This post was written by Sarah Rees

Sarah Rees is something of a boomerang, having found her way back to KL after an absence of 11 years and discovering that both she and the city have grown up… although not too much. You can drop her a line at [email protected].

LIVING IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY IS AN EXPERIENCE OF CONTRASTS AND GIVES US THE CHANCE TO APPRECIATE WHAT WE OFTEN TAKE FOR GRANTED. CHASE OFF THOSE BACK-TO-WORK MONDAY BLUES WITH A LITTLE GRATITUDE AND A THOUGHT FOR THOSE IN PINK PYJAMAS.

I am certainly not alone at arriving at Friday evening with a great hearty sigh of relief. No matter how much anyone enjoys their work (and mine is pretty fun), we all need a moment to stop, to slow down, to hang up the lunch box, take off the work shoes, and be ourselves for a little while.

The weekend usually involves me slipping into the pool for a hard-earned lolling session, and more often than not my only poolside companion is a little Asian man in his pink pyjama outfit (standard cleaner uniform) who ambles around hosing the plants, scrubbing the sun loungers, and scowling at me as I splash up and down.

Occasionally, in my grumpier moments, I feel annoyed at his reproachful progress around the pool when I am trying to relax, but conscience creeps up on me when I realise that I see this same little man nearly every day. When I leave the building in the morning he is shuffling around with his mop and bucket, and when I get home from work he is often wheeling the bins down to the refuse area on the lower ground level. My work-weary shoulders cringe guiltily; his working week seems endless.

There are surely thousands of people, probably from all over the region, spending their every waking moment performing a menial task for little money. It is easy to stroll by unawares as a small lady mops the mall floor around you, or nod carelessly to the security guard you see every single morning, but I try and force myself to take a moment to feel for these people whose lot in life is significantly tougher than my own. They may not be starving or living in some war-torn country, but their lives are certainly less comfortable than mine, and probably only because we were born in different places, to different families, and wield different passports.

Last year, I went to Myanmar for a short visit, and on my return flight, I was seated with two young Burmese lads who sat bolt upright the whole flight, eyeing their tables nervously. When immigration cards came around, they squirmed in their seats and anxiously pored over the card with unseeing eyes. They watched me fill in mine and then pointed to the pen, which I passed over. They agonised over their cards some more, looking from passport to form with increasing worry. The poor dears didn’t speak English, couldn’t read the card, and clearly had never left their country before (their passports were spotless), so my hand-signalled offer to help was met with facial rushes of appreciation. I swiftly calculated their ages as I filled in their dates of birth: 18 years old, but they looked years younger.

When we disembarked at KL it transpired that there was a whole gang of them being herded together, and I was reminded of a conversation I’d had with a Burmese guest house owner, who told me that the average monthly wage in Myanmar is less than RM300. For these kids, coming over to KL is a way to make more money than they could imagine. Many of them are probably now dressed in pink pyjamas cleaning pools and squinting at people like me who live a life they probably can’t entirely imagine.

All these people, and the many locals who also work long hours in menial jobs, have no concept of a weekend. Those two days are just two more days to work and earn some money. An acquaintance of mine works in a shop in Central Market. He works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and gets home at 11pm each night to sleep and then get up again. But never a grumble slips out his lips; he finds my sympathising groans slightly strange because this is his life, this is how he makes ends meet, and mine seems as foreign to him as my distant country.

For those of us growing up in wealthy countries, weekends have always been the logical end to a week. As soon as I started working full-time, those precious days were a right, they were my life and I was damn entitled to them. But now, living in Asia, I am beginning to see that weekends are, in fact, a luxury.  

So now when I see the pyjama-clad man at the pool I throw him a smile – he continues to scowl – and I swim my laps with a renewed appreciation for the life I am able to afford, however simple it may seem to those with flashy cars and big houses.

Indeed, we expats are doubly fortunate. We have enough money to enjoy two whole days off a week – and even a holiday once in a while – and we are also living here in Malaysia surrounded by people how don’t have it so good. This, rather than giving us the chance to gloat, allows us to enjoy life with gratitude, and keep our feet on the ground while our heads are in the clouds of pleasure created from plentiful cheap food and plentiful cheap holiday destinations.

So no more Sunday night grumbles! The return work is not a hassle, because you are off to a job you have an interest in, that has a time limit, and that promises another two-day treat at the end of it. Plus, you don’t have to wear pink pyjamas.

Source: The Expat July 2012
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