Flexible working hours seems to be the epitome of Asian work practice. Shops don’t open until 11 in the morning and then stay open until 10 in the evening or even later. In Malaysia some restaurants and cafés stay open 24hours per day. Life seems to bubble and boil all day, except of course for dozes in the afternoon. So I was surprised to be asked to speak at a ‘Work Life Balance’ conference in Kuala Lumpur.
The serious issues were that major employers here didn’t see the need for flexible working. So women with young families couldn’t adjust their working day to accommodate the kids going to school. People with ill relatives or older parents couldn’t take time off to provide care. Consequently the opportunity for work was denied to a significant proportion of the population. Put another way, employers could only choose from candidates who had no other calls on their time.

 
I was asked to speak on ‘Work Life Balance in the UK.’ To make sure I was up to date on the latest Human Resource issues my friend Cecily Lalloo gave me a huge amount of advice and guidance. Cecily runs her own Human Resources consultancy in England.
Held in a five star hotel in KL, the Conference had speakers from USA, Switzerland and New Zealand. The CEOs of many of the leading international companies in Malaysia participated along with Malaysian Business leaders. One of the most outstanding contributions was made by the keynote speaker Senator Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the Minister of Women, Family and Community Development.

Allan with Senator Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, other dignatories, organisers and speakers

Another highlight was the presentation by Datuk Dr Rafiah Salim, Director of the NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women. Malaysia is a member of the Non Aligned Movement, NAM, countries. This is a grouping of 118 developing countries without formal ties to the main geopolitical groups.
With these powerful women throwing their political weight behind more flexible working arrangements in Malaysia the prospects of many working people achieving a better work life balance is good.

Details of the conference, along with the papers given and presentations made are on the following web site.

In the gathering dusk the incessant and hypnotic drum beat permeated the crowd and people paused to listen. As the tempo rose, heads turned to find the source and those nearest the corner started to drift towards the sound. Soon there was a steady movement in that direction. In the next street the crowd stood entranced by the performance outside the Chinese temple. The lion dancers, in extravagant attire leapt and cavorted to the complex and incessant beat. Camera flashes caught the exotic costumes in mid flight and the audience applauded each new acrobatic set piece.

This was just one of the hundreds of street performances, working demonstrations and craft stalls that made up the George Town Festival. Chinese Clan Temples, normally private, were thrown open to the public. Mosques, Hindu temples and churches welcomed everyone. Historical Chinese Merchant Mansions had conducted tours and the gates of the old British Fort were opened in welcome.

The Chinese Malaysian settlements of Melaka and George Town were granted World Heritage Site status on 7 July 2008. So on 7th July 2010 the second anniversary was celebrated. In one street there was a Malay heritage cultural performance whist Indian dance and music throbbed a few streets away. In yet another venue a crowd sat and watched open air Chinese Opera whilst munching on some of the tit bits produced by the numerous food stalls.

We were delighted to by a set of wooden toast tongs ingeniously made by a local man from reclaimed orange box wood. Now we can safely extract hot toast from our toaster.

George Town Festival Pictures

Glancing over his shoulder from the open cockpit the pilot of the small twin propeller plane smiled and said “we’re going to land in a few minutes.” As the plane banked the view of dark dense jungle covering sharp peaks was uninterrupted. From this low altitude the tree canopy looked like a vast field of broccoli. Descending lower and apparently flying into a mountain, individual trees resolved from the green wall. What was missing was an airfield.  Listening intently to the drop in engine revs and watching the view from the cockpit window we saw the trees lurch closer. Then, there it was, the airfield. The de Havilland Twin Otter is a short takeoff and landing plane and it did just that. No sooner had the wheels touched the ground than we were swinging in toward the terminal building in a cloud of dust. Actually it was a wooden building with a veranda where waiting passengers lounged in the shade and flicked away flies.

There was little formality as the door swung open and the steps were lowered. The bright and friendly policewoman, holding her daughter, waved a greeting and nodded to the boatmen who assembled our rucksacks and cargo on the grass beside the plane. In single file we followed them down to the river at the end of the short airstrip. Here the three canoes were loaded, with broad green leaves designating the seating locations. Explaining that it might be a bit bumpy as the river was so low we crashed into big boulders, scraped over rocks and were thrown from side to side in turbulent fast flowing water. In calmer stretches the journey was serene as we glided under huge trees trailing lianas and creepers into the brown water. Sometimes the boatmen jumped out to push the boat over difficult bits and sometimes we walked over the rocks at the edge of the river whilst the boatmen ran the rapids. Our boatman was only thrown out once and we survived intact, if wet.

This group of Penan were once nomadic jungle dwellers, hunting wild boar, deer and other animals and gathering food crops like sago, fruits and berries. They were quiet, friendly people who welcomed us into their village. Wilson, the headman and his wife Joy, said they were the first group to establish a settlement and that they were in touch with other groups who still roamed the jungle.
Resting in Wilson and Joy’s wooden house we noticed a quiver of darts on the wall and thought they were ethnic ornaments. As Wilson carefully handed us a black tipped dart he said, “careful! these are coated with thirty minute poison for hunting wild boar.” This was a kind of safety feature. Thirty minutes allowed time for the blood coagulating venom to be treated. The fast acting poison he said was considered too dangerous for normal hunting.

In the days that followed Gerin, a village elder, took us out into the jungle to see the tree which contains the poison sap.  We also visited the small hut of the man who made blowpipes. Hardwood staves were held in a vertical jig whilst the craftsman sat on the branch of a tree and used a long auger to bore the hole. Swinging out of the jungle with loping strides three hunters carried long blowpipes and in their rattan back baskets were joints of freshly killed barking deer. We have a great picture of Wilson holding up the haunch of barking deer, still dripping blood, that became our supper.

Whilst the Penan traditionally lived in small easily constructed huts which were raised platforms the government had provided longhouses, similar to those preferred by the Kelabit people in the area. There were also three new government built houses which the community appreciated.

During the second world war detachments of British and Australian troops had parachuted into the area to establish guerrilla operations against the occupying Japanese.  Soon after the war Christian missionaries arrived and set up schools. The school at Long Lamai was one of the reasons this particular group of Penan had settled there. After Malaysian independence the school was taken over and refurbished. It is now an excellent campus with twelve teachers for 84 children in modern well equipped buildings with good facilities. Now all fervent evangelical Christians with 100% literacy many people are opting for employment outside the region.

Those that remain though, value their jungle way of life, some returning near to retirement to live in peace with nature again. Wilson and Gerin explained that their peace was being threatened by extensive logging that had already impacted on other areas of the Kelebit Highlands. To protect their traditional hunting grounds the village elders have resisted a road being built from a nearby logging road to the village.

Recently the government have funded a telecentre powered by solar cells to give the residents access to the internet. We attended an internet class run by the University of Malaysia Sarawak. Inevitably perhaps the young easily grasped the concepts and immediately hooked up to Facebook and Twitter. The older users struggled slowly to unwrap the delights of Google and surfed religious themes.

We had been asked for our impressions on the development in the village. To us the development was mysteriously lopsided. On the one hand there was an excellent and long established school with a telecentre near by. Every month a doctor flew in by helicopter. On the other hand the residents still hunted with blow pipes, washed their clothes in the river and had no electricity apart from the fortunate with petrol generators. How long this precarious balance can remain is debateable, but for now the older residents are relishing their jungle life.

Pictures