Glenda Larke

Now I know a lot of people, including Malaysians, are going to look at that title and wonder what the hell I am going on about now. But there will also be a lot of people out there – from all corners of the world – who will instantly know the name Dennis Yong. He is, in his field, famous. Dennis is the consumate birdwatcher and knows more about Malaysian birds than any person alive. He is one half of a bird guiding tour company located in Kuala Lumpur (Kingfisher Tours), but he is much more than that – he is an environmentalist and the best field naturalist we have. He can tell you about everything from bears to ants to freshwater fish (another passion of his).

Going out into the rainforest with Dennis is always a fascinating learning experience. And I am always reluctant to turn in for the night on a camping trip if Dennis is there – the sitting around and yarning after a day’s work is all part of that learning. When it comes to birding and understanding the ecology of the rainforest and other tropical habitats, he has been my mentor.

And it’s been such a fun ride at the same time. I have so many memories:
Dennis spending the night in the car with two unwashed local forest guides when sun bears raided the camp kitchen; Dennis showing me my first pitta, way back when, by calling the bird in; me pulling a huge thorn out of his scalp after a peat swamp foray; us discussing whether we could really put a bottle of french wine on the expensive account when we were working for one of the world’s most exclusive (and expensive) island getaways; us getting eaten alive by sandflies one night down on that mangrove project; Dennis driving a fourwheel drive across a bridge that was more holes than boards – while I got out and walked…

So what is his Big Bird Year all about?

Malaysia has 742 birds on its national list (of which Dennis was one of the compilers.) And in 2006, he is going to try and see them all. Well, as many as possible. Why?

Well, it’s a bit like climbers and the mountains: because they are there. But it’s more than that too; it’s publicity for our avifauna and ecotourism – and how they are worthy of conservation effort. It’s a way of finding out just how easy or difficult it is to see Malaysian birds. It will provide a benchmark for the state of birds in the country. (See here for further details and updates.)

And I wish – like Tory Petersen and James Fisher back in the 1950s – he’d write a book about his Big Bird Year afterwards, but knowing Dennis and his dislike of tying himself down to a desk to do anything as prosaic as writing, I doubt it.

Good luck, Dennis. And I hope we meet up out there in the field this year as you bird you way towards 742…

Photos: Dennis and self in the field, taken by Lim Kim Chye

We all know that feeling. You start reading a book, even perhaps a best seller, and after a few pages you think to yourself, ‘How on earth did this ever get into print? I could do better!’

When you’re unpublished, it seems unfair that someone who peppers their prose with exclamation marks and clichés, or poor grammar and clunky sentences, can find a publisher. And when you are published, it seems just as unfair that the author of that same shoddy writing gets millions while you worry about whether you’ll earn out the modest advance you got.

So how come a book like that gets published in the first place? And once published, how come it sells millions? Is it luck?

No, of course not, but it sure helps to be in the right place at the right time for the right person. And the only way you ensure that is by getting your book – the best work you can write – out there to as many people as possible. I am an object lesson when it comes to this.

My first novel was accepted by an agent just after I turned forty-five. It should have been earlier – after all, I was only seven or eight when I decided I was going to be a writer. Well, authoress was the word I used, I believe! So what the hell took me so long? I did write. I even finished books. A number of them. But I never got anywhere with them. Why not?

Because the sheer dogged determination was not there. I was too caught up in all the paraphernalia of everyday life, earning a living, raising kids…you know the story. But in this business you make your own luck by stubborn persistence, and without that drive, my books weren’t out there being seen by enough people. In effect, I wasn’t making my own luck.

Then the kids grew older and my husband took a job in Vienna, Austria. We moved into a smaller house where the housework could be done in one tenth the time and there was no wildlife sharing our living space necessitating constant cleaning (people who live in the tropics will know what I mean!). I had no full-time job so I had time to write; we weren’t earning third world salaries any more and so I had the cash to sent out a manuscript repeatedly. I got serious. I changed my luck.

That poorly written work by the now bestselling author I mentioned above? That may not have appealed to 99% of the publisher and agents who saw it originally – but it hit the right person at the right time, someone for whom the story resonated, or who realised it would resonate with the reading public. Just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean other people won’t like it either.

We have to accept that sometimes good writing doesn’t sell, whereas a good story can sometimes survive poor writing. It’s annoying to those who take care to craft good novels, but hey, this is a business as well as a creative art, and we have to live with it. And the best advice remains: make your own luck.

Be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch as well as a good craftsman.

I have been watching this whole Danish cartoon thingy with the sinking feeling of someone watching a landslide gathering momentum and debris on its rapidly widening downhill path.

I know its roots: people staring across a deep divide in utter incomprehension at those on the other side staring back at them. That’s the kind of thing you recognise when you have been set adrift in another culture, not as a traveller passing by, but as someone come to belong.

Even people who ought to know better commit the same sins of incomprehension, myself included. Here in Malaysia, a land of many different cultural groups, and many religions of which Islam is the largest, a Sarawak newspaper published the cartoons. Who knows what was going on in their heads, but they are now out of business. Many years ago, my kindergarten-going Muslim daughter received an invitation to a birthday party – on a card picturing pigs in party clothes and the invitation to join them on such-and-such a date. This in a country where I have seen a Muslim woman get up from a table and vomit because people were talking about pigs.

To refuse a request or a query with an abrupt “no” is considered rude in Malay culture. A Malay, faced with a request he doesn’t like, will smile and say nothing. Another Malay recognises this as a refusal. You would think that Malaysians of other cultural groups would as well, having lived here all their lives. But I have seen just this scenario played out again and again among locals of different cultural backgrounds, with inevitable misunderstanding. How much greater, then, is the possibility of incomprehension between people from different countries and faiths and principles?

The trouble is this: when people start believing in something – whether it is religion, or rights, or politics, or anything else – they tend to stop thinking. Why think about something when you have already found the answer?

Yeah, I know I pontificate on occasion, but I do try never to stop thinking, and sometimes that means trying on another’s shoes.