Let's Talk About Controversy

Gemmy drives us to Cenang, the more touristy beach area on the island. We plan to spend some time there before meeting him when he finishes his massage booking for the morning, to have lunch together.

On the way he points out of the window,

“That’s the house of Yasmin Ahmad. She was the most controversial film director in Malaysia.”

He goes on to explain. Yasmin Ahmad is internationally recognised and won many awards before her death in 2009.  However, because her films often depict Malaysian family life, and include scenes in which Muslims are not following strictest Muslim customs, her films sparked enormous unease among traditional Malaysian people.

Over lunch, Gemmy describes a controversial scene in the Yasmin Ahmad film, ‘Mukhsin’,

“It’s about a young muslim girl who falls in love with a Chinese boy,” he tells us, “and in one scene she is praying very devoutly when she opens the cupboard to put the text away, and the inside of the cupboard is decorated with loads and loads of pictures of Chinese film stars.”

He waits for a reaction from us.

“and in the cinemas the entire audience just audibly gasped,” he explains, “because the quoran must be kept in a ‘clean’ place and this means it is not clean.”

I think about whether the film aired in the west and, if so, whether anyone actually understood the weight of that scene. Perhaps not.

(Please also note I am not sure if I am remembering the details of this scene quite correctly, so please forgive and/or correct me if I am wrong.)

The fact is, each culture defines what is controversial, from scenes and actions, right down to words. In a separate conversation Gemmy tells us of a Malay insult, which, from my vague recollection, seems to involve the insinuation that your Mother cannot cook. I tell him that in the UK most swear words deal with either sex or toilets, but that this was not always the case, the dreaded ‘C’ word, for example, being used quite candidly and without concern in medieval literature, simply to describe a woman’s parts. The same is true of the ‘S’ word.  Much of the squeamishness about both sex and toilets grew out of the Victorian era, when rudeness, elegance and what was socially acceptable became drastically redefined and even a carved table leg had to be covered in case it resembled too closely a lady’s ankle, and cause the young men to become excited.

What is controversial changes depending on time and culture. The same goes for the rudest parts of the body. In Cambodia I am a little taken aback to see a Cambodian lady sitting, cross legged, feeding her baby. Nothing wrong with that – I am all for breastfeeding, but she had put the baby down and was engaged, boobs and nipples swinging gaily in the breeze, in a heated debate with us and the other market seller about the price of the vegetables we were buying. But in most of South East Asia, the western tourist habit of baring a lady’s shoulders in a vest top is akin to that sort of nudity, and immensely shocking.

In fact, in South East Asia, women especially dress very modestly even on the beach, when, eschewing sun bathing for the water, they swim fully clothed in long sleeves and trousers. I wonder how much the vogue for ‘skin whitening’ products informs or is informed by the modesty of dress. Do Asian women cover up to avoid the sun and thus become closer to the pale and interesting concept of beauty? Or did that idea of beauty spring itself from the implication it has, of extreme chastity and thus the sun being unable to penetrate the layers?

If that is the case, this reasoning must be routinely undone by the swathes of milky white tourists baring all on the beach, in a desperate  bid for that sought after tan.

Even within a culture, the rules can be different. A Catholic missing mass for example, is much more controversial than an Anglican not going to it. A Muslim is forbidden to buy alcohol in Malaysia, but it is perfectly legal to sell to non Muslims. There has been a recent controversy over a pair of Muslim girls at a gig, who were seen hugging the band members, with the Malay authorities asking them to come forward in order that an investigation can be undertaken as to whether a breach of Sharia law has been perpetrated. But it’s not illegal for a westerner, or a Buddhist to do such a thing. Everyone is judged by the standards they themselves have chosen to adopt, though it makes for an interesting moral debate when the law of the country enforces the laws of one particular religion, and particularly in the case of Malaysia, with its beautiful harmony between different cultures and religions.

In a way, though I suspect in the west there is a huge outcry about the Muslim girls at the band concert story, is it not more respectful to allow each religion, even within the same country, to judge one another by the laws they choose to adopt? Does that not make more sense that creating one law to fit all?

Of course the most difficult thing to deal with, and the cause of much of the unrest and lack of empathy between cultures of the world, is when one culture either directly, or more subtly, contradicts another. I am hugely angry with the Thai concept of domesticating cats without sterilising them, and then simply throwing them out when they become pregnant. Thais would be shocked by the western concept that cats and dogs can be ‘owned’, ‘trained’ and made to stay indoors.

In fact, today is the advent of Christopher, the naughtiest kitten in the world. Christopher is coming to live with Gemmy for two reasons. The first is that Gemmy is endearingly soft.

“Two Australian ladies who know me because they always book me for massage, tried to give me a kitten!” he told us a few days ago over breakfast, “because they found him as a stray and he needed looking after – but I told them – I just can’t afford another cat. I already have two plus four puppies and I seem to be feeding next door’s cat too. I can’t have a kitten as well.”

A few days later, Gemmy hands me a coffee and says, casually,

“Oh, when we get back later, there will be a kitten.”

I ask what caused the change of mind.

“Well,” he says sheepishly, “they sent me a picture of him…and look! How could I not take him in?”

The other reason, is that, to the Australian ladies’ disgust, when they take Christopher the kitten to the only Animal Welfare Centre on the island, the staff there say that it is their policy to put young cats like him down. All cats are put down if not adopted within a certain number of days, and if they are younger than a certain age, because of the oversubscription at the centre and the difficulty and demanding nature of taking care of a kitten, they are put down on sight.

Astounded and shocked, the Australian ladies quickly whisked said kitten out of their sight, after what I think might have turned into a stand up argument.

All is well that ended well, and now Christopher is living happily with Gemmy, and skipping around like the playful little kitten that he is, making friends with the also playful Halia, and keeping his distance from a disgruntled Lada.

But the idea of putting a cat down because it is unwanted was unheard of as far as the Australian ladies were concerned. I don’t know if dog and cat homes still hold that policy in the UK. I know they once did. But for the ladies, the Welfare Centre clearly doesn’t care about the animals and is callous and cold.

Some culture clashes are born out of simple misunderstandings.

“It’s just horrible,” I overhear one American girl say to another, as they exit some typical South East Asian toilets, “there’s no loo roll and when there is you can’t flush it away – you have to put it in an open bin! It’s just right there! Other people’s pooey loo rol!”

“Well yes,” I want to say, “that would indeed be disgusting. But you’re not meant to use the toilet roll that way. You clean yourself with the hose, which gets you cleaner, and takes any waste straight down into the toilet bowl. The toilet roll is just to dry yourself. And you don’t always need it because, you know, it’s hot. The only pooey loo roll in that bin is yours.”

I make a mental note not to go in the cubicles they have just exited.

Oh dear. Just look at me, talking about toilets again.

Honestly, it’s disgusting.