Malaysia - for the uninitiated

For those not from Malaysia, here are a few ways to describe Malaysia:

Malaysia is the country north of Singapore, south of Thailand. Many times I have to do this but thanks to Dr M foresight in building the Twin Tower, F1 Circuit and KLIA I have since encounter no such problem. Everyone seems to know or pretend to know where Malaysia is now.

Malaysia is a tropical country near the Equator and hence we have summer all year round except for the annual monsoon season every end of the year but this only affects those staying near the east coast.

Malaysia has 3 major races - Chinese Indian and Malay (alphabetically listed in no order of priority) as well as indigenous tribes or we called them “orang asli”.

With 3 races we have 3 different languages, 3 different radio channel, 3 different newspapers, 3 different schools, 3 different political parties and the list goes on.

We are a naturally safe country with no natural calamities save for the human induced ones like Highlands Tower. There are no earthquake, volcano nor typhoon.

We are world famous for our beaches like Sipadan, Sabah and is a haven for leatherback turtles who come here to lay their eggs annually though the number is decreasing drastically but our government is making conservation effort. Nonetheless during my recent trip to Kota Bahru in 2010, we were served turtle eggs for lunch. Ahem…

Malaysia have the largest cave in Sarawak. It is so big that you can even launch a hot air balloon in the cave.

We have the tallest mountain in South East Asia though many who have climbed it dubbed it one of the easier mountain to climb.

But to me Malaysia is famous for the most number of public holidays! It is inevitable since there are 3 major races and each demand their holidays to be accorded the same respect so it is no wonder that we have been having one holiday after another for the past 2 months or so.

It has been said that many expatriates loved Malaysia for this same reason. Not only were there local customs and festivities, we recently also had a Friday declared a public holiday because our football team won a match with Indonesia on Indonesian soil. Since it had been more than 20 years I reckon since we last won any major match, the government felt that this was worth celebrating.

So thank you for the off day but pity those who needed to do banking or worst still those who had to renew their passports as financial institutions and government offices were closed on that day.

I had the privilege of going to Jakarta in January 2011 and during one of those cab rides, a friendly driver was pointing out places of interests to me. Then he pointed out the huge Jakarta football stadium. This he said was the stadium which Malaysia won the match in. I candidly asked if there were any commotion after the match especially if there are any ill-willed against Malaysians but good thing for us there were none.

Malaysia is not always on good terms with its neighbour Indonesia especially when cases of Indonesians maid abuses hit the front page. The most recent and gory case was the one in Penang who endured countless physical and sexual abuses. When her injuries rendered her incapacitated, the employer then had the gall to dump her far far away from the house hoping she cannot find the house.

During the hype of this media frenzy, again I had to go Indonesia. I was quite reluctant to go as at the same time a major Malaysian singer called off her concert in Jakarta for fear that the Indonesians might boycott or worse still create chaos as there was a “Hate Malaysians and all things Malaysia” sentiments then. So once there whenever asked where I was from, I answered Singapore.

But after a while being there, I realized the majority of the people are just normal people. Not extremists as I fear.

To sum it up, Malaysia is famous for being very friendly. Being taught English since elementary school has made it easy for us to communicate with foreigners. So To Know Malaysia is To Love Malaysia, the good and bad included.