April 29th, 2008
Just finished day two of the training I am giving on the Web Mapping Software that our company added for the project. The training, in my opinion is going well, although I wouldn't know that as the people attending the training sit quietly and watch when they have missed what I had done in the previous step. After two days I've almost become a mind reader and master of observation to figure out when he people are not really paying attention or are completely lost.
The thing that I'm finding most disturbing/hard regarding Asian culture is that when I am talking and giving my presentation as part of the training I can always hear one person somewhere in the room talking to someone else. I'm going to assume that what they are saying is related to the course, but they're speaking Malay so I'm unsure as to the exact content of their discussion.
I am having lots of fun with the training though, the training room that the company here in Brunei setup has an Interactive Smartboard. This means I can jump around the room and click the pen on the board to show people exactly where to click. I'm actually thinking they're having a hard time seeing the board.
I handed in my expenses today to the company who is sponsoring my visit. Staying here for 2 weeks: this includes, room & board, meals, chauffeured driving service (Tommy), and full maid services for a grand total of $500 (Brunei). I spent 4 days in Halifax and the hotel alone cost me $900 Canadian. For a state of reference $500 in Brunei converts to $372 Canadian.
But thats the way things are here, everything is cheap. There is a place we go to breakfast just past work, and for 3 people to eat we get change back from $10 BND (Brunei Dollars). I managed to find, on Sunday, a jersey for an English football club for $20 BND, I bought my other jersey in Toronto a few years back, on sale, for $100 CDN.
When I leave here on Thursday, I'm actually going to miss it. I enjoy the people that I work with and the people who are hosting me (though Asian morales I could do without). Its going to be different going back to Canada, having to cook, having to drive and having to pay full price for everything.
The strangest thing that I found was this: nowhere, I repeat, nowhere in this country can you find a non-pirated movie or DVD. Everything in this country is pirated. You can buy a brand new movie for $5, one of the people that I work with bought Pirates of the Caribbean 3 for $1.50, we're still paying over $22 for it in Canada.
After work sat around outside with a few of the guys and had a beer or two. Listening to their stories slip in and out of English is highly entertaining. They're talking about trying to bring me out to see the night life in Brunei, which consists of illegal pubs and illegal karaoke which are both surrounded by Asian “back workers” (my way of saying prostitute).
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