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joylessnightsky · 4 years

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As a dyslexic person…

You know, often times people hurt us without intending to. Us just meaning humans in general. We’re a stupid species, and we make mistakes. That’s okay. And everyone’s feelings are different, I know. Still, sometimes I have to really wonder how people don’t realize how what they are saying is hurtful.

And this post is half a vent and half a cautionary thing. If you ever talk to a dyslexic person, please be mindful of these things. Whether or not they’ll actually be hurt by some of these is not for me to tell you but for them, but you should still be mindful of it. Conversation and stuff, works with people of all kinds, you know?

If you have dyslexia yourself, please feel free to add on with your own experiences. And please read the post yourself, too. Because, as I already said, sometimes we hurt each other without wanting to, because different things hurt different people.

Now, let’s get to it:

1) A lot of the time people will say something like “That’s great for someone with dyslexia!” And I know they mean to compliment me. I know they mean to say that it is an accomplishment. And it probably is. But by saying that, you’re actually devaluating my accomplishment. It’s basically the same problem as if someone said “You’re so nice for a man.” or “That’s such an impressive career for a woman.” There’s a serious difference between giving a compliment and giving a compliment in relation to something about you.

I worked for the reading speed I have. I worked for the capability to write with so little misspellings that I could pass as just another student. I worked for being able to read a text I haven’t read before. I worked for being able to read out loud to the class without making an utter fool out of me. I worked, for years, about an hour a day, in therapy and at home, until my head hurt form the effort, despite the frustration, despite the insults, despite questioning if anything would ever actually help. So the last thing I need is for you to tell me that my efforts and my work make me “good for a dyslexic person”. Tell me I did good. I’d love to hear that. Tell me my work can be seen. But don’t remind me that my efforts will only ever be seen in the context of my diagnosis. At one point, I managed to become one of the top students in my literary class when it came to spelling in exams. And I still only got praised with that phrase. It’s honestly gotten to the point where the compliment makes me feel bad about myself. It’s not a compliment anymore! Just… Don’t. Don’t.

2) One time I was talking with my teacher about how the others would call me pretentious and say I only relied on my diagnosis and the “advantages” I supposedly got (they meant the stuff that was supposed to make my disadvantages less bad, I think). And she said that I shouldn’t take it to heart, that they didn’t know what they talked about and “whoever says someone like you shouldn’t be here is stupid.” A little context, we have a system with different forms of schools, the one I choose to attend is the form with basically all advanced classes.

Now, in on itself, this was a really great thing to say. The reason it’s still stuck with me years later in a negative sense is because no one had, in fact, questioned my position at said school. I had never even heard anyone say that dyslexic people being at this form of school was weird or anything. Never. The first time the idea that I had to prove myself capable of belonging there had been placed in my head at that very moment. She didn’t meant to do that, I know she didn’t. And that makes it all the worse, because she was trying to make things better and she was so kind about it. I can’t even be angry at her for planting that thought in my head! And the way she so casually said that, as if it was a known fact that people would think I didn’t belong there, as if it was only natural for people to say something like that to me - even if she said they’d be stupid and wrong to do so - really hurt. A lot.

So all I’m asking is, please check what was said to someone. Don’t assume what they might have heard others say about them. If you’re wrong, knowing that people could possibly think that on top of everything else can feel… icky.

3) I’ve meet a lot of ignorant people in my life. We all have, haven’t we? And one of those people was my teacher for one horrible year. I pity everyone who ever has to live through her classes at this point. Why do people who can’t respect others have a mind of their own become educators again?

Anyways, I’ve posted about this before, but she was sure that she knew better than me what dyslexia meant, as well as that dyslexia had to be the same as reading and writing disorder and I had my facts wrong. Surprising no one she never really cared much that I couldn’t do the things my classmates could do. And one day she had the nerve to tell me that “class is over and you should have been able to write that down in time if you’d actually worked. So, if you really need these notes, just ask someone for them. I’m sure even you can manage that, right?” and take the notes down from the board. She didn’t have to do that, and she had put those notes there in the last minute. I’d told her they were too small for me to read and that I couldn’t tell the letters apart like that. She hadn’t cared. Yeah… That was one of the few times a teacher made me cry in the bathroom.

So, even though I can’t believe I have to say that, don’t assume you know what someone can or can’t do, and listen to them when they talk about their experience. If they say they can’t do something, they can’t. And no matter how much you think to know about a disability, when someone lives with it, they know what it’s like in a way that you could never know.

4) I’ve also had a math teacher, and he was great! One of those teachers that just make sense and that actually really care about their students and them understanding things rather than learning them like vocab cards. He was the only math teacher who I’ve ever felt comfortable with enough to confess that measurements can be tricky on some days. Does it say “cm”, “dm”, “km” or even just “m” there? Is it “L”, “cL” or “dL”? “g” or “kg”? He was really nice about it and we made a deal: In every class test I got the measurement would not change within one task. Helped a lot. And yet…

Students talk. They noticed. Because what my teacher had done, you see is adjust just my class test. I didn’t need to switch between measurements, the others did. and I see why that wasn’t considered fair. It really isn’t, because that doesn’t have much to do with reading or writing. Yet the issue at the bottom was still there. What I’m saying is that if you change a task so that a dyslexic person can work with it, don’t change it just for them. Especially not if the task itself changes then. Dear teachers, if you’re reading this, do it for everyone or not at all. Yes it helps if you do that, but no it isn’t fair if it’s just for one person. And I honestly still feel like I cheated after hearing what my classmates said.

5) Sometimes people will tell me that it’s impressive that I work against the dyslexia, you know, did the therapy and everything (even though many people just can’t afford it and would do it if they could). In that context a little sentence often fell that I just hate from the bottom of my heart: “If only everyone would do as much. It’s great that you don’t just rely on your diagnosis to take care of everything.”

First of all, I was lucky. I was lucky my health insurance covered not only one but two therapies. It didn’t for my brothers, my parents had to pay for that themselves. And that is not cheap! Not everyone can afford to do therapy. Not everyone has the chance to do therapy. That the therapy worked as well as it did was, again, luck. That my dyslexia was on the lighter side to begin with was also luck. That I knew I was at risk and got tested early on, so that I was diagnosed at an age where a real difference could be made through developmental psychology was also luck. Don’t ever make the mistake to think that one person who got lucky can be used as the bar.

Secondly, everyone’s dyslexia is different. You can’t compare mine to other people’s struggles. Again, my form of dyslexia isn’t that bad. Both my brothers have it worse. Sure, it might not be the easiest to deal with and it’s not the bare minimum for the diagnosis, but others have it worse than I do. And they have different symptoms. I can’t even deal with most of mine, they are just easy to conceal until I have a better day. We’re not all the same, so don’t compare us in a way that makes it look like we are.

Third, a lot was my own research. No one told me that there is a fond that was developed for dyslexic people to read easier (”OpenDyslexic”, if you are interested. It’s free to download). No one told me about all the side effects, no one told me “hey, this might actually be because of your dyslexia, too”. No one told me having subtitles on in a language I already spoke would help remembering the spelling of words. No one told me how to articulate things. I didn’t get an awful lot of help along the way, you know? Keep in mind, I come from an environment in which I got more help than on average. And you saying that is basically pushing the responsibility onto us. You made a world in which we have little to no access to help, and you’re shaming us for not finding any.

Last but everything but least, you make it sound like the treatment and the way we handle this is what makes the dyslexia valid. If you’re really thinking so, you’re wrong. Like, really wrong. I chose to work my ass off to teach my brain how to keep up. I managed to find information on it. I was lucky to get the possibility to do so, because of the way you are handling this. None of that makes my diagnosis valid. It doesn’t, because it already is. My struggles, my feelings about it, my experiences, my symptoms are what makes this valid. The diagnosis, dyslexia? That just gave it a name.

6) “That might be hard for you to do. Are you sure you can handle this?” I’m glad that you are concerned on my behalf. But as someone who also has a lot of anxiety and has lived with this shit in my mind for my entire life, I can guarantee you that I do, in fact know my limits. I have lost many opportunities in my life because I wasn’t sure I could handle it, or because I couldn’t tell beforehand if I would have a “good day” or a “bad day”.

I’m aware of the risk. I decided to take the risk, or am in the process of decided whether or not to take that risk. You aren’t helping. If you are concerned, offer to help me should I struggle. If you can’t help me, offer support. If you can neither help nor support me, I don’t know you well enough for you to be meddling with my choices so you should just leave me alone.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for taking your time to read this. I hope this’ll help. And if you do make a dyslexic person uncomfortable or hurt them with something you say or do, please remember that that will happen, no matter what someone’s dealing with. Even my brothers will hurt me sometimes and I will hurt them sometimes, even though we are all dyslexic and have known each other for literally all our lives, because we all experience this differently. And that’s okay. You can’t always know what will hurt someone and it’s not you job to read their mind and figure it out on your own either. Important is that you recognize you’ve made a mistake and that you make a conscious effort to avoid said mistake in the future. And remember: Sometimes it’s not what you’re trying to say but rather how you’re saying it that hurts. Formulations can make a huge difference.

#dyslexia #dislexic #mental health #what to avoid #please add on to this #long post #I decided not to add a cut because I don't want to cut any of this off #So it's a bit longer to scroll past #sorry about that

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lisarichardsonbylines · 4 years

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Closing the Gap

THE PROBLEM SOLVERS

» UNICEF: CLOSING THE GAP

UNICEFCLOSING THE GAP

Arc'teryx lends their understanding of insulation and extreme conditions to a global collaborative effort in Mongolia.

Words By: Lisa Richardson

Closing the Gap

Inspired by problem-solvers in our midst and beyond, Arc’teryx designers accept an invitation from UNICEF’s Office of Innovation to head to Mongolia, to the coldest capital city in the world, to lend their understanding of insulation and extreme conditions to a global collaborative effort to make the ger, a type of shelter utilized by half a million urban residents, more thermally efficient. The problem: tackling the child health crisis caused by coal-fired air pollution from a terrific number of heat-leaking gers. The solution? Close the gaps that let good ideas fall by the wayside and let the cold air in.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the coldest capital city in the world is powered entirely by coal, which means it is now, despite only having a population of 1.5 million people, also the most polluted capital city in the world.

It was just an email, like any other email that comes into the machine shop at Arc’teryx where the tinkering team of Pat, Bill and Chris wizard up solutions, customize tools and make whatever needs to be made for Arc’teryx designers to do their work. Pat Fitzsimmons happened to be sitting in the “Open Emails” chair that day when he fielded a request from senior design developer Nathalie Marchand to help make a door.

The Land of the Blue Sky shifts to charcoal grey at the onset of winter when coal-fired stoves begin to churn out fine particulate matter in toxic quantities.

Fitzsimmons is a hands-on problem-solver. You need a door? He’ll run down to RONA, pick up a door, cut it in half, MacGyver it to the specs you need. And that’s what he thought he was saying yes to when he added “door for Nathalie” to his action list that day. He had no idea he was about to step onto a global team tackling child health 8,186 km away in the most polluted capital city in the world.

Mid-winter in Ulaanbaatar, temperatures plunge to -40°C, and in response, the 1.5 million residents burn coal by the ton to keep warm.

The air in Ulaanbaatar was not always like this. But when Mongolia transitioned from Soviet control to a free market democracy in 1990, massive waves of urban migration began, tripling the size of the city; 8,000 new households are still arriving each year. As the new population pitch their yurts, the traditional round felt tent dwelling the Mongolians call ger, haphazardly up and down the hillsides of the city’s outskirts, their collective cooking and heating with unrefined coal stoves ramps up the city’s air pollution to shocking levels.

Click and hold52% of the pollution in Ulaanbaatar is attributable to coal burning in the ger district.

The amount of carcinogenic fine particulate matter (PM2.5, meaning particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less) has gone off-the-charts, and with it, acute respiratory infections (bronchitis, asthma, and pneumonia), preterm births, and spontaneous abortions. This 2.5 particulate matter in the air is small enough not only to enter the bloodstream but also cross the blood-brain barrier, and has reached concentration levels (millionths of a gram per cubic metre) more than 12 times higher than World Health Organization (WHO) standards.

In short: Breathing toxic air is damaging brain tissue and impairing cognitive development in babies and children. When it’s not killing them.

IN 2015, 435 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF FIVE IN ULAANBAATAR DIED FROM PNEUMONIA.The mountains surrounding Ulaanbaatar's river valley trap smog like soup in a pan. By January, even the stars disappear.

In February 2018, UNICEF and the National Centre for Public Health sounded the alarm with a report, Mongolia’s Air Pollution Crisis: A Call to Action to Protect Children’s Health. Because, while everyone knew about the pollution, no one had connected the dots to child and maternal health. The issue of the day was suddenly a sleeping time-bomb – the hidden financial costs and lasting health and neurological impacts on children was going to cost Mongolia its future.

A morning prayer offered to the sky, across the sacred Tuul river from the city's power plants.

It’s a massive problem with no easy solution, and that’s just the kind of challenge that Tanya Accone rolls up her sleeves for.

“I’m an almost irrational optimist,” says Tanya Accone, Senior Advisor on Innovation for UNICEF’s Office of Innovation.

She has to be. Her role means confronting, daily, in detail, the world’s most intractable problems.

Trucks and vendors hawk coal from the four-lane main street to families in the ger district. Coal is available by the dump load or by the bag. No other source of heat is available.

The Office of Innovation is a recent branch of the 70 year United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – an agile collaboration that applies start-up thinking and technology and leverages UNICEF’s deep web of connections and relationships on the ground in 243 countries to generate innovative and scalable solutions for children.

“We need to become disruptive and try things that are radically different,” says Accone, and in Mongolia, that meant trying to literally change the atmosphere.

While Ulaanbattar’s pollution has been attributed to the city’s 4 coal power plants, 3200 low pressure steam boilers, and 505,000 cars and buses, at least half is caused by the inefficient attempts of the continually growing number of households in the ger district to stay warm through the winter.

UNICEF’s plan was to task a global team of experts to “redesign” the ger to make it more thermally efficient – something they could roll out, not just in Ulaanbaatar, but across Mongolia and beyond, to Kazahkstan and Tajikistan - other places where urbanization and air pollution were spreading.

But first, Accone had to pull together a team of problem-solvers.

And that’s how Arc’teryx got a call from UNICEF Canada. “We are beginning a design project involving insulation in a hostile environment. We’re hoping you can help.”

Walls of lattice and felt echo a three thousand year old tradition of self-sufficiency and attunement with the land. How could the design be adapted for 21st century realities?

When Senior Design Developer Nathalie Marchand sat down in the room in Ulaanbaatar in March 2018, alongside colleague Romy Paterson, Material Developer, as the Arc’teryx dream team on the “21stCentury Ger” project, she was so intimidated she could hardly speak.

The global think-tank that the Office of Innovation had pulled together included genius-types from Stanford University, the architecture firm Kieran Timberlake, the Center for Environmental Building and Design at the University of Pennsylvania, GerHub and a host of UNICEF representatives.

Marchand went to fashion design school, before joining the circus at 21, where she worked for ten years as head of wardrobe for Canada’s legendary Cirque de Soleil. At Arc’teryx, she’s a guru. But when she walked into that gathering, she was a long way out of her comfort zone and completely without armour – no sewing machine, no track record, no PhD. “I felt extremely dumb,” says the tri-lingual Marchand. “They were all academics. I was super intimidated.”

She’d had three weeks to do the most basic youtube research before landing in Ulaanbaatar. “I have been camping in a tent before. That’s about as much as I knew about the ger.”

While tiny homes take North America by storm, Mongolians looking to get a toehold in an exploding city real estate market turn to dwelling of their nomadic ancestors, the light-weight and affordable ger.

Marchand’s don’t-know mind is her superpower, though. “My main strength in my job is just to ask the questions: what do you need, what you do want, what’s working, what’s not working. There were a lot of PhDs in that room who knew quite a bit. But what we thought we knew about Mongolia, and the real Mongolia, are quite different. We were sitting in a meeting talking about what is comfortable and suddenly we realized we have no idea what is comfortable in a ger. We think 20 degrees is a comfortable temperature inside in the winter. When I actually visited a ger, I could have been sitting in my bathing suit. It was so hot.”

As she asked questions, it became apparent that her and Paterson’s fabric knowledge wasn’t going to help. Gore-tex is not available or affordable to Mongolians. Felt is. It’s a perfectly adapted insulation for the conditions. As the think-tank members divided up the different aspects of the ger that might be re-engineered according to their expertise, the door remained.

“I went there knowing nothing and I left knowing only that I wanted to work on the project. I wanted to help people who might not have the resources we do. I had the chance to use my knowledge to change someone’s life.”

MARCHAND PUT HER HAND UP TO TAKE HOME THE DOOR.The data bank. Six test gers measure the effectiveness of a host of measures designed to retain heat.

There was no chance Canada Customs was going to let her ship a wood door home. So Marchand spent an extra week in Mongolia, using personal vacation time to journey out onto the steppe with a local guide, staying with families in their gers, playing cards, drinking vodka, and eating more dumplings than she hopes to ever again. She took dozens of photos of the gaps that formed between the doors and the sill plates, the gaps around the edges of the felt tent - all the leaky openings that formed with daily wear and tear that allow the bitterness of winter to finger its way in.

She needed to conceive a way to close the air gap. With the average salary in Mongolia at 966,000 tugruk, roughly $CAD520, it had to be cheap, easy to install, and easy to make.

Humility meets collaboration. Nathalie Marchand and Patrick Fitzsimmons prove the power of approaching a problem with a don't-know-mind and a great partner-in-crime.

Marchand had a flash of insight, remembering her five-year-old self visiting her grandmother in Quebec, where the winter temperatures hover around -20°C. She remembered the “snake” that her grandmother would kick along the door jamb, a long fabric tube filled with sand to block the draft.

After she returned to the Arc’teryx North Vancouver design headquarters, Pat Fitzsimmons answered her call for help, injecting something else to the project, something she hadn’t realized she needed: enthusiasm, a voice to counter the one in her head that said this solution is too simple; this problem is too big; this process is too unwieldy; how can you be sure that the Mongolians will accept this; who do you think you are?

To help, Nathalie Marchand had to first battle her own inner critic: who am I to offer help to Mongolia?

“When you work alone on a project and only have yourself to talk to, you get to a point where you feel like you’ve gone around so many times. When Pat came along, he went from 0 to 100 in a minute, he was so excited. It was amazing.”

Fitzsimmons reassured her that the simplicity of the snake was just right. Then he built her a door that she set between her cutting table and her sewing machine. Fitzsimmons didn’t think of it as a door. “It was a portal. You walk from 2019 into three thousand years ago, into this tiny enclave of beliefs, this building that reflects spiritually who the Mongolians are, as a people and as a nation.”

Marchand then also designed an insulated curtain, made from accordioned cardboard and covered with reflective fabric, that could be pulled across the door at night like a shower curtain, to add an extra layer of insulation.

“It had to be quiet, because everyone sleeps in the same room so if you wake up in middle of the night and have to go outside, you want it to be silent. You want to be able to use it with only one hand.” Every time she moved from her table to her sewing machine, she had to open the door and slide wide the curtain - testing the friction of operating it fifty times a day.

The refined specs of her door insulation package were emailed to UNICEF’s Mongolian office to be reproduced by a team from local materials. Eleven gers were going to be tested through the winter of 2018-19 – six uninhabited gers at a test site out of the city would be outfitted with all the different interventions, so each variable could be measured and monitored. Five family gers in the ger district would also be part of the testing.

On paper, it looked as if Marchand had solved the door insulation gap. Now someone just had to translate it into real life.

8,186 KILOMETRES AWAY IN ULAANBAATAR, IN OCTOBER, MUNKH-ORGIL (“MO”) LKHAGVA WENT LOOKING FOR A SEAMSTRESS.Arc'teryx could generate design solutions, but they had to translate on the ground.

An adaptable and personable 38 year old, Lkhagva had taught himself English from a good dictionary and had been hired by UNICEF’s local partner, Gerhub, to turn piles of drawings into the six test gers, ready for data-collecting to start in November.

It was an ambitious timeline, that didn’t exactly accommodate the realities of life - or the heinous traffic - in Mongolia. “I’ve never sewn anything in my life,” said Lkhagva. “I’m just able to understand English.” He posted ads on the Mongolian equivalent of craigslist, and visited a local sewing school, before the professor, a tiny fierce woman told him pointedly that none of her students would have the skills to do what he needed, but that she could probably help. He visited her tiny studio, a poorly ventilated room with peeling linoleum, bedecked with old fashion magazine cut-outs showcasing Soviet flair, an ancient sewing machine as the centrepiece. He showed her the drawings. She seemed to understand.

Naran Tuul, the Black Market in Ulaanbaatar, provides everything you need to build a ger.Testing the first prototype on the ground, only to discover that some things got lost in translation.

As far as Marchand could tell, it was working. “Mo was fantastic. He took pictures of everything that was available. If we said we needed a hook, next day he would go to their equivalent of Home Depot and take pictures of all the available hooks and say this is what’s out there.”

No one could know that the seamstress had got it wrong, until Marchand and Fitzsimmons arrived back in Ulaanbaatar in January for the second think-tank gathering and to check on the installation of their door insulation package. It seemed less an issue of the designs not having made sense to her, as that there was a Canadian at the other end of it. What could a Canadian possibly know about a Mongolian institution?

They gathered up the useless pieces and went looking for another sewing machine.

The air quality index read 963 parts per million (ppm) in January 2019. It had been 15 ppm in North Vancouver when Fitzsimmons left home. (Anything above 100 ppm is considered dangerous.) “Until you're standing in the middle of it,” Fitzsimmons said of the problem he’d just spent six months obsessing about, “you can’t understand how atrocious it is.”

He wanted to hate it. “Everywhere you go, it smells like burnt stuff. The smoke is terrible. There are so many problems. I wanted to be full of darkness towards the whole pollution thing -- you have to be angry to fix something. But my God! The country! The people! The beautiful sky!” He fell in rhapsodic love.

They’d come up with the best start they could conceive. All they needed now was a workshop to actually build their snakes and curtains. Happily, one of the think-tank invitees, an inventor, yurt-builder and Dutch emigrant, Froit Vanderharst took them under his wing. They ducked out of the formal sessions and raced to the open air market in Ulaanbaatar for supplies, time slipping away.

Sweating and exhilarated at having found such a like-minded fellow problem-solver. Stripped down to shirt sleeves despite sub-zero temperatures, they banged out prototypes, Marchand labouring over the sewing machine. They couldn’t wait for the prototypes to be installed, to show them to locals, hear what people thought.

"Everywhere you go, it smells like burnt stuff. I wanted to be full of darkness towards the pollution, but my God! The people!" Pat Fitzsimmons trades anger for love as his motivating force.

By early June 2019, the University of Pennsylvania had made headway with the thousands of data points they’d collected over the winter.

The comprehensive package of better insulation, including the door’s curtain and snake, resulted in a 55% reduction in energy consumption.

Tanya Accone, UNICEF Mongolia Deputy Representative Speciose Hakizimana and their team, were unequivocal about the results: “That is a game-changer.”

SUDDENLY, CLEAN AIR IS WITHIN GRASP.An air of optimism landed when the project team read the results. Clean air is within grasp.Adapting to massive issues requires a combination of technology, collaboration and respect for traditional ways.

“The magnitude of the problem and its impact on children and pregnant women is huge. But in combination with electric heating and cooking, the data suggests it should be possible to completely phase out the use of coal heating gers,” wrote Hakizimana on behalf of the UNICEF Mongolia team in late June, 2019. Expectations are as high as the stakes, and with more partners coming on board, including the Swiss government, the Dutch government, the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation, and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology, the pressure on everyone involved is immense. But there’s an air of optimism around the expanding office.

"A problem is only a problem if you see it as that. It could be a different pathway, a different route, an opportunity. It's only a problem if you let it be."

This winter, the project relocates to the second-most polluted city in Mongolia, Bayankhongor, 640km east of Ulaanbaatar, where the governor is extremely motivated to make a dent on air pollution in his urbanizing city, and is collaborating with UNICEF to meet a target of clean air by 2022. By rolling out energy-saving prototypes in many of the 7000 ger and brick houses (baishin) of this smaller city of just 9600 households, the team will be able to really prove their case of what works and what doesn’t.

Open the door to possibility. On the other side: history. And hope.

“We brought together industry experts in design, technology, outdoor, architecture, and academics,” reflected Hakizamana. “All the partners contributed immensely in building prototypes, data monitoring, and creating energy and structure solutions. We’re seeing the benefits of this great collaboration already. Now we will combine these with local knowledge and solutions, and help move households from coal to clean energy solutions.”

“Everywhere I look, here at Arc’teryx, I’m building on other people’s work,” mused Fitzsimmons. “We’ve had some incredible people through here that have done amazing things and I get to work with the results of their work, but I don’t know their names. Imagine if the legacy of this project is a population of people who are healthier, free of this thing they’re struggling with, with a real good shot at a fine future, and that comes about through something that my friend Nathalie and I had a part in creating? A chance to make a difference in history for all those people? Holy crap. It just doesn’t get better than that.”

https://arcteryx.com/us/en/explore/problem-solvers/unicef/

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unproduciblesmackdown · 7 years

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its just wild idk how to say the experience of just like...it being a wholeass fixture in your life that you’re gonna off urself...i guess in earlier times (almost been aware of being suicidal for a whole decade babes) it was also that i just...like assumed that my future was gonna involve some whole disaster that was going to wreck the whole damn thing idk. like i always knew i didnt have the kinda situation where i had somebody to fall back on no matter what & i did very much know that i had the kinda situation where if it looked like the identity ppl thought i had fell through and it turned out i wasnt thriving in all of this and actually just kinda miserable and on my own, instead of having ppl who would be There For Me No Matter What i had the ppl who would want nothing to do w me except for further beat me down..........so yeah i guess ive been feeling like my future was only Doom since like 12 def...maybe earlier if you look at it idk its like wondering when i was starting being depressed fulltime. probs like age 3 idk

anyhow the point is....hard to explain what its like having the constant sense that you don’t have a future thats good & in your control & something you want, or that even exists right. like sometimes i imagine thinking abt the future in the ways that other ppl might, in the way that you assume you’ve got a good while and that there’s things you’ll get to do that you like or you’ll pursue your ambitions or whatever and its weird i think about it for like 3.3 sec and its like tf.........its like when you get some kinda Aroma Memory where your brain remembers that smell from 18.6 yrs ago & you have a 0.62second window to try to think of where its from while you have some fleeting visual/emotive memory.......sometimes i’ll just have some kinda emotional echo from a less depressed life and its like ?????? havent had this feeling in this exact way for a minute. its weird its like lol this doesnt belong to me anymore..

anyways for another solid like.....6-7 yrs its been kind of “i’ll be surprised if i make it another yr alive” with various ups & downs in that level of surprise along the way.....more like a Down lately lmao its wild how impossible it seems to make it a few more days or weeks when youre having a worse day than usual, having an on avg Worse period that lasts for months & months and etc is just....wild baby. if you havent felt it for even a day its not something you can really imagine. if u know what its like to feel like ur gonna die for a longterm period then you know what it is..

like always, maybe this is my year baby!!! in terms of death. if im thinking abt maybe this is the year i suddenly Succeed on all fronts and i never again have to think about kms, then that’ll be a struck-by-lighting, same-shuffled-card-deck-order twice in a row, sheer chance out of nowhere. your life isnt steered towards goodness because you’re good enough or Only As Much As You Can Handle or anything and ive been too deep in it this whole time to have ever been set up to not get the rug pulled out from under me several times over and yknow once you fall down even once, unless you’re really solidly backed up, the odds arent in your favor about not getting continuously run over the rest of the time. wind isn’t really at ur back there.

like im so glad abt every person ive run into who ive had in my life for more than like 5 hrs and im lucky that i was at least born recently enough to have had the internet/texting mostly regularly from 14 y.o. onward.....if i didnt im sure i wouldve been......even so much more isolated than i was. l o l . . . . ive got to feel like some ppl care abt me which is nice and didnt happen too much before then. its also good i draw lmao coz besides for the most part thats how i talk the best & how i get in touch w most of the ppl who end up sticking around enough i talk to more than like a couple of times.....but tho of course ive never like, found arbitrary success in terms of either my own solo financial boon to transcend any and all problems or ever just like bonding w a bunch of ppl like ride or die for life baby. coz like.....why would i do either. if you werent born into financial stability, let alone wealth, and if you didnt just happen to pick up these deep unshakeable relationships along the way at times when it didnt really matter.....good luck picking those things up further along the way when stuffs even shittier. i may’ve been lucky w the internet/texting timing but i wasnt lucky w the financial crisis hit or really just being born after the 80s, economy wise......or lucky w being isolated socially since age 4 and always having to feel distanced from ppl coz i could sense the difference & stigma of being someone abused & miserable before i was even really that self aware of the extent of those things about me.........oh well. coz again w the internet and me happening to draw enough prior to age 14 that i was always considered “good” at it, and then finding that i like to draw fanart for myself lol....so i could at least connect w ppl some ways right. or via text posts sometimes lmao....and im lucky that the ‘net / having a phone gave me a medium for those things & being connected to some ppl. and im lucky im gay & not cis & got to figure that out & enjoy it coz thats the best thing abt me.......

anyways even if say life was perfect for me magically i still wouldnt be able to relate to seeing yourself pursue your ambitions coz like i always say...ive never really had those lmao. wasnt able to baby.....its like there’s always that idea that ppl whose life is defined by Survival, who’ve been exposed to trauma &/or abused, that if you drop them into a safe stable situation w/friends and all and whatever then suddenly they’ll be a “regular” person, like there’s some inherent core of everyone where they Know what its like to get to live in a healthy environment w a certain perspective on other ppl & how they’ll treat you, and if you just remove someone from bs they’ll just shift over to that Default that is like oh lol yeah im like everybody else. like nah its a whole different kind of world / life you’ve not even necessarily adapted to, maybe its what you grew in. and you can adapt to a better life & grow further in that but its not a matter of like “washing away” what came before....it can be an entirely separate thing. like if you haven’t experienced it you cant imagine it. i cant give someone a real sense of what its like to grow up within & live in an abusive place for decades. and i can’t guess who i would be if i’d grown up / lived in a completely different, better situation. coz thats a whole fundamental change from the start. it’d be such a different person that it wouldn’t even make sense to call it an alternate version of “me.”

well anyways i always feel like i’m bound to kms & that bad things are impending sooner than later & when they happen i’ll get a new set of incoming bad shit to feel bearing down & etc & i dont have things i want except a cessation of living under dread & feeling like my existence is in the way & theres ppl around i gotta be on my guard for & i’m only gonna kms eventually here, theres a long lifespan & for being to off yourself at any given time, also im jealous of ppl who’ve had a nicely sized friend group where they’ve always been able to hang out w one person at least whenever they wanted to / needed to. at least i’m gay, baby. i honestly do feel like that tweet where its like i cant kill myself b/c what if im a straight guy in my next life? @ god i cant do it. like lmao for real though......in my past life maybe i was an 80s gay. syke if i have a past life it was probably a cat. maybe a cat of an 80s gay. i can only hope

#my bucket list.....see rn i’d like to see love simon. i’d like to finish this worthless bad fic thats only valuable for how long ive been #working on it....you’d think i’dve thrown it out but i didnt. just like to finish that up at least #but even the things i’d halfheartedly kinda like to do.....eh i dont really care that much #you cant care all that much when you know its not gonna happen to you yanno #long post //

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conflictedrabbit · 7 years

Text

2* the AvPD

Conversation w/ my friend I mentioned earlier. With their name / identifying characteristics edited out and some chopping here and there.

___:

I made a post abt avod once tho and it got like A few rbs and I thought "if this isn't irony idk what is" Trje

66ccff: ekjal;kdjd;

___:

me: why do, so many avoidants want to pay for being alive avpd Tumblr: hm . I relate

66ccff: ekleja;ejdl;k

___: me: I'm glad to know people relate but are we fucking ok

66ccff:

LOL i mean mood tbh

___: HINESTLT like I noticed i do it cuz of you NFBNSBDKSBDKSS

66ccff: though do you mean pay as in like. pay the medical system or pay as in guilt

___: Guilt

66ccff:

kejk;ldj;L yes ok that is definitely me me: i breathed 5 gallons of air within 3 hours i am so sorry world

___:

me: [realizes it's not entirely religious trauma and also probably just Guilt over taking up space and needing to help ppl otherwise Why Live?}

Oh god me

66ccff: (this is not even ironic i get like this multiple times a week)

___:

hdjhdjsd I've been having a bad ep lately actually and like I think I failed to look 5-6 people in the eyes today CUZ IM JUST [WALKS AROHND] WOW . TERRIBLE

66ccff:

omg it's ok i nearly cried in class today b/c i didn't have a good eng translation for this jp sentence

i was like.... no.... don't....

i stabilized cuz the teacher went on a tangent for a second but like forcing myself to look in his eyes and act normal was so hard i looked away so many times i wa slike. oog my god. end m i love it when walking around where there's other people makes me really nervous and irritable agoraphobia is great!

___:

GOD yea It's so awkward for me I'm fine if I have a safe person or I'm walking to class but like

66ccff: i came back from class today and took a 6 hr nap cuz of my shame and agoraphobia

___:

Rip Wish I could do that...

66ccff: well i haven't done my homework so

___:

I just. Cry a lot NDKSJDJDNSKDNS rip me: I'm strong Me: spent the last 5 days like crying over nothing

66ccff:

dkjle;ajd i mean... i used to cry but then i got mad at myself for crying so now i just Repress (tm) and sleep and then. the joke is that sometimes it doesn't work self harms... oops... that didn't work either better nap again

___:

zz Pillows keep u safe Idk what I've been doing lately but I thought I was getting better til I realized I was like Abstaining from feeding myself BFBJSBFSJJFD

66ccff: o h my god

___:

And I was like "oh fuck I'm a terrible person bc someone told me I should eat and j Didn't Do It I Failed Them"

66ccff:

ahahahahaahahaha i thought i was getting better too but it was actually because i was just forcing myself to study to give myself an illusion of doing my part and then i went to school and my actual performance is like bad b/c i avoid so many activities that would make me better and i just

___: samd

66ccff:

Wow i want to die!

___:

hdjsjdjs

I think I only managed to eat cuz my brother was expecting me to

66ccff: tavpdfw you want to be punished constantly so you don't have to have anxiety about existing

___:

Cuz he bought me dinner like 6 hours ago but I didn't touch it til now BFJDJD MEEEEE

66ccff: dkja;eljd;

___:

GOD me: ah I feel good today Me like 3 hours later: oh my God I shouldn't feel good abt myself that's so Selfish ? I am trash

66ccff: oh Mood

___: Avpd solidarity

66ccff:

honestly i love my environmental soicology class but liek it talks about how we're all consuming and putting things back into the environment

___: Idk how I manage to have avpd and __pd but that's how it is on ths bitch of an earth

66ccff: and i was literally contemplating if death was the only way to take myself out from the cycle

___:

Me Bhhjsfjd

66ccff:

i was like holy shit. it's not just consumption i forgot i also put bad gases into the air with everything i breathe i am Bad

___:

All day today I was hearing abt what happened in Vegas and we were like. Talking in my apologetics class abt the Nature of Evil

66ccff: the true environmentalist take is death

___: And I was just thinking "why must I, exist if all I am is bad"

66ccff:

oh my god same! i looked over my abt page and i was like this looks fake tumblerina

___:

apologetics: so mankind is basically evil Me: great! I'll die so there's less evil in the world

66ccff:

me ME

MEMEMMEMEMEMMEMEMEMEME

___: HHDHSBDJSHD

66ccff:

sometimes i have fantasies of like going backwards and apologizing to everyone i've ever talked to and to everyone who ever had to work to produce what i've consumed

___:

M. E

66ccff:

and then hoping that they forget about me and then like disappearing forever i jsut can't see how some people can be like oh yeah factories in china and mexico earn less than 2 dollars an hour to make our stuff and not jus twant to kill themselves

___:

I'm just pathetic and compulsive if I feel bad about stuff I apologize til like 2 weeks after God. Yea

66ccff:

the joke is that people hate if you overapologize so you jsut damned if you do damned if you dont :upside_down:

___:

me: uh sorry for being sad People: don't apologize for that Me: Avpd:. They are mad that I am apologizing also that I am sad Hhhfjjejd

Me:

ME WKJD;LKD "can you stop saying sorry" "sorry"

___:

me: oh God I'm so miserable Someone: oh im sorry Me: I wish I could accept this but Pity is too much for a lowly worm like me

66ccff: "what did i just say"

___: MMSNDNBHHHHHHGGGGG

66ccff:

:smile: :gun:

MOOD

___: avpd feel when you don't deserve to be pitied ?

66ccff: pity is too much kindness ___:

God yea

LIKE probably just a conflicted feel but I prefer ppl being active than pitying me but then I'm like

"that's selfish I don't deserve that ?"

66ccff:

someone tells you to watch where you're going feel like you're unable to go outside for the rest of the day

___:

m. mebdbdhdhdjs

66ccff: oh yeah the joke is that i want people to like. be kind to me but also i don't

___: hell brain

66ccff: so i can't say what i want

___: GGG YEAH

66ccff:

be kind to me except don't because i'll feel invalid either way so maybe just don't talk to me >feels worse anyway

___:

Hhhhhhhhhhh me Me: talk to me ? But I don't know what to talk abt ? But I am also not good enough for pity you could just sit there maybe But then the presence of another person will overwhlem me and I'll go cry again/s

66ccff: feel free to entertain yourself, and forget about me, ___:

Mebdndmdkskdjsja god [looks at all cluster c disorders] you are all bitches and I hate tou

66ccff:

tavpdfw u gotta depersonalize to make it through the day of talking to other people and acting like ur a normal human bean MOOD

___: GOD yea

66ccff:

i have a question though if im depersonalizing why do i still feel terrible even if i feel ilke im fake smh

___: God me

66ccff:

me: i'm not real so heres me acting like i am chill and cool person that is interesting maybe or maybe not me, inside: this sucks and i hate this but im not real so it shouldnt affect me but damn i hate this when u feel separate from your auto-pilot but you still experience all the shame you would without it :thinking: avpd is stupid and contradictory and evolutionarily useless

___:

__pd isnkind of the same but like if you manage it well you can get stuff done but you still breakdown over the TINIEST DETAIL I hate it And I waste more time thinking abt what I'm gonna do and not actully DOING MT SHIT

66ccff: cripes

___: LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

66ccff:

me in high school UGH i'm ahving that problem right now dude in high school i used to just waste my days reading manga and thnking i should do my homeworka

___:

me: I'll spend this hour scheduling [2hours later] Me: [stressed nbdjdjjsjdjsjdks

66ccff: and then i'd like. start at 10pm and fuck myself over ___: rip 66ccff: have a crying session at 4am every time an essay is due the next day ___: I actually didn't do one of my assignments tonight 66ccff: bad coping habits ___: Rip me I got discouraged over something lame JFJSNFKSNFD 66ccff: oh mood

___:

relationship issues: occur Me: well, I can't, do anything ever again

66ccff:

i shouldn't even be discouraged abt my classes bc i'm here to learn and i'm just like. i know nothing i deserve to die kejd;kakejd friend, disagrees with you on something you feel unsure about: WELL I GUESS I AM BAD AND THEY HATE ME NOW time to ghost them

___:

me: [perceives someone not caring for me] me: and Now...what is Mine Purpose...what do I live for...my Friends....have all abandoned m MEEEEEE avpd sounds super dramatic when you separate it from yourself but like In the moment I'm always just [jdut starts Fucking Crying

66ccff:

i just want to manage to some kind of social work, give my wealth to some impoverished family, and then kms before 30

yeah my therapists in the past are like why... so soon

___: Jfjdjfjdf 66ccff: and i'm just like "why not i need to minimize all my ills on the world and also on the emotions of my family" ___: That reminds me of like. One of my mutuals talking abt how early he sleeps and he was just 66ccff: this is the optimal time look my life plan

___:

"why be awake longer than necessary"

Hdhdhfjsjfdjdjdband. I was just . Me

66ccff:

because you hate yourself too much sleep :^)

___:

God yea That's true. Me rn

I should've been asleep like an hour ago but [plays secret of Mana and then mopes]

66ccff:

dude i used to have bouts of insomnia b4 i got drugs that knock me out (and help me w/ anxiety) like.... i would lay awake and every second of being awake was just making the situation worse

___: I feel like I should get meds to balance out my bipolar eps but

66ccff: but then i couldn't sleep anyway so it was a damned situation ___: my parents r so anti meds 66ccff: rrghbh

___:

also like Internalized ableism That I don't Needthem and So Many people don't need them

66ccff: oh yeah, why do my essay when i can read an hour of garbage romo manga and feel slightly less bad during that time and then hate myself more

___:

So I Can do it cuz I'm like Everyone Else and not like Those "crazy" people Rifp

66ccff:

man i don't wanna encourage meds if your side effects r bad but honestly how did i get the fuck through high school other than triggering intense anxiety about all assignments

like... i was so nonfunctional i shouldn't have even been in school

.....

66ccff:

all accessibility problems are solvable humans are so bad

___: caring ? About others ? What a concept 66ccff: except sometimes they are good but that is definitely not me

___:

Ok I try to overcompensate w good to make up for inherent badness THANKS RELIGION

66ccff:

the US is like: here's a pricetag for your life pay up

___: AAAA

66ccff:

yeah i can see how christainity wouldn't help there w/ the "original sin" and stuff that doesn't quite exist in other abrahamic religions iirc judaism doesn't even have hell

___: it's really weird

66ccff:

i'm guessing its bc of jesus like.... y'all binches killed him so now this is life - christainity

___:

Like. Christianity makes the most sense to me probably cuz I grew up w it but fuck Man

66ccff: o yeah i grew up w/ some christianity too ___: It's FUCKED!!!!!! 66ccff: i actually have agoraphobia issues w/ going inside of churches ___: Oh same 66ccff: :^) ___: I'm actually fairly anti-church just because the current state of them is very bsd 66ccff: oh yeah

....

66ccff:

how can someone like me, who is literally not deserving of life, raise someone else

scrumbles

___:

Me Hdjehdsk

66ccff: ___ we are so fucked ___:

It's true Life is fucked We, are fucked

66ccff: existence is violence

#1-#2-#3-#4-#5-#a bloo bloo bloob #avpd #ok done editing tumblr posted it b4 i was ready but yea

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itsiotrecords-blog · 7 years

Link

http://ift.tt/2rLYp4e

Malaysia could be on your list of adventurous traveling destinations for so many reasons. They are known for their beaches and rainforests with a rich heritage culture, loads of activities, and sites to see. As for activities, they have big caves and old temples to visit, some of which are pretty whacky and scary. Malaysia also has lots of exotic foods to try. Malaysians believe that if you visit their country, you will instantly fall in love with it. According to the website Malaysia.travel, “To know Malaysia is to love Malaysia.” Their slogan “Malaysia, truly Asia” proves that in the country one can discover a convergence of different races—Indians, Malays, Chinese, and many other—that altogether live peacefully and harmoniously. With the diversity of cultures that thrive in Malaysia, it should come as no surprise that it is home to hundreds of colorful festivals. Because of this, Malaysians naturally love to socialize and celebrate. If you’ve never been to Malaysia before or even if you have already visited it, you might want to consider reading this list of 15 disturbing facts Malaysians don’t want you know about their country. The list includes some pretty weird things, including strange superstitions, icky eating habits (just a warning, worms are involved), and growing and building the largest things on Earth.

#1 They Have The Grossest Infestation Of Cockroaches Thriving in one of the caves of Malaysia, Gomantong Cave in Sabah, are cockroaches in abundance. In fact, the worst infestation in the world. They are all there fighting for food from bat droppings and thriving from the wet environment. Remind me never to visit this large cave in my life. What sounds worse than bat droppings from the ceiling and cockroaches swarming at your feet? It gets worse. Not only do they have the worst infestation of cockroaches in the world! They have a problem with large snakes too. Drum roll, please! King Cobras. Yes, you guessed it right. The largest venomous snake in the world is found in Malaysia. The longest King Cobra was found at Port Dickson in 1937. It was so huge that they captured it and took it to a zoo in London where it grew to 5. 71 meters.

#2 Practice Of Needles Under The Skin! Here is a practice that you do not want to try! Shamans practice cosmetic sorcery by poking gold, silver, or precious metals underneath their skin. This practice developed from the pre-Islamization era of Malaysia and Indonesia. This is meant to make the Shaman who partakes in this practice of poking himself with needles never die. This practice is also meant to prevent his spouse from cheating on him. It’s also believed to heal his ailments and infections in the body and bring everlasting youth and beauty. Very strong claims for a simple weird practice of poking yourself.

#3 Crazy Flying Records You might not have heard much about Malaysia and its accomplishments, but this one was quite the real deal. Dr. Shikh Muszaphar Shukor is an astronaut from Malaysia. He was practicing Ramadan when he was meant to fly to space. He didn’t let this deter him. In fact, he actually became the first Muslim astronaut to practice Ramadan while in space. Think that’s crazy? They also had the youngest pilot fly around the world by himself. Captain James Anthony Tan was only twenty-one years old when he chose to fly around the world all by himself in 2013. He flew a thirty-year-old Cessna 210 Eagle aircraft for twenty-two miles around twenty-one countries in fifty days! Talk about guts, I would be too scared to fly a plane full stop.

#4 Weird Superstitions Old beliefs do not die easily. For instance, Malaysians are still afraid of the number four. If you go to Malaysia, you will find that in lifts and on unit floors the number four doesn’t exist. They usually replace this with 3A. This apparently comes from the old superstition that the number four sounds similar in phonetics to the word death. On the other hand, they see the number eight with a lot of favor, mostly because the Cantonese pronunciation sounds like ‘batt’ sounds similar to ‘faat’ which refers to wealth and prosperity. So impressed are they with this number that you’ll often see men driving around with the number eight prominently on their number plates. They have many superstitions. Apparently, according to ancient belief, if a cat jumps over a coffin with a dead person inside before the coffin is buried, the man will come back to life! This doesn’t sound like a very hard feat to bring someone’s life back. I wonder why they don’t try to have more cats jump over coffins, like a regular ritual at burial services.

#5 They Grow Some Of The Biggest Things In The World Though not a very large country, Malaysia grows some of the most gigantic things in the world. Found naturally in Malaysia is the biggest flower in the whole world known as the Rafflesia. They also have the biggest undivided leaf, the Alocasia Macrorrhiza from Tawau, in Sabah. They have the largest cave chamber in existence, known as the Sarawak Chamber at Gunung Mulu National Park. The cave chamber covers an area of 1.66 million square feet! This was discovered in January 1981 by three British cavers during their Mulu eighty expedition. You certainly wouldn’t want to get lost in there. Apart from that, they also have the largest insect in the world—a stick bug. Named as Chan’s Megastick, the stick bug measures up to 56.6 centimeters. The bug was discovered in 1989 by a naturalist, Datuk Chan Chew Lun, in Sabah. After having read about all of these massive things, I’m sure you couldn’t decide whether to consider this cool or freaky. It makes one wonder why almost everything grows gigantic in Malaysia?

#6 They Have An Old Custom Involving Babies And Worms Malaysia is known as a place of rich heritage and culture. Some of their cultural traditions are a bit stranger than you would imagine. For instance, traditionally in Iban communities in Malaysia, babies and young children are referred to as ‘ulat’ until they are given a name of their own. The word ‘ulat’ actually means worm! Somehow, this is meant to be given in an affectionate way. The idea of having a generic nickname until an official name is decided on was actually common for many traditional cultures. The use of the nickname worm is rather odd, though. If it was a bit of a cooler nickname like ‘precious’ or ‘cool kid’, then I wouldn’t mind adopting a tradition like this. I think it’s much better than everybody referring to the baby as an ‘it’ for the first few days or weeks (some people take an awfully long time to decide on their baby’s name).

#7 They Make The Biggest Things Ever worried about getting lost on a long endless road? Well that fear might actually come true if you stay in Malaysia. They have made the longest highways in the world. In fact, the total length of their highways is 40,934 miles. That’s more than the circumference of the earth at 24,901 miles! The plan was to make it easier to get around, but making roads longer than the entire earth is just plain freaky. As if the 40,934-mile highway wasn’t enough, they also designed the biggest roundabout in existence, the Persiaran Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah in Putrajaya. It’s not just me that gets lost reading these really long names, is it? Its diameter is 2.7 miles (3.5 km). In 2015, they won a Guinness World Record for the largest hotel in the world known as Genting’s First World Hotel. It has three stars and has 7,351 rooms. This sounds like a place worth staying, doesn’t it?

#8 First To Try This Crazy New Medical Procedure You probably wouldn’t guess it but the first arm and hand transplant was actually performed in Malaysia on a little girl. Up until this moment, only hand transplants are done. This procedure took place with Dr. V. Pathmanathan in charge of the team. They operated on 18 May 2000 at Selayang Hospital on a baby girl only one month after she was born. Her name was Chong Lih Ying. Her new arm and hand was actually from her identical twin sister who died at birth from severe brain damage. Only five months later, she was already waving both of her hands and cuddling her teddies. The surgeon responsible believed that the surgery would be successful only because they had used the identical twin’s limb so this means they have similar cells and come from the same blood group. I guess there’s always a silver lining in the dark cloud.

#9 Boats Capsizing They have boats capsizing. According to a post from news.com.au in January 2017, “A boat ferrying 40 people from Indonesia has capsized off Malaysia’s coast, killing at least nine people and leaving nearly 30 were missing. . .The agency said a combination of overloading and bad weather and heavy seas were believed to have caused the accident.” Apparently, this incident was not the only occurrence of boats capsizing. A number of similar accidents have occurred along the waterways of Indonesia and Malaysia. More often than not, these accidents are caused by overloading of ferryboats carrying laborers who seek for work in Malaysian plantations and factories. According to a news article, in November 2016, “more than half of the 101 passengers aboard a boat died after it hit a reef and sank off the Indonesian island of Batam, south of Singapore. Four months earlier, a boat sank while en-route to Batam. Malaysian authorities recovered eight bodies and rescued 34 people.”

#10 They Don’t Take Jokes Lightly If you’re planning to go on a vacation in Malaysia and see all the terrific and great sites of the land, always bear in mind that their law system is rather very strict. And if you’re caught being very silly, you might just end up in jail. In October 2016, according to 9news, nine Australian men were put in prison for stripping down to colorful Speedo trunks in the design of the Malaysian flag. As if that wasn’t enough, they drank beer out of their shoes and sang in a public place during celebrations at the Grand Prix. While the crowd found them the pinnacle of amusement and joy, many cheering on and taking selfies with them, the authorities put them directly in prison. Authorities said that they would receive their sentence with a possibility of getting out easily by simply paying a fine. However, there’s still a greater possibility of being sentenced up to two years of prison “with intentional insult to breach the peace.”

#11 Malaysian Delicacy Will Make You Want To Vomit Okay so when I read this strange fact, I actually had to stop myself from gagging. In East Malaysia, they have a delicacy that you never want to try. Although they are said to have a creamy consistency and not taste half as bad as they sound, would you still want to go all the way to the country and eat these rather stout and “juicy” worms? Probably not! Mostly eaten as a treat in Sabah and Sarawak’s native tribes are the larvae of sago worms. Thankfully, this has mostly been phased out in modern menus around the country, though you can still find them stir-fried, roasted, or simply raw at weekly markets and at tourist attractions! Why tourist attractions? Leave it for the old tribes please. But yes, you can find them at tourist attractions like Monsopiad Cultural Village where they’re served to the tourists as part of their program. Maybe this is why they name their babies after worms. This is the absolute most appealing picture I could find. Just try Googling larvae sago worms and imagine eating them raw. Bon Appetit!

#12 They Have Fruit That Stinks The Durian fruit, a real charm in Malaysia. These were banned from traveling on the Singapore Mass Transit because of their intense odor even when still unopened. You either love the fruit or you hate it. And for most, it’s a hate relationship. Though in Malaysia, most people love this fruit and some even love the smell. When they are in season, they have durian fruit buffets that people flock to to eat as many durians as they want. A Malaysian source still suggested bringing mouthwash along. According to food writer Richard Sterling, “Its odor is best described as pig-sh*t, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.” Anthony Bourdain calls it “indescribable, something you will either love or despise. … Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” Judging from what I’m hearing, I’d rather give this fruit a miss.

#13 Cat Museum In A City Named After Cats Open from 9am to 5pm every day, this is a cat lover’s dream coming true. Some visitors have complained online that it’s rather overpriced for a dingy rundown place with not so much to see. Though according to their website, they only charge for photos and filming (perhaps these charges are outrageous?). According to Sarawaktourism.com, “The World’s first Cat Museum, devoted to all things feline, is in Petra Jaya in the Kuching City North City Hall. Cat lovers will find a range of exhibits, photos, feline art and cat souvenirs; over 4,000 of them. The museum is housed on the ground on the City Hall Building, spread over four galleries covering a total area of 1,035 sq meter.” The cat is said to be a good luck charm, so I guess they decided to make a museum of 4000 things of good luck! Personally I would much rather visit a couple of cute little kittens at a pet shop or a cat café than go through 1,035 square meters of souvenirs and paintings of old cats.

#14 Venomous Snake Temple If you weren’t freaked out enough to hear that Malaysia had the largest snakes on record, then maybe the fact that they actually have a venomous snake temple for tourists to visit will make you a little…okay maybe not so little…uneasy. The Penanag Snake Temple is said to house venomous pit vipers and green tree snakes. Upon entering the temple, one can see a big incense burner filling the main prayer hall with smoke. The smoke emitted by these incense burners tranquilizes the serpents and makes them appear motionless or even asleep. Additionally, at the start of the temple, there are tanks that hold pythons and cobras. This is meant to be the best spot to get a photo. This temple is one of the most popular tourist attractions and there’s only a small fee to visit. Someone would have to pay me more than a large fee to get me to even consider visiting that temple.

#15 Mosquito Virus “Zika” According to an article from new.com.au in September 2016, Malaysia is on high alert for the Zika virus. Catching a virus from a mosquito is alarming as they are so small and unassuming. Sure they usually annoy you with their itchy bites, but how do you even avoid them when they’re flying around. If you’re traveling to Malaysia, make sure to bring a load of mosquito repellents. Actually, Malaysia put up a poster at Kuala Lumpur International Airport warning people and advising tourists to be extremely careful by being fully covered in clothing with long sleeves and pants. They’ve also advised tourists to avoid having unprotected sex when they return home for eight weeks. Zika virus is caused by mosquitoes and can leave you with an awful fever.

Source: TheRichest

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