Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Some Interesting Folks

    Today at MACEE, there was an orientation for the outgoing Malaysian Fulbrighters who will be leaving for the US shortly.  So TP came to work with me,  and he and the other current American Fulbrighters gave some advice to the Malaysians.  It was pretty fun actually, we got to meet some of the people and talk to them about what they study and where they are going.

    Many of the Fulbrighters are part of the "scholars" program, meaning that they already have PhDs and academic careers here and wish to go do some short term research in the States.  Education seems to be the real hot topic here. There is one woman going to Penn who studies sociolinguistics and how English is taught here as opposed to other countries.  We met another woman who works on multicultural education and will be a Stanford this fall.  She says she is struggling to make sense of the system here, and can’t stand the division along ethnic lines that she sees in universities in Malaysia. After ranting for a few minutes, she let slip that she got her PhD at Michigan State, and suddenly her ranting made a lot more sense to us.  We also met a couple who both got grants to Ohio State, he for geography and she for mathematics education.  They are bringing their 5 children along, and from the sound of it, the kids’ biggest worry is if they will be allowed to eat school lunches when they go to school in the States.  Seems like a funny thing to worry about to us, but I guess they haven’t heard that school food is usually not so good!  The mother went on and on (with us agreeing) about how it sucks that politicians, not educators, make up policies for education.  She said she thought it was a bit better in the states, but we had to tell her that it’s the same- things might not be "outlawed", but you sure won’t get funding if you’re not teaching the right types of things.  The funny thing was that as she was leaving, she was going to get a ride from another scholar who works for the Department of Education.  We thought it was amusing that she was buddy-buddy with him after complaining about the higher-ups two minutes before.

    We also learned an interesting fact about the Fulbright program.  The first country to set up a Fulbright exchange program with the US was Burma.  We were both surprised at that fact, and that this was the first time we had heard it.  One of the US Embassy staff who has worked closely with MACEE and Fulbrighters he told us- he is actually departing for Burma to become the second-in-command there shortly, and is hoping to restart the now discontinued program there again.  Also, we learned that the money to fund the scholarships originally came from the sale of leftover WWII ships and planes.  The idea was to use the money to promote understanding between nations so that another world war would never happen.  I think that’s probably the coolest use of money I’ve heard about in a long time.

  • Royalty and Peerages

    One of the most confusing parts of doing research on politics in Malaysia is getting titles correct.  It many ways the system parallels that of Britain, but in many ways it is quite different.  It must be said that we do not understand the system of peerages and hereditary rulership in Britain either, so Malaysia is not alone in being confusing.  However, titles are still all the rage here, and a surprising number of people have a title of some sort.

    Hereditary titles are confusing enough.  Malaysia is (on paper) a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the head of state is the King.  However, Malaysia is unique in its kingship.  The King of Malaysia–known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, or "he who is most highly raised"–is elected from among the 9 hereditary rulers of the Peninsular Malaysian states for a revolving five-year term.  That means that the King is not the king until he dies, just until one of his peers replaces him. 

    That brings us to state-level hereditary Rulers.  There are 13 states in Malaysia.  The two Bornean states, Sabah and Sarawak, do not have a hereditary Ruler.  Two of the formerly-British Straits Settlements, Malacca and Penang, also do not have a hereditary Ruler.  In each of these four states, there is a "head of state" for the state known as the Yang di-Pertuan Negeri, or "he who is raised in the state."  (The other former British Strait Settlement is Singapore.  These three settlements were administered differently under the British.)  Seven of the remaining states have a Sultan (Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, Selangor, and Terengganu).  One state has a Raja (Perlis) and the last one has a Yang di-Pertuan Besar (Negri Sembilan).  The nine hereditary Rulers of states are the folks who rotate in and out of the office of King.  Each Ruler has a family, and all of them have titles.  These are too confusing to get into here.

    Then there is the Malaysian equivalent of the peerage.  You get a peerage for, ostensibly, contributing to the development of a state or of the country.  Hence, there are two classes of peerage.  One kind you receive from a Ruler, and the other kind that you receive from the King, whoever that may be at the time.  Both men and women can receive a peerage, but if you are a woman who is married to a man who gets a peerage, you get a different name that signifies that you are married to a peer.  What’s more, in both the Ruler class and the King class of peerage, there is an upper and a lower level.  You can get many peerages, and many people have a couple Ruler-level peerages or a couple Ruler-level peerages and a King-level peerage.  In your name, you normally only list your highest level peerage, although some people list both their highest King-level and their highest State-level peerage.

    OK, from a Ruler, the lowest level is Dato’.  Some Rulers spell this Datuk.  The wife of a Dato’ is a Datin, no matter how her husband’s name is spelled.  If the Ruler wishes to really honor you, he can make you a Dato’ Seri or a Dato’ Paduka.  (Again, there are many spellings.)  The wife of a Dato’ Seri is Datin Seri.  There is no limit to the number of titles that a Ruler may grant.

    From the king, the lower level is Tan Sri.  The wife of a Tan Sri is called Puan or Puan Sri.  The very highest level is Tun, whose wife carries the title Toh Puan.  Adding to the confusion of titles, there is also a federal-level Datuk title, below the level of Tan Sri.  In theory, there are fixed numbers of each of these titles.

    The benefit of having a title, besides the fact that a title makes you sound important, is that some people believe they help out of things like parking tickets and airplane overbookings.  Given the sheer number of Dato’, these is probably not really true at the lowest level, but a Tan Sri and certainly a Tun would never deign to wait in line anywhere.