In Egypt, 'Kuala Lumpur' (pronounced "Kwalalamboor") is a funny way of referring to somewhere very very far - kind of 'the end of the world'. Kinda like 'Timbuktu' for the French (that's in Mali, if you're still wondering). Or, according to a friend of mine, 'Cairo' for Israelis :) (don't know how true that is, but the thought of it is funny. Can anyone confirm that?).Anyways, what happened is that on the way back from Europe I decided to stop over for the
weekend in Kuala Lumpur (hereafter referred to as KL!). Good thing is, Malaysia is one of the few countries that let us Egyptians, with our strange passport that opens from right to left and has writing in Arabic (the Dutch customs officers find it very funny, for some reason) visit their country with no visa.So, getting there at midnight and playing the cheap backpacker, I looked up a small hostel downtown where I managed to find a bed for the time I was staying. The next morning was time to check the city out!!
And wow was it pretty. Malaysia is a developing country that has set the year 2020 as the date to become a developed one -- one thing is sure: we (as in Egypt) are faaaaaaaaaaar behind! Well developed transportation system (although you can't go from one line to the other without buying a new ticket); pretty clean; bad pedestrian crossing lights.
There is something weird about it, though: the city felt... spiritless to me. Every city has a soul of its own, which is the collective spirit shared by its inhabitants, with their similarities and differences, with its moves, lights, smells, colours.
KL was too much of a landscape to be anything else. It's almost as if they developed the skyline and forgot the ground level...Also, KL is very multiethnic, with Chinese, Hindous, and native Malay peoples making up the main ethnic groups. But at some level, I have the feeling that those groups 'coexist' rather than 'live together' -- each in their communities, somewhat minimising interactions.
One other thing I noticed, which might be a product of the multiethnicity: as historically inter-community links were based mainly on commercial ties - which is how they ended up being in the first place - at some level this mercantilist behaviour remains, which translates in daily dealings: people won't help you unless they have to (if it's their job!) or because they will benefit from it. Otherwise, nope.
I think KL is probably the only city where when you hand out your camera and ask a local to take your photo, he will refuse - quasi-systematically.
(I know, it's not as elaborate an index and the UNDP HDI or something, but it's the only test I have in mind :)
Enough being mean -- I did have a lot of fun. Walked around town until my feet hurt, visited as much as I could and covered virtually all the touristic places in town (according to my map which had them marked with a red star).
They have an Arab neighbourhood -- well, not a 'neighbourhood' in the sense of 'chinatown' or 'edgware road' -- but rather a place with arab restaurants. And of course, the people who go there are... the Arab tourists! I find quite impressive that a guy who just left his 'mandi' and 'shisha' back home to crave them so much that they'd want to go to an arab restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. Add to that the fact that food in the Gulf region is pretty awful. Rice and meat. Or rice and chicken. Or to do extra special, rice and meat and chicken. Pfff..
Another funny sight was Chinatown and its 'Petaling Street', one of the main tourist attractions and hub for all kinds of fake watches, pens, shirts or whatever you can want to buy. Fake Rolex and Tag Heuer were going for 10 Ringgit -- that's about 3 USD. Same for Mont Blanc pens, Cartier wallets, Nike shirts, shoes, whatever. Everything is fake, cheap, and openly sold. Hilarious. And I thought that the illegal DVD copies (mind you, the equivalent of 60 US cents buys you the Da Vinci Code) I found in Aceh were an extreme... :)In Petaling Street, the chinese vendors speak... Arabic. Hmmm. Hearing a 'ta3ala ya khayyi'
(come here, my brother) with a Chinese-Malay accent is quite something.I tried to exploit my Asian looks by using my newly-acquired two words of Indonesian (which is roughly a simplified form of Malay) and asking the main question: "Berapa?" (How much?)
The problem is, I don't know the numbers in Malay so I never understood their answer if it was anything beside 1, 2 or 3. (satu, dua, tiga!!) So I had to display my tourist self again and ask in english. :o)
Alright, enough for now. Been blogging for a while now. I wonder if my boss hates me already. Wouldn't it be funny if I managed to upset him so much that he'd fire his free labour (me)?
Later.
3 comments:
Mohamed, this is my first internet comment ever. I don't usually read blogs either. Yes, I am limping into the information age.
As someone whose mother grew up in KL, and who goes back often, I agree with your diagnosis. It has some of the Asian metropolis problem, but not to the extent of, say, Singapore (which tore down its Little India and built a sanitized, tourist friendly version). The pockets of community in KL are a little more difficult to find but do exist, once you get beyond all the superstructures built before the Asian financial crisis. I'm familiar with the Chinese parts of town, obviously, especially near the wet market and the abandoned Pudu prison. Probably the most important part of local culture is regional food and different areas that are known for particularly good street food.
Maybe because of the climate, cities generally haven't developed good public spaces. It's a problem here in Jakarta as well, where there is even less street food than Malaysia (my proxy). That said, when I'm in KL I generally hang out at the mall. Oh well.
You are also spot on about the racial problems. Government policy has led to more co-existence and relatively little inter-mixing. It's difficult to know how to handle such a stratified society: parents often have the choice of sending their children to schools that teach in Malay, Chinese, or Tamil.
And now, I go back to work.
Honoured that your first internet comment was here :)
Your remark on the schooling system struck me. Made me think of bilingual Brussels, where my landlord, a walloon (French-speaker)sent his daughters to a Flemish (Dutch-speaking) school. The Flemish schooling system is supposed to be better - but besides the element of quality, there is also the fact that multilinguism is an asset he wanted to give them.
Any of that going on in KL? Or are school ethnically (spontaneously of course)separated ?
Haven't seen Singapore, would surely be curious to see that.. but their visa system is very complicated for my right-to-left passport, i'm afraid.
Nous avons ici (Canada)une jolie expression pour qualifier la "co-existence" des cultures francophones et anglophones... nous disons que le pays est composé de "deux solitudes"...
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