mom, please don't pee your pants -- i'm ok!

so i got into about the sketchiest situation i've ever been involved in yesterday, but i'm safe and sound now and i still have all of my money. plus, i'm making new friends!

here i am in kuala lumpur walking to the petronas towers. just wandering in their general direction, as they're not really very hard to see at all. this random guy on the street walks up to me and says:

guy: "hey! where are you from?"
me: "canada, actually!"
guy: "ohh, canada! i have a daughter who is going there for school!"

--- begin the ian's-an-idiot-but-he-won't-do-it-again-mom section ---

guy: "i live really close by! why don't you come over to my place and you can tell my daughter about canada! i live about 5 minutes away by cab, so you can just drop by."
me: "uh, sure!"

so... many of you will be thinking i'm retarded right now. fair enough, it seems pretty dumb after the fact. but let me tell you, this guy was so legit! he was super-nice, and i figured what better way to get involved in the world of malaysia than to visit a typical malaysian household! this will be great.

we start walking towards a cab stand and the whole time he's telling me all about himself. he's a civil engineer, and he's lived in saudi arabia for a long time working on various projects there. he asks about my family, tells me about his. we hop in a cab and off we go! i ask him to point out where he lives on the map so i have some idea of where we're going and it's pretty close by. i think the area is actually in a theme park, now that i look at it again, but i was satisfied with his answer at the time.

the cab pulls into a residential area and we get out at this place. walking inside, there's this middle-aged woman who looks very nice and smiles at me. then, at the tv, there's these two other guys who are watching. i'm a bit creeped out by the fact that there are now three adult males that i'm dealing with instead of a small malaysian dude. anyways, the other two guys seem nice and they're all sitting around and watching "instinct". eddie (the guy who i met initially) offers me some rice and chicken and fish. he also gives me a coke, which i promptly drink. sam, one of the guys sitting on the couch, comes over and starts talking to me.

he asks me where i've been in malaysia so far, and i explain to him that i'd just come from the genting highlands.

"oh!", he says, "i'm a blackjack dealer at the genting highlands! i teach people blackjack and lucky 9. do you want to learn how to play lucky 9?"

now being the inquisitive kid that i am, i say "sure!". the daughter is nowhere to be found, but eddie says that his mother is sick and that his daughter is currently at the hospital and will be back soon. whatever, i need to pass some time. so now sam gets up and we go back into another room.

at this point, i'm getting a bit concerned, because we go into this room and sam decides to close the door behind us. it's a pretty tiny room barren of furniture, and i sit down in a corner across the table from sam. sam gets up and goes over to a big dresser and takes a small chest out of it, along with a deck of cards and a sketchpad. i refer to it as the "sketchy" pad. he opens up the sketch pad to miraculously reveal that all of the rules for lucky 9 are handwritten on it already! apparently, he's taught this game before. getting a bit worried.

he opens up the chest, but instead of a gun there is luckily some plastic chips! he shuffles the cards and starts laying them out. he teaches me the simple rules of the game and we play a few rounds. i win some, lose some, whatever. at this point, sam says:

"now gambling is really only what rich people do. they can afford to lose a lot of money and it's simply entertainment for them. for people like us though, we rely on luck to MAKE money. now normally lucky 9 is a game that you can win and lose, but i know a way to play the game that lets you win 100% of the time! it goes like this..."

so he starts showing me this system to cheat. now i'm slightly perplexed, because the cheating system involves him conciously showing me the hand that HE has. it's sort of like playing poker against somebody whose hand you already know. he also shows me a system whereby he flashes the next card to come up to me, so i can tell whether it will help me win or make him lose. that's the idea, anyway.

we play a few rounds like this and of course i win big because i'm freaking cheating. at this point i'm even more concerned because i have a feeling he's going to a) ask me to go to the casino with him or something or b) make me play in some underground game. neither of these options am i very interested in.

after we've played a few rounds, eddie walks back in. eddie brings a chair up and sets it down right beside me. so now, i'm sitting in the corner of a small room with a table in front of me and two malay guys, one of which is sitting right beside me so i can't get up to leave the room. yikes!

initially, eddie was implying that he had no idea how to play and that he wanted to learn. after sam was done teaching me this cheating method, sam says: "so now i have taught you lucky 9. like any teacher though, i now expect the student to complete an examination."

my heart sank when he said that, cause i knew it was going nowhere good! i realized that this was truly a scam at this point, and that i needed to get my ass outta there. so sam starts saying that he has this chinese guy he wants to bring over, and that i'm to "watch" this game or take part in it somehow and that this method is going to be used. as soon as he starts saying this i come in with the "no thanks, i'm really not interested. thank you for teaching me, it's a cool game, but i don't gamble. no thanks, not interested. i really have to get back into town. not interested." sam keeps insisting that i need to do this examination though! to try to divert attention from this pressure-situation they have me in, i turn to eddie to ask if he knows how to play, and that i can teach HIM now! maybe that'll stop the conversation. of course eddie NOW says, "oh yes, i know. i learned watching you just now." so i'm pissed at eddie because he's now abandoned me and is in on this deal.

i keep saying i'm not interested, and by a stroke of luck eddie finally says "ok, he's not interested." and i'm allowed to get up and leave the room. before i go, sam looks at me and gives me the "shush" with his fingers to his lips -- i'm supposing he doesn't want me to redirect the cops to their place. they escort me back out of the room to the outside world. it's strange, because it was assumed that after the game thing failed, the whole "tell my daughter about canada" thing wasn't even mentioned -- they knew i was hightailing it out of there.

now as i go outside i see that the OTHER guy who was sitting on the couch and said nothing is now waiting in a running car. he tries to drive me away, and eddie keeps trying to get me into the car saying they'll drive me back, but i insist on walking. eddie escorts me to a cab and i got back into town just fine!

sorry about the fast ending, but my internet time is up. i'll tell you more about the people i'm meeting later! i'm fine though mom -- got all my money, and my trusty compass and map. i'm good to go!

i won't talk to strangers anymore, or at least go to their houses...

bye!