Day 61 (6 August): Three Cultures, within 10 minutes of each other
In the morning, I headed out with Gary and Karen to do some sightseeing in KL, since they had not done the whole city yet as they had only moved there 2 months earlier.
We started out the day by heading to the Petronas Towers which are the world's largest twin towers, now that they are not the world's tallest building although they once were. We tried to go up to the skybridge at only 1/3 of the total height, but all of the free tickets for the day had been given away. Instead we settled for getting breakfast in the food court of the huge KLCC mall inside, strolled around and took in the scene there.
From there we went to a large mosque near Merdenka Square (or Independence Square) and then the square itself which had a number of colonial buildings left form the British era. One of them housed the Malaysian History Museum and another a Catholic Church both of which we popped into. From there we took a 10 minute walk over to Chinatown at which point Karen and Gary went home (because Karen needed some rest as she is four months pregnant). I explored the markets in Chinatown as well as some Chinese temples, another 10 minute walk from there was Little India which I also checked out as well as Malaysia's largest Hindu temple.
After the full day of sightseeing I headed back to Karen and Gary's apartment for a breif bit before boarding a train back to the Kuala Lumpur airport where I would catch a flight to Kuching, which is in the Eastern part of Malaysia (off the penesula) and on the island of Borneo.
Observations:
1) Public transportation in KL is very good, but can be improved. Its only flaw is that the various train lines don't connect on one ticket. Tokyo suffers from the same problem as some lines there are owned by private companies while others are public. I am not sure what the issue is in KL.
2) Co-existence. Even though Malaysian has a number of various ethnic groups living in it, they tend to co-exist rather than be in a sort of melting pot. The Malays tend to work government and industrial type jobs; the Chinese tend to have business and money-oriented jobs; the Indians tend to have service jobs.
3) Filtering of money. Due to economic policy decisions (since the ethnic Malays have historically been the poorest,) Malays can receive loans at lower interest rates than the Chinese or the Indian populations. What frequently happens as a result is that a Chinese business owner will find a Malay front man so they can effectively get a loan at 5% instead of the 15% they would normally be charged. This just shows that when arbitrage opportunities exist, people will get smart adnd take them.
4) True Islam? In KLCC (the giant mall in the Petronas Tower) as elsewhere in Malaysia it is common to see a large percentage of the women covering their heads in Islamic tradition. What was funny about them in KLCC, which is one of the trendier malls in a city know for shopping, is that a number of these women would be wearing headscarves, but then be wearing very tight jeans and short shirts exposing their bodies. This makes me wonder why they bother to wear the headscarf at all (other than for tradition's sake.) It also makes me wonder how true to Islam most Malaysians are.
5) Domestic tourism in Malaysian is starting to pick up for Malaysian. Until very recently Malaysians had a six day work week, but now most companies are starting to move to a Monday-Friday, five-day schedule, which means Malaysians are starting to discover what it means to have a weekend and are beginning to travel within their own country more.
6) Language. Bahasa Malay is the first language in Malaysia. Karen who is originally from Puerto Rico says she can actually understand a decent bit of it although she's never studied it because a number of the words have the same roots in Arabic (due to Arabic speaking traders in both Spain and Malaysia.)
7) Singapore's acceptace of gays. According to Gary, Singapore is starting to consider encouraging homosexuality after doing a study that found that cities with higher gay populations tend to be more creative and as a result more economically prosperous. The causality of the realtionship seems a little dubious. It'll be interesting to see if Singapore can attract more gays and if that will actually make them more wealthy. Should be an interesting topic to ask people about once I get to Singapore on 11 August.
We started out the day by heading to the Petronas Towers which are the world's largest twin towers, now that they are not the world's tallest building although they once were. We tried to go up to the skybridge at only 1/3 of the total height, but all of the free tickets for the day had been given away. Instead we settled for getting breakfast in the food court of the huge KLCC mall inside, strolled around and took in the scene there.
From there we went to a large mosque near Merdenka Square (or Independence Square) and then the square itself which had a number of colonial buildings left form the British era. One of them housed the Malaysian History Museum and another a Catholic Church both of which we popped into. From there we took a 10 minute walk over to Chinatown at which point Karen and Gary went home (because Karen needed some rest as she is four months pregnant). I explored the markets in Chinatown as well as some Chinese temples, another 10 minute walk from there was Little India which I also checked out as well as Malaysia's largest Hindu temple.
After the full day of sightseeing I headed back to Karen and Gary's apartment for a breif bit before boarding a train back to the Kuala Lumpur airport where I would catch a flight to Kuching, which is in the Eastern part of Malaysia (off the penesula) and on the island of Borneo.
Observations:
1) Public transportation in KL is very good, but can be improved. Its only flaw is that the various train lines don't connect on one ticket. Tokyo suffers from the same problem as some lines there are owned by private companies while others are public. I am not sure what the issue is in KL.
2) Co-existence. Even though Malaysian has a number of various ethnic groups living in it, they tend to co-exist rather than be in a sort of melting pot. The Malays tend to work government and industrial type jobs; the Chinese tend to have business and money-oriented jobs; the Indians tend to have service jobs.
3) Filtering of money. Due to economic policy decisions (since the ethnic Malays have historically been the poorest,) Malays can receive loans at lower interest rates than the Chinese or the Indian populations. What frequently happens as a result is that a Chinese business owner will find a Malay front man so they can effectively get a loan at 5% instead of the 15% they would normally be charged. This just shows that when arbitrage opportunities exist, people will get smart adnd take them.
4) True Islam? In KLCC (the giant mall in the Petronas Tower) as elsewhere in Malaysia it is common to see a large percentage of the women covering their heads in Islamic tradition. What was funny about them in KLCC, which is one of the trendier malls in a city know for shopping, is that a number of these women would be wearing headscarves, but then be wearing very tight jeans and short shirts exposing their bodies. This makes me wonder why they bother to wear the headscarf at all (other than for tradition's sake.) It also makes me wonder how true to Islam most Malaysians are.
5) Domestic tourism in Malaysian is starting to pick up for Malaysian. Until very recently Malaysians had a six day work week, but now most companies are starting to move to a Monday-Friday, five-day schedule, which means Malaysians are starting to discover what it means to have a weekend and are beginning to travel within their own country more.
6) Language. Bahasa Malay is the first language in Malaysia. Karen who is originally from Puerto Rico says she can actually understand a decent bit of it although she's never studied it because a number of the words have the same roots in Arabic (due to Arabic speaking traders in both Spain and Malaysia.)
7) Singapore's acceptace of gays. According to Gary, Singapore is starting to consider encouraging homosexuality after doing a study that found that cities with higher gay populations tend to be more creative and as a result more economically prosperous. The causality of the realtionship seems a little dubious. It'll be interesting to see if Singapore can attract more gays and if that will actually make them more wealthy. Should be an interesting topic to ask people about once I get to Singapore on 11 August.
posted by Traveling Brian at 7:33 AM
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