That would start a childhood family tradition of always traveling with our toothbrushes and toothpaste and clean underwear and socks in our carry-ons all through the 90s until traveling with a full-sized tube of toothpaste was eventually seen as an act of terrorism in the early 2000s and ban. I remember seeing gecko lizards for the first time there on the hotel wall in Bangkok. It was November of my 2nd Grade year in school and it was my first time in Asia with any real memories of being their (no, I don't remember being a baby in Bangladesh, obviously.....see The Cabin in the Woods page if you are lost at this point!).
The next morning in Bangkok my Dad took me to the Bangkok Snake Farm, where highly venomous snakes were farmed for anti-venom production. We watched the live public demonstration of the skilled snake handlers milking venom from a king cobra. The scene of the snake's fangs sinking into the thin wall of the collection cup and then shooting poison out is still burnt clearly in my mind's eye - as clear as yesterday.
We hopped on a plane for the last leg of our journey soon thereafter and headed into Subang International Airport, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's international airport at the time. This airport would be officially renamed Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Subang International Airport just a few short years later in 1996, after the 11th King of Malaysia (since the formal establishment of the modern-day country of Malaysia in 1957) and 8th Sultan of the State of Selangor. By 1998 this airport would become designated for cargo and domestic turboprop flights only when the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang opened. And that's just how much the K.L. international airport changed during my childhood years in Malaysia!
The 1990s where a major decade of change for the country of Malaysia and I was there through it all. Changes happened fast and furiously! Biotech, computers, and tech of all kinds in general was booming - in fact, the Hewlett Packard manufacturing plant in Spokane, Washington, shut its doors in 1998 and relocated to Malaysia. When we were living in Malaysia again during my Senior year of High School (2001-2002 school year), I became known back in Eastern Washington State as "the guy who lived in the place that stole our HP plant!" Just a few years prior to 1998, a cousin of mine and I had made a point of opening up several Radio Shack remote control cars one summer when we were looking for something to do (because that's what kids do) and noticing that all vital circuit boards and chips inside had "Made in Malaysia" printed on them.
The Malay Peninsula (home of present day West Malaysia) and island of Borneo (home of present day East Malaysia) have long and fascinating histories; however, politically speaking, the modern-day country that we know as Malaysia today was only formed in 1957 - less than 100 years ago at the time of this writing - when the British pulled out of Southeast Asia.
I remember when we moved there in 1991 that the currency, though officially named Malaysian Ringgit ("Ringgit Malaysia" in Malay) from Malaysian Dollar in 1975, was still officially denoted with the symbol "M$" ("Malaysian Dollar" - as it was called when officially issued by the national bank for the first time after independence in 1967). It wasn't until 1993 that the M$ symbol would disappear to be replaced with the new official RM ("Ringgit Malaysia") symbol, currently still used at the time of this writing.
The country's national education system also underwent great changes in the 1990s, especially the early through mid 90s, culminating with the Malaysia Education Act of 1996. This act was a major piece of legislation which amended and superseded previous Malaysian education acts and legislation, setting standards in textbooks, curriculum, and medium-of-instruction, among other things, with the scope of the act reaching as far back as to bring the last holdovers and vestiges of colonial educational practices from colonial British Malaya days into modern times. The Malaysia Education Act of 1996 set the stage and the "gold standard," if you will, for a firm foundation of Malaysian domestic educational polices and practices to usher in the 21st century.
Our adventure as a family in Malaysia started November 1991 at the K.L. Micasa extended-stay hotel, spending our first Christmas in Malaysia there. My biggest memory of the the Micasa hotel was the Vision4 Malaysian hotel cable TV network and coming down with chicken pox shortly after arriving in Malaysia and starting 2nd Grade at The International School of Kuala Lumpur. There was a kid swimming in the hotel swimming pool who looked like he was just recovering from chicken pox, and then, bam, all of a sudden I had it. My Mom advised me to give it to my sister, so I remember giving her a "shirtless hug" (we also slept in the same room in the hotel, so if she was going to get it, she was going to get it. I remember a few days later, after I was feverish and covered from head to toe in itchy blisters in full-force, my sister started to feel slightly feverish and looked like she was getting a blister behind her ear. "Ok," said my Mom and Dad, "she'll be out of school tomorrow." She woke up in the morning with that single small blister behind her ear GONE, no fever at all, and feeling absolutely fine. She never got the chicken pox. A vaccine for chicken pox came out just a few months later and it became one of those childhood diseases you rarely ever heard about anymore after that......gosh, and what a time to bring up the word "vaccine" in a piece now!
And this was just the beginning......
Very soon after Christmas I remember going to Singapore for a quick trip. That was the New Year's of 1992 (1991 going into 1992), and I remember distinctly that was the year chewing gum was ban in Singapore as it was deemed a "public nuisance" because malicious punks would stick it on subway doors, effectively welding them shut; or at least that's the reason that trickled down to me in my childhood via my Mom. I remember the newspaper comic on New Year's morning (January 1, 1992) in the hotel we were staying - the famous Singapore Raffles Hotel - at of an old man and a young boy looking at a painting of a single stick of gum. The caption of the cartoon was: "Grandpa, what was a Wrigley's?" We visited the crocodile farm, rode on the Singapore MRT (which was the first time I had ridden on a subway outside of the US), and generally explored the city.
I should mention at this point that my parents had done the whole south and southeast Asia backpacker tourist "thing" back in the late 1970s/early 1980s just a few years after getting married, so they knew a bit of what to expect and a felt comfortable navigating the landscape. For my sister and I, everything was new. But, with that said, for young children everything in the world is new anyway, so in many senses it was "new," but it was also very "normal" at the same time. As a Preschooler (my sister) and 2nd Grader (myself), we had very, very few preconceived notions of how things "should be" to hold us back to the experiences of life in general at this point.
We soon moved into a rental house which would become our house for the next 5 years. Looking at my life today, 5 years seems like nothing. Five years goes by in the blink of an eye before I even know it has passed nowadays! But those years of a person's early life in elementary and middle school seem like decades at the time. When everything is fresh and new in the eyes of a child, years seem endless, like decades almost, as so much development can happen in a year in a child's life that they start the year as one person and end it as another. With that said, the same can happen far into adulthood as well, it's just that we perceive the changes differently the older we get, and we perceive time and the passage of time differently the older we get. And perception, ultimately IS reality, or so I believe...or at least our own perceptions make up the lion's share of our realities, there are some physical facts that can't be changed that easily. The point is, the two decades that have passed as of now for me from the age of 17 to 37 seem like a mere 5 or 6 years to me at this point in my life; however, those happy memories of the 5 years as an elementary school kid I spent growing up in Malaysia seem like I could have easily spent 2 decades worth of time in those experiences, with all the varied experiences and growth I underwent at that time. Like I say, this was just the beginning of said growth for me; however, I would go on to perceive the passage of time and the rate of growth differently in day-to-day life as I got older.
My early memories of Malaysia in 2nd Grade when I first arrived consisted of running around chasing geckos on the walls in the evenings, catching all sorts of colorful guppies in little streams and drainage gutters all over the residential areas of town - that blew my mind because before coming to Malaysia I had had guppies in aquariums in the US that my parents had bought - actually paid money for - at a pet shop...and here they were, free and easy to catch in the rain gutters all over town! I remember the January 1, 1992 trip to Singapore, as previous talked about. I remember eating Mentos of all different flavors packaged in foil and paper tubes - the popular candy for sale in Malaysian convenience stores at the time. I remember selling boiled potatoes at a school bazaar, complete with salt and pepper as condiment options, and I still think of that as my first real venture of going out on my own and "working for myself."
It was interesting, because The International School of Kuala Lumpur, where I attended Elementary School, was housed in their Ampang K-12 campus at that time, but they were in the midst of building a dedicated K-5 Kindergarten-Elementary Campus in Melawati, a 20/25 minute drive away on the old road system (now I don't even recognize the landscape with all the overpasses and superhighways in place the last time I visited the area on my 30th birthday). Anyway, by 3rd Grade, the very next school year, us Kinder and Elementary Schoolers were moved to the brand new dedicated Elementary Campus in Melawati, which happened to be close (about a 10 minute drive from the campus) to the National Zoo.
In 3rd Grade I had an older British woman teacher with a definite old-school style and manner to her personality and teaching methods. She had a firey temper and would yell and scream and light you up if you made the slightest wrong move or gave the slightest bit of attitude. Her big thing was not listening - especially when she would given an instruction, us kiddos would nod our heads and say "Yes, yes," but then some dufus would inevitably NOT follow the instructions and would do exactly what she said NOT to do! Uff! That ALWAYS incited her "Wrath of God" tyrranid in the classroom. Thankfully, she was a mostly fair one, as I remember. Apparently she really like me - or at least expressed that to my parents and they believed it - and she I thought I liked her. I, actually, held nothing specifically against her, and still don't, but I definitely spent my 3rd Grade year trembling in fear of her, as did all the other students in the class.
I built a backyard pond with my Dad in the backyard of our rental house (with the landlord's permission, of course - she was a very cool lady with whom my family became good and lasting friends). Ok, let's be honest, it was one of those father-son projects - my Dad built it, I was the kid who helped with the project. That was my major crowning memory of my 3rd Grade year. Construction of said pond took several months, as we did all the excavations and then later concrete mixing and pouring by hand. It was a big pond for such a manual feat, and had an even deeper filter box setup area - also excavated out by hand and sealed with brick masonry and concrete. We had a large ceramic frog fountain that sprayed water out into the pond to aerate and circulate the water through the filtration system on an electrical timer. We stocked the pond with tilapia and were able to fish in our own backyard. We also kept several turtles in the pond. In all honesty, it was great fun, but, looking back, upkeep was A LOT of work, and so was the actual construction itself, the lion's share of it falling back on my Dad.
4th and 5th Grades were great years - the Upper Classman in the Elementary School and all that stuff. Although I was a weak sickly boy with childhood kidney problems, my Dad my a point to kick my butt into gear - and bless his heart for doing so - and got me into running and swimming. Running was something I did with my Dad in the evenings, casually. Swimming was something I did both personally at home (we had a swimming in the front yard of our rental house) and competitively at school for a short time. I swam in the annual competitive Elementary Swim Carnival in 3rd and 4th Grades. 3rd Grade was great - I loved it so much I signed up in 4th Grade as well. Then, in 4th Grade, I was unfairly disqualified from one of the competitions and I never swam again. The claim was that I didn't slap both hands down onto the edge of the pool at the end of my lap, as required by competition regulations, although to this day more than 25 years later I still maintain that I did. It would take me a long time to truly come to grips with and actually appreciate the fact that life isn't fair! By a long time, I mean it wouldn't truly happen until decades later as an adult. Although I did give it plenty of lip service as a child, it wasn't until age 30 that I would realize that the only point of living was to unleash the inner beast - and then it took be 5 more years before I could even start to get that part right!
What else? Cub Scouts; fishing in various ponds, lakes, rivers, and the ocean, of course, around K.L. and Malaysia; hiking in the jungle; various trips all over Malaysia - the two Pangkor Islands, Penang, Langkawi, a road trip up and down and from coast-to-coast along the Malay Peninsula; driving to Singapore; numerous trips to Malacca (Melaka); and, of course, a few trips to Thailand and various other trips to Singapore thrown in there as well. My sister and I were both in Elementary School (I am including full-day Kindergarten which was housed at the Elementary School we attended) during most of this time period, and my parents were at the pinnacle of the "glory days" of their careers at this point in time. There was a lot that went on during these comparatively short 5 years in Kuala Lumpur that seem long enough to be their own lifetime in and of themselves.
We traveled as a family around a number of countries in Europe in the Summertime during this time period, visiting friends of my parents' and accompanying my Dad on his family roots investigations. At this point in time, a good portion of these investigations kept leading us back to the small former East German village of Muhlhausen in central Germany over several Summers in the early and mid 90s. I remember my Kindergarten teacher made a big deal about it in early November of 1989, but, of course, what could I process in my child's mind of her words: "Now these people will all be free."? The rest of the class and I were like: "Woooooah! Is it recess time yet?" as we gazed half-curious, half-mindlessly at the picture from the newspaper (that would go on to become one of a handful of famous historic pictures of the wall coming down) that she had made a point to color copy onto an overhead projector piece of plastic laminate to show us that day.
Either way, looking back now as an adult I feel fortunate to have been able to participate in that part of history. I have since heard stories from people, Americans, who visited China between 1978-1983 right after she had reopened her borders to the outside world. That was before my time, but the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the reopening of former Soviet Central and Eastern Europe was right at the beginning of my time, and an epoch of history I participated rather blindly in as naïve child, but, nonetheless, participated in and remember well at least in terms of the first-hand memories I have.
I remember the big thing in Muhlhausen in the early 1990s was people modernizing their houses, especially the old straw-mud insulation and replacing it with modern insulation - you know, the modern pink spun fiberglass stuff. It seemed to me both Summers in the early 90s that we visited Muhlhausen I was fascinated by the amount of people renovating their houses. My Dad and Michael, our long-time West German family friend who went with us (who could read old German - you'll see why this is important later), explained to me that the good citizens of Muhlhausen were modernizing their homes after decades of Communist rule now that modern homebuilding materials were readily avaialable on the open market once again. Again, in the eyes of a child, though fascinated by both their words and what I saw, I really knew no better, but I have cherished these memories with me all these years and now look back on them with fondness - like I was really participating in history.
By our last Summer in Mulhausen in the early 90s, I remember my Dad and Michael had tracked down two previous old Gross Family residences in town that had belong to our family 100+ or so years ago. My Dad spent long hours in the Muhlhausen City Hall of Records digging through documents written in Old German, with the help of our family friend Michael, to find those addresses. We went out and beat the streets to find those properties, both of them apartments. At one residence, the modern owner let us in for look around. At the other she simply shoed us off from the street.
"She thinks we're property snipers," Michael explained to us.
"What's that mean?" I asked.
"With the reunification of the country there are some dishonest people coming into former East Germany - and visa versa - claiming: 'Oh, yeah, this is my family's property that was taken from us by the Communists decades ago - hand it over!' although their claims are not true. They are conmen looking to swindle people out of their property," was his explanation. "She thinks we are probably those kind of people so she shoed us away from her balcony without even coming to the door."
I have held onto that interesting memory all these years as well.
Another memory of Muhlhausen, unrelated to family roots, was tracking down a church with one of J.S. Bach's old organs in it. You see, Muhlhausen is a fairly small town in terms of the modern population of Germany (well under 50,000 people in the 21st Century at the time of this writing); however, it's a town with ancient roots and was a thriving city of 10,000 under the Holy Roman Empire - a decent-sized city for a "hinterlands" type city of that era. Long after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, J.S. Bach was employed as the city's organist. If you blink, however, you would miss Bach's time here, as he only worked in Muhlhausen for one year, from 1707-1708. Well, we found it - the organ that Bach played - and, again, at the time in my child's mind - a child who was always very into history - thought: "Woah! Cool!" but also: "Ok, well, it's an old instrument. We've seen it. Done." kind of thing. I always appreciated history as a child; but a child's mind can only appreciate so much is what I am trying to say. It's another one of those memories that I have held on to for all these years and now appreciate so much more as an adult than I did as a kid.
Of course, there were also memories of roving around in the Black Forest and trout fishing - for none other than German brown trout - with Michael in his little hamlet in the woods in those days where he and his family lived - and he also happened to be mayor of that little town. I remember the fresh, natural beauty of it all - the Black Forest in all it's grandeur - which reminded me of Newman Lake.
Speaking again of Newman Lake, there was that fateful Summer of 1995 when my Dad, sister, and I went to Alaska from Malaysia. Ok, so, it's not what you think. Our plane was headed from the Tokyo Narita Airport to Seattle as usual, as we were on our way back to Eastern Washington for the Summer, but we were forced to emergency land in Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska. Just after the turnback point that could have seen us landing in Hawaii, but with Seattle still many hundreds of miles away, an engine blew out on the 747 commercial airliner we were flying in. Honolulu was, at that point over the Pacific, further away than Seattle, and Anchorage was 300 miles closer than Seattle at point the engine blew out. I remember as kids my sister and I were scared, but also naive, as we were also filled with a sense of adventure about it all at the same time. That was back in the days when the trip tracker on planes was still "the new, cool thing," that my sister and I watched with wild fascination (and nothing else to do on such a long flight). As soon as the engine blew and the pilot realized what had happened and made a quick decision to get to the closest airport with a runway that could effectively handle a 747 at full capacity, the plane made a sudden turn North on the trip tracker. My sister and I both looked at each other with eyes wide open and said: "We're going up!" and laughed about it. Now, looking back at the event with my memories in my mind's eye, I can fully appreciate just what a scary and razor-thin near miss with almost certain death it was. As we finally came into view of the Alaskan coast on our approach to Anchorage, I remember at the time being in awe of just how low to the ground we were - and somewhat scared - but mostly in awe, as for all that I had flown in planes as kid in my life, I had never seen such a large plane come into land so close to the ground starting from so far away from the airport.
Of course, I had never seen such a large aircraft come in to land so close to the ground starting from so far out away from the airport because they don't and aren't supposed to, as that is not a safe landing. Looking back on the event now as an adult with those images burnt into my mind's eye, I have no awe about the event (awe and inspiration that the pilot made it, yes, but no awe of the event) - just raw fear, and a sense of relief now that we survived as I remember our plane careening towards the Anchorage Airport so low from so relatively far out at sea - nearly clipping the tips of the tallest trees as the pilot fought to use the plane's momentum to give him enough power to maneuver a successful landing. At final touchdown we were greeted with a half-mile long line of various emergency vehicles and rescue personnel lined up on the runway beside us, fully prepared for a full-on crash landing, which, all praise be to God, did not wind up happening.
We taxied up to a disembarkation gate as usual, deplaned, and waited around to be "processed." There were all sorts of announcements going off asking us to please be patient as the relatively small Anchorage International Airport - though robust and well developed for processing cargo - was not equipped, especially right then at seven o'clock in the morning, to handle a fully-loaded passenger 747 of incoming international arrivals needed to go through immigration and customs channels. We finally DID make it through immigration and customs - our Dad had a pounding headache at the time - and, with 6 hours to kill before connecting on to Seattle, we went outside. It was a beautiful June day. I remember eating sandwiches at an outdoor picnic table there on the airport grounds and walking around the airport terminal (on the outside) enjoying the views - taking tons of pictures of the snow-capped mountains on the horizon on inland.
The above all happened in the Summer of 1995. My sister and I were flying back to Eastern Washington that Summer with our Dad only because my Mom had stayed behind in Malaysia this Summer to have the bunions on her feet operated on. My Dad was able to get some time off work, accompanied my sister and I to the US, used his time to perform some necessary work on the Newman Lake house, and my sister and I stayed with our paternal Grandparents out on their Valleyford farm that Summer, returning to Malaysia as "unaccompanied minors" at the end of the Summer, escorted by airline representatives. I remember we planned the return with my Dad on the way out, with him walking me - the oldest one - through all the steps to perform at each airport. It was a trip we had all taken back and forth numerous time as a family at this point, so it really was familiar territory; but I was nervous about it. Ok, I will admit, I was scared shitless! My younger sister just laughed at me the whole time - "What are you so scared of?!" she taunted. To be honest, to this day I don't really know. It was the nervous Aquarius energy that always runs under our calm, cool, collected surface brewing to the top. With the trip coming out to Eastern Washington this Summer being a near-miss with death, the trip back as unaccompanied minors was smooth and uneventful. I was shaking in my boots the whole time and my younger sister was loving it!
In August of 1995 I started 6th Grade, and was back to the Ampang ISKL campus I had started when we first moved to KL in 1991 when I was in 2nd Grade. By this point in time I had built a tree house the year before in 5th Grade (started with my friends and finished off with my Dad - with, again, my Dad doing most of the work and me assisting) in the trees in the vacant lot next door which was sort of "my domain" - my not-so-secret "hide-away." I had also built my own BBQ grill out of wire mess, old roof tiles, and an old metal flower pot stand in 5th Grade and successfully grilled chicken it, so was feeling pretty cool about that. By the end of 5th Grade I had really started to get interested in photography. Now, at the start of 6th Grade, I was into photography and photo processing and also at that weird, awkward point in life of getting to know the opposite sex.
As for taking and developing pictures, my Grandpa had given us his old darkroom set up, which I quickly fell in love with, and our neighbor down the street, my "adopted Malaysian-Chinese Grandfather" or "God-Grandfather" as we would affectionately say about our relationship, was eager to teach me all the ins and outs about how to use it, as he was a press photographer (who developed his own pictures) for his career. I will write more about dear old Mr. Yong, RIP, at the end of this section.
As for being a young almost teenage boy in this great big world of ours, well, of course everyone young, old, and of my same age was oh-so-full-of-advice as what I should do and how I should arrange my affairs in life; but, in the end of the day, we are ultimately alone in this quest - only you can live your own life and navigate this world, right?
We moved back to the US for a short period of time in December of 1996, but my Malaysia Years wouldn't end there....
We came back to Malaysia as a family for a quick visit in the Summer of 1998 as we were on our way out moving to India. I honestly remember nothing of this visit other than the fact that it happened and the city-scape of K.L. was already starting to look drastically different.
We were in K.L. again during the Summer of 2000 - the Summer of the Millennium. It was during this period that my Mom got her feet redone in Malaysia. Sadly, after her bunion correction surgery in the Summer of 1995 her feet looked wonderful for the first few weeks she after she was allowed to unbandage and walk on them, but then her bunions came right back. So, 5 years later in Malaysia again, she was going to try again - this time a more aggressive correction approach and get her toes pinned and fused. Recovery time would be a minimum of 6 weeks. We stayed in Mr. Yong's Ampang Jaya corner row house the whole Summer beside "P. Ramlee Burger" local little Malay night street cart burger joint. My Mom wasted no time and went under the knife within the first few days of us arriving in Malaysia. We visited a Chinese-Malaysian medium named Cheng Hoji this Summer and had some energy alignments done. It was Mr. Lim who had started going to the Medium and took us along as well that Summer. I also used this time to get my Malaysian motorcycle license, enrolling in the appropriate motorcycle Driver's Ed. course, doing the perscribed amount of practice, taking the test - the works. In Malaysia - at least at that time - you could get a motorcycle license at age 16 and a car license at age 17, although many people in Malaysia - indeed, in East Asia in general - wait until after their teenage years to get their driver's licenses.
The Summer of 2001 was a pivotal one in my teenage years. In fact, the Summer of 2001 has gone down as one of the all-time best Summers of my life so far. What made it so great was the fact that I actually planned out things I wanted to do and did them. I remember I came up with a list of “Summer Time Goals.” I made sure the goals were realistic and that they were within my power and capacity to actually follow through with and do. Most of them amounted to physical fitness and exploring various places around the hillsides of Newman Lake, which, by this point in my life, I was now definitely old enough to explore deep into the woods on my own. This was one of many Summers I worked for my Dad, and it was great. We also went as a family to Tofino, Vancouver Island, British Columbia to visit friends from Kodai (who were actually originally from Tofino and owned a bed and breakfast there) and go salmon fishing with them that August. That was a great time! Essentially, we went from India to Malaysia. I bought a motorcycle in Malaysia and kept it with Jerry, a mechanic and old time friend of Mr. Yong's, with the intent of having it shipped up to Penang later in the Summer/early Fall when we were to move to Penang and start school at Dalat. After a week or two in KL at the beginning of the Summer we went back to Eastern Washington, spent numerous weeks there, went out to Tofino, then went back to Malaysia, this time to Penang, and my Mom had secured at job at Dalat International School, as school she had had her eye on for years. This then started my Senior Year in High School, the school year of 2001-2002.
I returned to Eastern Washington and went to college at Washington State University (WSU) starting in August of 2002. During my three years and Summer stint at WSU, I would return to Malaysia in the Summer of 2003, when I did some Summer tutoring; the Winter of 2003-2004, when I, now a college student, went downtown and celebrated New Year's Eve with friends for the first time in Penang; and the Summer of 2005, when I put a feeler out for a job at Dalat International School where I had graduated High School from (and where my Mom was still teaching). There was a new (and already on his way out - he didn't last long) Head of School at that time who basically met with me and immediately politely shut me down on the job front right away. By August of 2005; however, he was out the door and my former High School Principal became the Head of School. He invited me back with open arms. I was already back at Newman Lake by this point in time looking for things to do, so when I heard that the chance to go work at Dalat had actually opened up, I jumped on it, starting just after September 11th, 2005 (which was a Sunday). Thus, Dalat International School kicked off my teaching and leadership career, starting out as a Science and ESL Teacher and LOVING.
I worked the 2005-2006 school year at Dalat as a 9th Grade Physical Science Teacher, 7th and 8th Grade Science ESL Support Teacher, General Beginner's Level ESL Support Teacher, Middle School Study Skills Teacher, Peer Tutoring Coordinator, and I think there were a few other hats I wore - I was basically a fill-in for little bits here and there in the Middle School and High School, with a majority focus on ESL and Science.
I would have been happy to stay on after the 2005-2006 school year; however, due to work permit processing difficulties, I was forced to move on in the Summer of 2006. Now thoroughly hooked on the teaching profession, I ended this school year with a trip with some colleagues to Perhentian Island off the beautiful and vastly underdeveloped East Coast of Malaysia.
I came back to Malaysia to visit during Chinese New Year of 2013 and 2014 and briefly in the Summer of 2015 with my wife. My last time out to Malaysia (as of the time of this writing) was two weeks in the Summer of 2019 with my wife, daughter, and son.
The Malaysia Years saw the child Andreas grow up into a young man - from child, to teen, to young adult. This was a time of learning with the overarching theme of "school" forever present in the background. I grew, developed, and underwent many changes during this time period. The Malaysia Years, essentially, helped form my very core. The biggest insights from me, a White American guy growing up in Malaysia, were: the incredible amount of diversity in our world, how the world can be as big or as small as we make it, and just how much of a fish out of water I would be in my 20s as the result of a childhood like this before I learned my place in this world and became an even stronger man in my 30s as the result. This all went back to largely growing up in a country different than my home country.
You see, growing up as a Third Culture Kid made me, in a sense, "wise beyond my years" by default from a very young age. However, it didn't mean that I always fit in with the "in" crowd, and, of course, as a kid that often pissed me off. I never quite fit in as a local back in Eastern Washington, and I never quite fit in as a local in Malaysia. I spent my time wondering what I was doing "wrong." It's hard when few people accept you - and this is not unique to childhood, but even in adulthood as well. Nobody of any age wants to be "the reject." But I was, and for no other reason than I saw things from different angles, approached problems from a variety of perspectives, and reasoned that there could easily be 150 sides to any story, because, well, life had proved it to me - Malaysia was so different than my life back in the Northwestern US, and the Northwestern US was so different than Malaysia, but despite all the differences there was a vein of sameness as well - we were all human, after all. It all sounds great when I say it out loud now; but when that's your answer to a question your peer asks you as a 10 year old, well, that's a different story in terms of a response. Back in those days, I couldn't "sell myself" just yet. Like I have said before - for as open-minded as I was as a child, a child's mind can only logic with the faculties of a child's mind. Malaysia taught me: we are all the same, yet we are all different. It would just take me 35 years to realize how I could start living that message out loud in my life!
Malaysia gave me Mr. Yong, a fellow eccentric and older "grandfatherly mentor." He died was born in British Malaya, lived through Japanese Occupation, independence in 1957, and died in ________. He spoke English and Cantonese as first languages, could communicate in Hakka (another Chinese language), and some Malay. He was as high strung as they come, and was hospitalized as for a nervous breakdown during his career as a newspaper photographer and film developer.