(Yes, I stole this from Furu Anime Panikku, sorry double)

The ‘half of it’ up there is important, because that’s only West Malaysia/Peninsular Malaysia featured there in between Singapore and Phuket (Thailand). East Malaysia that’s on Borneo Island to the east (duh, but it’s not in the picture) is where you can find j1m0ne , and I mention this because of this story a teacher back home once told us that when she first landed on the west side from the east where she came from, the airport staff wished her “Welcome to Malaysia!” … Err, yea, we can be a frightfully ignorant bunch sometimes -_-”

So I’ve not been updating much since my last “Help! Why am I so un-Malaysian???” post, and I’ve got to say I’m REALLY thankful for all the sugestions that have been flowing in (even if a lot of them are basic iterations of “congkak, wau, gasing, sepak takraw, FOOD“) from fellow Malaysians and non-Malaysians alike (and to any readers who couldn’t give a char koay teow about Malaysia, well I apologize and I promise to go back to useless filler posts soon :P )

Special mention to the lovely Caitlin for actually looking up possible Malaysian activities that Japanese schoolboys may take a liking to despite “knowing next to nothing about Malaysia” beforehand. Since Caitlin-sensei (can I call you that? ;P) handles Japanese schoolkids on a regular basis, I’m glad to have her authority on the subject =P Also to quote her comment, I think her suggested schedule is a really good one, and it’s almost identical to the one suggested by the organizers based on their past experience (which shows how much Caitlin knows her stuff!):

So what I might suggest is this (if this is okay):
1. Self-intro (nothing fancy) and cultural introduction (15 min)
2. Q&A (5 min)
3. Introduction of game and rules (10 min)
4. Game (30 min)

Oh and I guess that I didn’t explicitly mention that the camp will be attended by 14-year old schoolboys only, (If I mislead any lolipedofins… well, whatever) and the purpose of it besides to introduce them to various cultures from around the world is to help them with their English , hence all the activities will be conducted in simple Engrlish since it’s probably only their second year learning the language in school if I remember correctly (They only start teaching English in Japanese middle schools). So between their supposedly beginners’ English level and my cruddy Japanese (which I’m being discouraged from using for once), hopefully the language barrier is a small one. Also, the boys will be split into small groups of about 5-7 students, which means I’ll have to repeat the same one hour with 5 batches of them.

I’m now in the process of poking my Malaysian senpais for ‘Malaysian stuff’ they can loan me to show these kids, mostly postcard and pictures, maybe even clothes (I love the idea of a sack of random objects from my country, but a sack of stuff I’ve failed to accumulate and would be too unwieldy to bring up a mountain). The Foodgasm that is Malaysian cuisine unfortunately will have to be provided in visual form only (T.T) as I’m a miserable cook and I won’t have enough ingredients for 5 batches anyhow. The university’s Foreign Student Centre also surprisingly has Utusan Malaysia (a Malay paper I never bothered to read back home), which I’ve loaned and scouring for more pictures and hope to use as a sample of Malay writing. Yea I know it’s all very old school, but I don’t have a colour printer to use, so sue me -_-”

As for the 30 minute activity, I’ve now really taken to the idea of sepak takraw as concurred by some of the comments(I’ve never played galah panjang in my life). C.I. especially knocked it into my head that there’s absolutely no need to teach competitive sepak takraw which I myself am ignorant about, standing around in a circle to pass around the ball with our legs sounds simple enough (though I know I’ll embarrass myself horribly trying to do it, but whatever) and doing something more physical should be more in line with the boys’ interest hopefully. It would be great if I can obtain the rattan ball though, since the ‘feel’ would be totally different if I just used a rubber one instead I believe. Of course, if that fails, we could still play that inane game Pepsi Cola 123 XD

Anyways, the camp is next week, and my untimely Malaysian sense of urgency is only now slowly kicking in… So if I’m not posting spamming your blogs in the meantime, you know what’s up ;P