It's still rainy in KL, which comes with a certain relief in addition to the relaxing pit-pat of rain on the roof. When the rains comes, it means it will cool down for a little while before getting hot again. 

KL is not a big city compared to Toronto or NYC. All of the metro stops are very near each other, which makes it look like a bigger city on the map. This is more a reflection of the Malaysians' distaste for walking than anything else. On my way to work on the third day of my internship, I was very proud of myself for figuring out the bus system, and about 7 minutes walk from my office, pressed the button and stood up, beaming. All of a sudden I hear "CLARA NOOOOOOOO" from the back of the bus! It was my supervisor, Jaya. "It's too far to walk!" she scolded. Lesson learned: don't walk any more than you have to, and never faster than you have to. And not without good reason. It is HOT. 

That being said, the little communities where the subway stations are all dramatically different. I think this is partly because the population is just so different from one another. In Malaysia, you have the malays, I think most of which are muslim to varying degrees, and you have the Chinese and the Indians, who have been here for decades if not centuries (the chinese have def been here for centuries). The chinese people I have met have been christian for the most part, and the Indian people I have met have been all sorts of religions what I'm not fimiliar with. I'm not sure if the Healing Lady is her own religion, or if she fits into something else, but theres a lot of that. So you have all of these different populations but they haven't really assimilated. Instead, some of the chinese has mixed in with the Malay, has mixed in with the Indian, has mixed in with the portuguese, has mixed with whatever. So, you definitely have the distinct cultures present, but then you also have all of these subcultures of fusion and everything, so it's difficult to be like "this is malay" "this is indian" without actually being Malay or Indian. It's rather funny though, because the cultures of the people are so different that they really don't understand each other a lot. An example of this is that the chinese are always poking fun at the orthodox muslims, saying things like " good thing you don't live by a mosque, you'd be woken up at 5:00 for prayer time!" giggle giggle. And my friend was calling the women who cover themselves up completely "ninjas." Apparently the malays make fun of the Chinese as well, I forget what kind of things they say, but its very amusing for a foreigner to see them all making fun of each other. Nothing hateful is said about the other groups, except for the 'foreigners'. Since the city is growing at break neck speeds, there are tons of jobs being created and a lot of illegal immigration, and also a rise in crime. If something is wrong in Malaysia, the foreigners are always in some way to blame for it, even by the chinese who are not native here. "foreigner" usually means darker skinned men from bangladesh etc.  

 That all being said, it's really interesting for me to walk down the street or be on the train and just see such a range of dress. Most men dress a like (either you're a teenager and wearing a tshirt, a business man wearing a button down, or a ruffian wearing rags) but the women are either covered from head to toe in bright flowery outfits with a headscarf, wearing a sari or the kind of light material top with the slits down the sides worn as a shirt (don't know the word for it, but damn do I want one!) or like a short skirt and making out with your boyfriend. Totally different walks of life everywhere and many of them have been here forever, not like in Toronto where you know when someone is new because they haven't assimilated yet and they still talk a little funny. (thats another thing, they still all have their own languages plus malay plus english). 

 There are TONS of malls. Malls everywhere. In the city centre things are very western. It really causes me some melancholy. The Prime Minister has really pushed economic development in the country and the embrace of capitalism and foreign investment, so as a result there are foreign countries all over, things are done in western ways rather than asian ways, and this is accepted totally by the people. It's seen as really great for the country, but as a foreigner I can't help but mourn the loss of a different way of doing things. Maybe this is silly or I just have like westerner syndrome where i want to romanticize other cultures as being anachronistic but really...to play the development game, you have to adopt all of these foreign ways of doing things. 

There is oh, so much more that I could write about, and I guess will try to continue this assignment by adding on various things that I notice.  

Everyone here is really freaked out about H1N1. The school right next to my building was shut down last week because they had a case. My friend Joy just came in to ask me if I was sure that I wanted to go the movies on Sunday because she was freaked out. This is a girl who goes to class on the subway every single day and sits in a room full of other people every single day. So I've convinced her to settle for wearing a mask. 

My public service announcement for this blog entry is NOT TO TRY DURIAN. I just did it out of curiosity and it was not a fun experience. Well, I mean, try it because you should try everything, but don't expect it to be sweet or taste anything like fruit. maybe try to imagine it as meat or some kind of dairy product. 

xoxoxo

Clara