Colonial Baggage

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It was getting dark, and the picture wasn't coming out at all. I knelt down closer to the ground and brought the crudely written political graffiti squarely within the camera lens.

"Why are you taking a picture at that angle?" said a voice to my right. "You can see the bridge much better from the other side."

"Oh, yes," I stammered, feigning intense interest in the bridge itself, and not the distasteful message written on it.

"Where are you from?" asked the man. He leaned back against the bridge and set his bag on the ground. He intended to talk.

"The States..."

"The States? There are fifty of them. Which one?"

"Michigan."

"Oh, I know people from Indiana," he smiled.

I smiled back and almost said "I do too" before I realized he might think I was mocking him. I fumbled for something to say about Indiana when my thoughts were truncated.

"So tell me. There are nearly two hundred countries on this planet. Why did you come to mine? Why choose Malaysia?"

This was a very fair question, but not so very easy to answer. An exceedingly cheap ticket to Kuala Lumpur didn't seem like a satisfying answer, and--as I reflected on it--it wasn't merely the bargain flight that had brought me here.

"I've been living in China, and I was interested in seeing other aspects of Asian culture."

I heard the stupidity of my comment as I was saying it, but hadn't been wise enough to abort my words before they were finished.

"Asian culture? There is no 'Asian culture.' "

I tried to refine what I said ("I meant see a different Asian culture."), but the man didn't seem to hear.

"Do you think Malaysian and Chinese cultures are similar, and that their intersection is 'Asian?' "

He was right to call me out, of course, but I really thought he was being a bit unfair. I was tired from the flight and confused by the circumstances, and every thought that went through my head sounded dull and problematic. Thankfully my new friend began talking again. "What do you do in China? Business?"

"No...I teach. English."

"Oh. A good salary I presume?"

"Not really. I'm a volunteer technically."

"A volunteer? Now that's just dumb." Again, I had no idea what to say. I stammered out a few sentences in an abject tone. "Why do you people do that?" he continued. "Do you think we can't learn English without you?"

I had no idea how to answer him, and tried my stab at a few diplomatic words. "I just figured its sort of a valuable skill, and it feels wrong for me to make much money off a skill I have by accident of birth."

"That's very noble," he lamented.

I muttered a thanks, unsure if being "noble" was anything to be thankful for.

"You really should have learned something about Asia before you came here. You just had a vision, I'll bet. A dream. You wanted to come to Asia to help out. Be altruistic. Maybe learn something about 'Asia' while you're here. Well, maybe you should have learned something before you came."

I really thought he was being unfair, but kept enough composure to ask, "I'm sorry, what is it I should have learned?"

"You teach English, so you should have learned something about English. You have no idea what English is. So tell me, what is English?"

What is English? I had never met someone who had asked so many difficult questions so quickly. I was beginning to assume that most of his difficult questions were rhetorical, and I waited awkwardly for him to continue talking. He didn't.

"English? English is the fourth largest language in the world--in terms of native speakers. It's the language of Shakespeare, and of my parents and grandparents. It's the de-facto language of international communication..." I listed a few other things even dumber than these and the man listened politely.

"All very true. Let me add something to your list. English is status."

"Status?"

"Yes. Most people here don't learn English as a means of communication. They learn it because it's cool. It's chique. Everyone here wants to be just like goddamn Madonna or fucking Leo. They want to move to Los Angeles and make it big. They want to leave the country that's been there ancestral home forever and immerse themselves in your culture."

I had to admit there was a softened form of his argument I agreed with, and I conceded that I had met people who wanted to learn English with the express purpose of leaving China. "But I really think most of my students are very proud of being Chinese," I argued, "And--whether they know English or a dozen other languages--they don't want to leave China and certainly don't want to be from anywhere else."

"I agree with you that they might not want to be from anywhere else. You have to understand that English means something here that it doesn't mean anywhere else."

"I don't follow at all," I sighed.

"Of course you don't. You're American." Then he added, with no pause, "Will you get tea with me?"

We walked over the bridge I had been pretending to photograph and turned down a side-street. He said there was a quiet place at the end of the road that the tourists never go. The tea was cheap, he said, and good. We took a seat a booth and each ordered a tea. We quietly sipped for a moment, and began again.

"So you're saying that people in Asia should not learn English?" I said, still genuinely confused.

"How's my English?" he asked hostilely.

"As good as mine," I whimpered, realizing I had--not for the first time in that conversation--said entirely the wrong thing.

"As an American you should know how difficult it is to speak another language well. I wouldn't speak English like this unless I thought it a wise investment of my time." He smiled. "Of course Malaysians should learn English. But it's the reasons why they learn English that I'm concerned about." He paused for a moment. "Americans come to Malaysia and go home saying that Malaysians are so nice. They like how we smile. They like how we laugh at the Americans' jokes. They like it because they feel so 'welcome' here. They like how they can be rude slobs and say terrible things but the people here will still treat them so well. They like a country they can visit and feel like they're not even in a country, but some sort of imaginary world in which their actions have no social consequences."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Americans tell me about it all the time. They talk about how Malaysians are always treating them; always picking up the bill. Americans don't have to worry about a goddamned thing. No one bothers to learn Malay. I mean nobody. Even the American businessmen who live here for years can't speak a damn word of it. Tourists never try."

"I ordered tea," I offered.

"You tried to order tea," he snapped. "Would you like to have this conversation in Malay?"

"Well no..."

"Right. So my point is that Americans have successfully colonized Malaysia even though we live in a postcolonial world. I don't even want to talk about economics. I want to talk about cultural colonization. Can you name one Malaysian director? One Malaysian poet, writer, or pop star? How many Americans do you think everyone outside on that street can name?"

"But you can't divide economics and culture," I said. "It's through America's economic prowess that it's successfully exported its culture."

"Don't just blame yourself," he said. "We're responsible for it too. We could just say to hell with it all and just close our borders but we haven't done that."

Not knowing enough about the situation to speak, I opted to say nothing at all for a long while. Then I said, "You said earlier that there are good reasons to learn English, reasons apart from to gain status and to self-colonize. What are those?"

"Oh," he smiled. "Where there's only one really."

"Yes?" I asked.

"To tell you everything I just said. I don't care how white you are or what your native language is. I don't care if you have money, if look like an American movie-star or happen to be one. You have colonial baggage in my country and I don't expect you to forget it."

I picked up the bill.