The couple of work days in Brunei have been really worthwhile and thought-provoking. They have also included thrashing out the details of the up-coming drama festival for our students. Debating matters with lots of Drama teachers who are full of creative ideas is a great gig to get especially as our collective aim has always been to make the best possible festival for our 11 to 14 year olds.
But after this hard work (and it was hard work, honest) us teachers deserved an evening out. And this evening was very out indeed, out the country to be exact. A coach picked up our flounce of Drama teachers at the hotel and off we drove to the Brunei / Malaysia border. But this was not just any old border. It was the slim slice of Malaysia that runs right through the middle of Brunei, splitting the Sultanate in two, quite literally driving a wedge into Brunei territory and lifestyle.
After parking up we approached the Brunei border control on foot and our party pushed through and into the long line of cars waiting to cross in the way that only Drama teachers can, using our Rudolf Laban fast / direct / light walks making it look like we knew exactly what we were doing. Once stamped out of Brunei the Drama gang strolled around 300 metres through no-persons-land, watched only by a gang of confused looking dogs and made for the Malaysia border control. One of our number raised the alarming question of what might happen if one of us decided to murder another while not in a country, mainly because that colleague was interested in the point of law, they hastily added. Conversation continued again after a brief Pinter pause.
Getting into Malaysia was easy, another passport stamp, and then it was off to dinner. But what a place. Please remember that in Brunei there is no (officially) sold alcohol easily available, pork is restricted and smoking is completely banned (except in the few places that it isn’t). The food area that lay a matter of metres from the border was everything that Brunei wasn’t. Tables packed full of people who were reassuringly hammered, drinking booze like their lives depended on it, smoking like it was going out of fashion and all of this was to the tune of raucous singing of terrible karaoke. It was a marvelous sight and one that had the immediate feel of the wild west. The cowboys horses had been substituted by aged 4x4s, the cowboy hats had been replaced by baseball caps and copied football shirts and the saloon staff had been replaced by a very broad range of characters that were there to be entertaining, entertained (as it were) or cook some amazingly good food.
It was a very fun evening, but one that had to run strictly to time for various reasons. The border closed at midnight, but as importantly the duty free shop closed at 10.00pm. Several Brunei based international teachers accompanied our international party, keen to socialize and enjoy the fine food fare on offer, but also happy to allow us off-comers to use our duty free allowance on their behalf. Thus I found myself carrying two litres of gin and twelve cans of lager, the maximum limit per person, back towards Brunei, in thick yellow plastic bags, accompanied by pleased expressions from my hosts. Despite Brunei’s strict laws because I completed a yellow form and had it rubber stamped at the border everything was fine.
It was a bizarre evening and one that I spent most of it chuckling through. The place was the polar opposite of my afternoon in Bandar and yet was only a 30 minute drive away. The rules were so completely opposite making me realize that neither set was right. Both sets were both too extreme. Clamp down on humans too much and they have to have a pressure release somehow or other to let off as much, or probably more, steam than has been pent up in them and this is not a good lifestyle to follow.
I have certainly found my brief visit to Brunei illuminating and thought-provoking. It is certainly geographically a beautiful place but I quite sure that I could not live comfortably under so much considered, benign and well-meant repression. I am just far too liberal.