#dualogue

My friend Chukwudi has a podcast called Other Expats where he interviews non-white expats in Malaysia. I was on it a little more than a year ago, although it pretty much feels like a lifetime ago right now.

I was listening to the most recent episode earlier today, and Felix, the guest, was talking about how his wife and mother in law were being followed at some store in KL. I’ve never really written about that -- at least I don’t remember ever writing about it -- mostly because I never really gave it much thought. It was something that people did, and I was just going to organise my life around it.

A couple of years ago, I had a conversation with someone about whether or not I was living my life like the world owed me nothing. I thought I was, but they thought that my actions -- my writing, in particular -- said otherwise. Living like the world owes you nothing, they claimed, is a life where you never expect anything. No expectations, therefore no disappointments. It is a pessimistic way to look at the world; or even worse, depressing.

The person I had the conversation with, they argued that I couldn’t possibly be living like that because I didn’t just accept things. I write about things, and when I do, I’m critical. I thought that I lived that way because there are a lot of things that I don’t write about, things that I’ve internalised and just expected to be a certain way. Like being followed around a shop, for example. 

A little over a month ago, just before flying back home for Mubarak’s wedding, I was at the mall looking to get my mom a new phone, and in one of the shops I went into, I had this guy follow me around for like five minutes. I’ll slowly walk to a section of the store, and I’ll turn around and he’s right there. I’ll walk some more to another side, and there he was again. At some point, I turned to him and said,

“Do you realise that you’re following me?”

I didn’t want to presume that that’s what he was intending to do, even thought that’s what he was doing. My intention with that question was for him to realise what he was doing (if he didn’t know) and then, hopefully apologise, or at the very least, just go stand some place else. 

But of course non of those things happened. He kept following me, and I left the shop.

Someone asked me recently about life in KL. This was a European dude not living in KL who’d apparently read somewhere that KL is one of the best places in the world to be an expat in. He asked me if that was true.

I don’t remember much from my interview with Chukwudi, except that towards the end he wanted me to say some nice things about living in KL, and I flatly refused. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have done that, because KL really is a wonderful place to live in. 

Coming from Nigeria, being here is like an alternate universe version of my country where things just work. And, looking from a third-person perspective, I can totally see how this would be a great place for expats to live in. For one, relative to the region, most people here speak English. And if it’d stayed just there, that would still be a big plus. But also, you can get around pretty easily relative to other capitals in the region (not counting Singapore). And things are relatively cheap as well, and not to mention, it’s safe and relatively peaceful. 

Duologue - Forests

Machine Stop is a new interactive project made by Dualogue and Moving Brands. Their work is a music video filmed with a Kinect which allows user to edit his own version.