Malaysia Postcard 3.1 – No Hanky Panky Penang.

Penang, Malaysia – So I’m here at the Asian Mycological Congress that is being held at the posh Park Royal Hotel. It’s good to be back in Malaysia. This signifies an end to what was a pretty challenging semester. To be honest, I can’t think of a better way to end it than on a beachside tropical resort, socializing with friends, both personal and professional, new and old, foreign and familiar.

This is my first trip to Penang and I’m glad I made it. My friend Cathy wasn’t so lucky. She was waylaid by storms in New York, ended up missing her flight out of Hong Kong and had to stay an extra 24hrs. I guess it wasn’t too bad since her airline fed her well and put her up in a hotel.

I had my own bumps in the road to get here. I flew out of Boston on a Thursday morning and went through Long Beach on my way to Oakland. Jet Blue however decided to ship my luggage from Long Beach to Salt Lake City. I arrived in OAK at around 3PM and my flight for Kuala Lumpur was going to leave out of San Francisco a little after midnight. I was slightly concerned about not getting my luggage. They ended up sending it back to Long Beach from SLC, then to Oakland. They told me they would then deliver it to SFO and I could pick it up there. In the meantime, I decided it might be prudent to try and get my seat for the flight before my luggage arrived. I figured once I got the seat reserved, I could then check in my luggage as soon as it arrived. Anyway, when I got to the counter, the China airlines attendant asked for my luggage ticket from JetBlue. Not thinking about needing it (which was dumb of me) I threw it away with the used ticket stub. She said all she needed was the number. Why? I’m still not sure, but hoping to get my seat, I figured I could get that luggage ID number from the person delivering it. I had the persons number, so while at the ticket counter, I dialed it. As soon as it started ringing, call waiting kicked in. It was the woman delivering my luggage. At that moment, she walked into the SFO international terminal, and wheeled my luggage up to the China Airlines ticket counter. Pretty wild eh? I’m soo lucky! I think there’s a pattern forming here. There’s been some crazy travel mishap occurring on each one of my Malaysian trips. I’m taking it as a good omen, cause the other trips were stellar!

And so far, this trip as gone pretty well. Although I’m not nearly as prepared as I was on previous trips. I hadn’t had the time to think through the packing too well, so I have many useless items as well as items I’ve been missing, but all I really need is food, sleep and a toothbrush and I think I’ll pull through. There was also this ominous message scraweled out in the cement down the street from the conference. I’m still trying to figure out it’s meaning. I doubt it was meant for me though. I’ll just keep telling myself that.

The layout of the conference has been pretty good. Some of the ceremonial stuff has been a bit disorganized. Some of the conference attendees have been a bit rude, talking during speeches and presentations. I had to shush some gentlemen in the back row of one of the talks. At least they got the hint. Besides these quirks, the symposiums have been going well. My talk was well received, but was more of an strait up evolution talk in a session geared towards phylogenies and taxonomy. Regardless, I feel I've gained a lot from my interactions with people here. I finally got to meet Roy Watling. Great guy! What a character, and a great legacy of mycological work in Asia, especially with mycorrhizal fungi. He’s been helpful in terms of giving me ideas for projects. One big proposal that has been on my mind is a fellowship with the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian wants individuals to work on New World ecosystems and organisms, but they’re open to proposals from other countries. I’m strongly considering a proposal that juxtaposes New World and Asian tropical/sub-tropical Calostoma communities with Fagales. Since Malaysia/SE Asia is the epicenter of Fagales diversity, it seems like it would be rich topic for studying questions regarding co-evolution, biogeography and biodiversity. Right now the project seems a bit broad in its scope and I’ll most likely have to narrow it down for a 3-year proposal. Conferences like the one I’m at are ideal for networking. I’ve already discussed this with a number of people who seem willing to help out and have pointed me in directions that could potentially work well. Also, I’ve re-engaged the notion of working with Chuck Cannon in Xixuangbanna China, since he’s the guy who knows Fagales in this part of the world.

They’re feeding us like crazy! Great huge lunch buffets, nice coffee breaks with snacks. Last night was the conference banquet. They gave us a 7 course meal consisting of soup, seafood, satay... etc. There was a Wayang Kulit (shadow puppet) performance that was awesome. We had a lousy table (cause we were fashionably late), but if you moved to where you could see and hear you would have learned how Isaac Newton stole the theory of gravity from a Malaysian scientist. Of course the story was told jokingly. There were humorous (and corny) lines like the one after the apple (in this case durian) fell on Newton’s head, “An apple a day doesn’t always keep the doctor away.” Lots of dry British humor delivered with a Malaysian flair... Brilliant! Perhaps the accent made it funnier? The rest of the evening’s entertainment continued with traditional dances from different Malaysian cultures. Eileen was thrilled that they had a group doing some Bollywood themed performance. They went over the top though with a cheezy theme song for Malaysia’s 50th year of autonomy from British rule. The chorus is something like “Malaysia, Truly Asia”... eeek! Anyway, I used my new digital Cannon to take some film clips of the evenings entertainment. Perhaps I’ll put them on YouTube. If I do, I’ll let you know.

Another cool aspect of the conference is that they commissioned some batik artists to create some original artwork for the conference. It’s fun to watch them work. I never realized that the technique is so simple because the artwork can be sooooo beautiful. Check out some of the guys at work!

I ended up staying at a guesthouse around the corner from the resort. Instead of paying the $100 plus a night for a room, I’m splitting a room with Ryan Kepler from OSU and paying something around $20/night. The place was actually pretty nice and comfortable. However, it was slightly spoiled by the fact that the drainage pipe to the toilet developed a leak and was seeping sewage onto our bathroom floor. The smell was pretty gross. It took a little while to detect the cause of the smell because the bathroom floor also serves as the floor of the shower and has a drain in it. We didn’t recognize the brownish hue to the liquid on the floor until the second day... pretty ewwe eh?

Anyway, the conference has kept me busy and I haven’t had time to enjoy the resort and beach as much as I’d like, but I’ve still had an awesome time. Now that I know my way around a little, It would be nice to come back and experience it for real. Next I’m back in KL for a few days with Brian and Eileen before Brian, Cathy and I head off to Borneo for some collecting. More on that in the upcoming weeks.

Hope life is well with you and you’re all behaving accordingly.
Luvnstuff
Andy...