I’ve been to Malaysia many times, but the fascinatingly diverse country is “still a mystery to me,” said Dorinda Elliott in Condé Nast Traveler. It’s a place where, in one day, you can witness the “blessing of a cow at an Indian temple and then go to a mosque and see a cow ready to be slaughtered.” The small nation in Southeast Asia is “a strange mix” of cultures and peoples—its population is 54 percent Malay, 26 percent Chinese, and 8 percent Indian—that all “coexist,” somehow, in “seeming harmony.”
In the country’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, “an ornately carved Hindu temple might stand on one corner, an onion-domed mosque on another, right next to a Buddhist temple billowing incense.” Up north in the Cameron Highlands—a former retreat for the British who ruled the country until 1957—Tudor-style mansions stand tall amid the “cool hills and tea plantations.” To me, though, the place that best captures Malaysia’s “marvel of racial diversity” is Penang. The tiny state off the country’s northwestern coast is a “colorful hodgepodge of Chinese, Indian, and colonial architecture.” I could spend days wandering through its Hindu and Buddhist temples and perusing antiques stores “stacked with colonial tea sets and fading photos of solemn Chinese couples.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why ghost guns are so easy to make — and so dangerousThe Explainer Untraceable, DIY firearms are a growing public health and safety hazard
-
The Week contest: Swift stimulusPuzzles and Quizzes
-
'It's hard to resist a sweet deal on a good car'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
