I was put in charge of supervising 8 monks and keeping tract of their whereabouts during the 9 days, taking them to restaurants for their meals and making sure they got to various places at various times. The problem was, we were staying at a hotel attached to one of the largest shopping malls in the world and the monks wanted to explore the entire 4 square mile, 4 floor complex on their own. Many of them did not know English and I felt it was pretty much guaranteed they would get hopelessly lost if they wandered as they wished. Therefore, I had to do a lot of monk-herding, which incidentally, is similar to cat herding. The only advantage I had was their maroon robes, which caused them to stand out from the typical teenage girl shopper crowd.
The second day I was there, I found out I was being appointed the Master of Ceremonies for the two-day teaching and that the crowd was expected to exceed 600 people. I had to write my script the next day (introducing and transitioning the various teachings and activities planned for each day), learn it, and then report to the venue at 7 a.m. the following morning to practice with my counterpart, the Chinese language emcee. We worked well together, despite the fact that she was 18 inches shorter than me. My opening line, “gooooood mooorning laaaadies and gentlemen” was a favorite among the monks and they would repeat it back to me in their best Zach impersonation throughout the trip.
One of the speakers the first day was Grand Feng Shui Master Yap Cheng Hei, who was a beautiful old man with a sharp sense of humor and a comprehensive knowledge of the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui. After his talk, I went around the audience with my cordless mic and took questions. Somehow, the topic quickly turned to ghosts, as Master Yap was a “ghost whisperer.” People asked him about his experiences, and he described seeing “zombies with their eyes and half their brains hanging out” causing havoc in a house. He said he would say prayers for the ghost and then “give them a passport to heaven” after which they would no longer bother anyone. During the day, I kept reminding the audience to submit questions for the evening Q&A session and boy did they respond. As the emcee, I sorted out which questions to pose to Master Yap and Shyalpa Rinpoche among the 50+ submitted. Some were very personal, such as “what do you do when your husband cheats on you and beats you but you don't want to get a divorce because it might harm the children?” Some were very abstract, “what is the difference between the experience and the experiencer?” And some were controversial and timely, “What is your view on same-sex marriage?” I managed to keep the questions coming to both teachers for 2 straight hours while keeping the audience engaged.
The next day featured a long life empowerment, which is always a big draw. Fortunately, in terms of crowd management, the people of Kuala Lampur are generally not devout Buddhists and were therefore not as eager as, say, devotees in Nepal to get such a blessing. Sometimes in Kathmandu, when crowds are not carefully contained for long life empowerments, near-stampedes occur when the blessings-starved people make a mad rush to the temple to receive the empowerment at the conclusion of the ceremony. This time, everything went smoothly. As the day was coming to an end, I orchestrated a group of 15 local Malaysian volunteers to hand out the blessed food (fruit and cookies) to the 650 people in the crowd.
The next day, the monks went to the homes of two wealthy patrons to perform ceremonies for their continued success in business and life. At one of the homes, I got a chance to watch my favorite football team, the Minnesota Vikings, perform live on television. Unfortunately, it was their worst game of the year by far and they lost in disgraceful fashion.
After 7 days in the mall, we were ready to get out and see Malaysia. We chartered a large van and went on a 12-hour tour. The first stop was a major Hindu pilgrimage place featuring huge caves that had temples and images of the gods inside. Many pictures of this awe-inspiring place can be found here.
At the top of the climb to the stairs, a man with two large snakes awaits for those looking for photo props. I was such a person and the 30-pound yellow boa was placed around my neck. It was pretty nerve-wracking at first as it came toward my neck with its slithering tongue, but then became more relaxed and we were buds toward the end. You can watch a video of it here.We then went into the heart of Kuala Lampur to the famous “Twin Towers”, which unlike the former Manhattan versions, are connected near the top with a walking bridge to enhance stability and functionality. They reigned as the highest in the world for a few years last decade.
After lunch came the highlight of the day, a trip to the beach. The monks changed out of their robes and into their beach shorts and we frolicked in the ocean. We then hired a speedboat to pull us on an inflatable device made for 7 people. One of the older monks was terrified but agreed to give it a try after much re-assuring that it was perfectly safe. We played a few games of beach soccer and enjoyed ice cream and cold drinks under the hot sun. We then headed back to the city for an hour and a half of laptop computer shopping for 3 of the monks in a chaotic technology-centric mall. Dinner didn’t come until after 9 p.m.I was the group leader for the trip back to Nepal, so naturally continued my tradition of staying up the night before our early flight to be on the “top of my game.” Fortunately, though, the trip was without incident and a group of us even got a complimentary business class upgrade. We arrived in Nepal in the morning, and I spent the day sleeping and dreaming of my Southeast Asian adventure.
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