Bureaucracy

This blog is turning into post-a-vent! Sorry about this, but I now realise one of the beautiful things about being an ex-British colony. We inherited the best of British. Tea-breaks and lunch hours are very sacred in Malaysia, you do not mess with them. If you go at the wrong time to a civil servant's office, you're likely to be told that they are "out". Which means they've gone for tea break.

We've also inherited the bureauracy. It's great.
Standard conversation
"Can you help me please?"
"I'm sorry m'am, that is not my department."
"Can you transfer the line to the correct department please?"
"Sorry m'am, you have to ask the operator to do that."
"Can you pass me to the operator then?"
"One moment"
Operator"Hello"
Me -"Can you pass me to xxx department?"
Operator- "Hold on"
Phone rings, no one picks up
Operator- "No one answering the phone"
Me- "Can you transfer me to someone else please"
Operator- "No one else-la, call back later"

I love trying to apply for a new student visa as well because mine's running out soon and I haven't managed to quite finish writing my thesis yet. I'm trying to be inspired at the moment and the thought of being poor is inspiring a lot.

However, you've got to love the vagueness of the English Language when all it tells you on the website is
"The passport has been received from British High Commission, please collect the same from the UK Visa Application Center where it was submitted. "

How hard can it be to tell consular staff to put a short note "Cleared" or "Rejected" then I can decide on the next move?
People who work at immigration or consular services must go to special schools where they are taught to be as obtuse as possible.

It's not as if I can just pop over to the Application center in Kuala Lumpur like it's the next stop on the bus, there's just the small matter of the South China Sea seperating us...

Vent over.

Home is good, eating lots of good food, discovering what AM looks like, family is well, still as organised as I am about life and managed to get to Selina and James' wedding.

The haze is back. For those not in the know, this is theoretically the best time to visit Malaysia. It's in between monsoon so you're guaranteed that it won't be pelting down for a whole week (thus ruining your holiday, unless you're a Brit with a fetish for rain), the dry hot spells are over, the wind is cooler.

The only problem is the farmers in Kalimantan and Sumatra (and probably the interior) of Borneo. They used to cultivate using slash and burn which was fine before we wrecked the ecosystem but they still haven't been able to change the old ways. Result?

We're covered in a fine particulate dust we call haze (similar to smog in major towns around the world, think of the big smoke, nueva york, etc etc) and it's getting worse.

which wouldn't be so bad if we actually had a leader who was around when we're all dying from lung cancer (I overstate, a little) but he's away on holiday. At a time of crisis, the leaders go on holiday.

The rent-a-vent is now closed. Please feel free to post comments and face masks (or air filters)