Tearing Off The Labels

It will be M's birthday tomorrow and since Gemmy coined the term we have all been referring to it as his 'birthday eve'. Suitable celebrations for such an occasion include a guided jungle trek with the same company we have earlier kayaked through the mangroves with, followed by dinner at Fat Mum's, a famously delicious restaurant run by none other than 'Fat Mum herself.

"She is fat," says Gemmy, fondly, "and she is a mum. Also her food is delicious." Gemmy has had lunch there today already. She seems to treat him, or maybe she treats everyone, like a favourite son.

The jungle trek begins well, we manage to catch a substantial glimpse of what must be the mist amazing and ridiculous animal in the world, the Flying Lemur, which sleeps all day with its eyes open, wakes up at night, licks its eyeballs thoroughly and then opens its bowels to make itself lighter to 'fly'. It 'flies' using a sort of bat man cape made of loose skin fixed at head and toes, swivelling its head 360 degrees first to check its path. It will then glide from one tree to another, 'flying' as much as 70 metres in one go. And that's not even the record. When we do see one fly later in the walk it will be silent and beautiful. Which is rather surprising after all the pooing, eyeball licking and 'Exorcist' impressions.  

Joining us on the trek are a handful of other couples and an American lady who we have got talking to before the trek begins. She strikes me as a very down to earth and practical person and I like her very much. She's here to visit her son who lives in South East Asia and to watch him perform a drumming workshop in a posh hotel. When I ask how she feels about her son living abroad  (her daughter and her children live in America) she smiles and tells me that he is a grown up now and needs to do the things that will make him happy. I know from talking to my own parents and M's parents before we left on this year long trip, that this is quite a sacrifice for a parent and that it takes a strong person to watch your child walk away and understand how important it is for them to do it, knowing how much you will miss them. In this lady's case she has grandchildren by him, also far away. She deals with life, as far as I can see, with equanimity and a smiling gameness.

The trek begins as a stroll through the posh resort it starts from, because, interestingly enough, most of the animals spend their time in the trees surrounding the various cabins which make up the hotel rather than in the jungle. This is partly because from our point of view, it's easier to see them, there being  less in the way of dense undergrowth and thick canopy, and partly because food sources, for them, are a little more commonly available. We see bats just preparing to wake up, hung beneath enormous 'joey palm' leaves and then we head into the jungle.

It's hard going. The jungle is set on steep hill and there is a lot of climbing, scrambling and pulling yourself up using (or ducking under) tree roots and vines. We  have been warned not to grab hold of a vine or tree without looking at it in case it contains spikes, snakes or termites or is not, in fact, a vine or tree at all. There are plenty of places in which we need to fight our way through or under various low hanging branches or evil looking spiderwebs and it is extremely hot and humid, the trees having trapped the heat of the day. Despite wading, seemingly, through a thick treacle of wet sweaty heat, I am really enjoying it.  The guides are interesting, the jungle is beautiful in its own way and terrifying in its own way and I'm not really feeling the effects of the climate because there is such a lot to look at. I am fascinated by this 'other world' of humming greenery and am just considering, again, how lucky we are to see it when there is a small commotion behind us and M taps me on the shoulder to tell me that the American lady we have been speaking to earlier is not feeling very well. I turn to discover that she is lying on the ground feeling faint.  To general disappointment the guides display a mixture of panic and bemusement. I had assumed they  would be fully prepared for any kind of mishap, fall, accident or calamity, especially given we are trekking in the jungle and would simply spring into action following any snakebite, spiderbite, termite bite, sprained ankle or whatever else might occur during a jungle trek with a mechanical certainty having been drilled over and over with the relevant protocol. This does not seem to be the case. Both guides are young and, though fully authoritative on jungle flora and fauna, appear rather inexperienced, rifling in panic through their first aid kit, seemingly unaware of what it actually contains. In fairness, they do fish out a few things that might be helpful but it is largely the punters on the tour who rally round using their various bits and pieces of knowledge and experience to deal with the situation. One young couple in particular leap into action, the girl lifting their feet of the lady and using her water to cool her wrists and forehead. They've got it more or less under control before I being right at the front of the walkers, the lady being at the back, have managed to get there.  I stand around a bit uselessly, trying to ease the lady's embarrassment by making conversation. 

"I used to faint all the time," I say, "in really embarrassing situations." I am just considering telling the story about when I fainted on the loo in my birthday suit when, probably luckily for everyone concerned, someone interrupts. We progress for a while, haltingly, all the while the poor lady apologising profusely until it is clear that she needs to turn back. Being pragmatic even now, she raises this herself, saving anyone the awkwardness of trying to force the decision. She is very pale and medical attention is needed, if only to confirm a verdict of heat exhaustion. The guides appear not to have any method of calling for help, with no walkie talkie or even a flare if some kind. They tell us, worriedly, that their mobile phones have no reception in the jungle. I feel for them. They are nice girls and, otherwise, fantastic guides but their company has failed them in the way of health and safety training. They suggest that one guide takes the lady back while the other continues the trek with the rest of us. No one is happy with this. The girl is very slight and the lady, though my first impression was not that she was overweight,  is certainly not light and the terrain to retrace our steps is not easy. Eventually the whole tour politely refuses to continue and insists on accompanying the lady back as a group. There us a slight hesitation when we suddenly discover that one of our number, an extremely quiet Frenchman, is actually a doctor. He's not mentioned this fact before or, to my knowledge, provided any advice. When, with maybe just a little hint of pointedness in her voice, the girl from the younger couple requests his medical opinion he marvellously plays to stereotype and shrugs, saying

"You are doing everything"

"Quite" we refrain from saying.

 After quite a lot of walking, stopping, walking and, on the part of the tour guides, panicking, we manage to get the poor lady back out of the jungle and on to one of the trolley buses provided by the posh hotel, which thankfully its  own clinic. (We hear later that she is OK).  

"Unfit." pronounces Gemmy when, the walk having been cancelled and payment waived, we join him in the car to drive to Fat Mums. 

I feel a little uncomfortable with this explanation, and the subsequent enquiry as to whether the lady was overweight. Far from being an unfit American, with all the stereotypes that go with that I had in fact felt that she was a brave and interesting lady, who had dealt with an embarrassing and difficult situation in the most dignified and calm manner possible.

"I don't want to wait any longer" said the tour guide, with obvious panic in her voice, "because we have waited for a man to drive the bus and he is not here and I am afraid something will happen to her." She says this in full hearing of the lady herself, flouting all the rules about not worrying the patient and talking about her over her head as though she wasn't there.

"I think I'll be fine" says the lady, admirably unphased. For someone unused to fainting fits, she has conducted herself with great pragmatism, only allowing any hint of tremour in her voice when apologising profusely to the rest of us for having 'ruined our walk'.

"You haven't." We protest.

"Well come on now, I have," says the lady, matter of factly, "even if I didn't mean to. I'm just sorry it meant you had to turn back."

She was not the wheezy, overweight, fainting flower the story seems to lead people to assume. Just because she fainted, does that really mean she was unfit? Just because she felt unwell, does that mean she made a fuss? Absolutely not. In this case anyway. Why do we label people with the lowest common denominator and try to make such a complex world of humankind fit such a simple set of arbitrary rules?

Fat Mum herself is a case in point. We go to her restaurant, Gemmy having pre booked to allow her to cook something special ahead of time.

"She will enjoy that" he says.

Sure enough not only are we served truly spectacular food, vegetables in a basket made of yam, a herbal soup made with berries and fruits, but which is not sweet, though hugely succulent, and prepared over four hours that afternoon to name but a few of the dishes we feasted on, but Fat Mum joins us to talk enthusiastically about her food.

She is funny, engaging and has that practical good health and attitude to life that you do tend to associate with a sort of uber mum or grandma figure. But she sparkles with youth and life and when she talks about food she lights up. She shows us a feast she prepared single handedly for Christmas, being, somewhat unusually, Christian. The photos go on for ever and each one shows a different dish. She must have worked solidly for days to prepare it all.

"I did." she confirms happily.

But the real surprise is when I ask how she began cooking.

"Did you learn from your mother?" I ask.

"No" says Fat Mum, (No one seems to know, or call her by, her real name) "my mum did not teach me at all. I knew nothing. Not even how to boil an egg." (Incidentally why does everyone use boiling an egg as an example of cooking? A perfect boiled egg is genuinely difficult to get right. Who don't we use something like make a salad or make a sandwich? Anyway, just an aside..)

"And do you know what my very first cake was like?" continues Fat Mum, without waiting for an answer, "awful! My husband had to eat it with a spoon. Was very very bad."

I am surprised. Someone like Fat Mum is supposed to have a story in which she has raw talent which is discovered, not start badly, just like everyone else.

"But you learned quick?", I say knowingly.

"No!" says Fat Mum, "I learned slow! Every time I cooked it was a disaster. But I kept trying. I was determined to cook. It was years before I made the perfect cake. All the others - disgusting or burnt or not risen. And my rice?" She makes a face as though about to be sick, "even in a rice cooker it was inedible. With a rice cooker!"

M and I exchange glances. There has recently been an episode in which we tried to use Gemmy's rice cooker, and failed. Now it is being used as an example of ineptitude. We grin and shrug. Fair enough. We are lovely. But a little inept. We can live with it.

"I just tried again and again and again" says Fat Mum, "until perfect. And now I try new things. Always I look for a new recipe or I invent one. And I try again and again to make perfect."

Once again the label doesn't fit. Fat Mum does not have a natural affinity with food. She was not good at it when she started. She was not even a quick learner. The idea of a talented cook usually is based on some sort of in built talent. But Fat Mum was bad at it. I am filled with admiration. If I try something and it's a disaster I conclude, laughingly and lightly, that I am not very good at it. It doesn't occur to me that something I am bad at, repeated over and over, might be something which in the future I could build a career out of. The idea of practice makes perfect is one thing. The idea of transforming something you appear to be terrible at into something you excel at is quite another. We label ourselves as being good or bad at something. We expect something innate. I too am bad at making cakes. I might keep trying in order to be able to prepare M a birthday cake at least one year, that is actually edible, but it wouldn't occur to me to try to become winner of Master Chef. 

The idea of working hard at a thing you are bad at is beautiful. And it makes sense. You are already good at the things you are good at. You can perfect them while you are at it but if you can do those things you don't already have a skill for, in the end it stands to reason - you have more.

Later, I will attend a church service in Penang and the minister will talk about the limitations we place on ourselves as people, telling ourselves we can only do one thing or another and are not qualified to do anything else. 

If at first you don't succeed. Try, try again, goes the saying. But we don't. We assume an innate ability is the necessary foundation to build a skill on.

"anyway," says Fat Mum, tiring of the conversation, "who wants brandy and chocolates?"

And, rather proving the other version of that saying which I have printed on a mug at home 'if at first you don't succeed, have a very large gin and tonic", we indulge.

We have eaten and drunk more and more unhealthily in Langkawi than anywhere else we have been, including England. Everyone is always offering us booze. And on this culture, it is very rude to refuse. (I may have made that last part up to excuse it).

Either way, bidding farewell to Fat Mum, we progress to a small bar where, surprise surprise Gemmy knows the owner. We wander in, are greeted like old friends and the owner asks us what kind of music we like, promptly putting some on when we answer. 

In keeping with the Langkawi tradition we are not only plied with beers but M, as Birthday Eve boy, is suddenly huddled over to the bar, where an elaborate pyramid of glasses is in the last stages of careful construction. We barely have time to realise what is happening before the bar tender has expertly poured a concoction of spirits down the pyramid - and then set alight to the whole thing. It blazes blue in the darkened room. M is given a straw.

"When I tell you" says the owner, "put your straw in the glass right at the bottom and drink."

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Flaming Lamborghini. And it's really quite something. M gamely sticks his straw in and drinks amid cheers and whooping from me and the other five people in the bar, the bar tender rather sneakily pouring more booze in from the other side. When he finishes, and is given a round of applause, he throws his arms around me and gives me a minty, creamy, boozy kiss.

"Hooray!" says the bar owner, turning up the music, "now dance with your wife."

And, needing no further invitation, he does, in full view of the rest of the bar occupants, simultaneously ripping off and burning the 'Reserved British' label and, for that matter the 'undemonstrative reserved M' label, which I always knew was a load of rubbish anyway.

Having got their attention now, we end up chatting a bit to the other people in the bar. They are watching a football match.

"Everyone is always surprised," I say, chattily, "because we are British. But we don't know anything about football."

Everyone laughs.

"Yes," says M. "It is always the first thing people say - you admit to being British and they say 'football'."

"And then we get stuck because they ask us about it," I continue hilariously, "and sometimes it seems easier to pretend we do know but then we get caught out and have to, I don't know, make up a football team or something.."

"yeah," says M, "the Southampton Tigers or something"

"The York Bears" I say.

The smiles on their faces slacken.

"Oh" says someone, appalled, "you're serious?"

Tear off the labels, that's what I say. Delicate people can climb mountains, you don't have to be fat to faint, you don't have to be innately good at something to make it your speciality. And you don't have to be a football fan to be British. If you can believe that, you can believe anything.