I was talking with someone from class who said they couldn't support certain stances we had discussed. But I don't think the important thing is agreeing. Sometimes difficult ideas need to peculate in our brains until they make sense. That means we have to sit with uncomfortable ideas awhile before we decide they are incorrect or correct. For me it is important in the long run to say that an idea logically makes sense; that is the westerner in me. I just don't think that seeing the logic is instantaneous. Of course, if the guy who said something is a bozo, I would probably not bother to process what they say. But if the person who said something disturbing is someone you respect, then you owe it to yourself to explore what they think until you come to terms with it one way or another. So maybe I start with an Asian approach as a screening method, but ultimately end up with a western one.

Sometimes it is easy for me to forget the cultural divide because in Malaysia there are a number of common reference points. Maybe Asian Americans identify for good or ill with American culture, but Malaysians are "truely Asian". Every now and then I am jolted back into reality. Like what I think about marriage is so different. I was talking to Alex from Burma last year, and he was saying his mom was picking out a wife for him. I was shocked, but tried not to act like it. For me love is important, and I hate to think who my mom would have picked out for me. Charles in our class also went to a matchmaker. And I have friends in KL who had arranged marriages that seem really happy. But then I have a friend from Burma so unhappily wed- really. And the funny thing is, she says in all seriousness that if they had not gone to all the trouble to go to an astrologer and a matchmaker, just think how bad her marriage would be! I kept thinking, lady they are the ones who messed you up sticking you with your impossible husband.