Zainald grills his Halal Satay in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown / Photo by Stephen Chapman
Most people around the world will be familiar with a Chinatown, often the location of cheap sleeps and hives of activity day and night. I recently returned to Kuala Lumpur and was granted a fascinating perspective on this area from the point of view of a Malay and it emphasised something extremely important.
Whether it’s based on a desire to rough it and to get under the skin of a place, or on Chinatown being known as a backpacker hangout, many travellers end up gravitating there. When you use Chinatown as a base from which to explore, particularly in Asia, there is a tendency to believe that it is in some way representative of the culture and character of the city within which it’s based, and for Kuala Lumpur and many other cities around the world this is far from the truth. It is no more representative of a city in Asia than it is of San Francisco, New York or London. There is no denying its value and influence, particularly on Kuala Lumpur, but it is only a small piece of the cultural jigsaw that makes up a city.
Why stay in Chinatown?
Chinatown is never the best first impression for a new visitor. Often regarded as dirty, unpleasant, unhygenic and undesireable. Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur is never on the list of a Malay person’s places to go, let alone somewhere to sleep and eat. “Why stay in such a hole when there are some incredible, clean, well run low-cost places in a far more seductive parts of the city?” I was told, and I must say that I have to agree, not that there aren’t some decent places to stay in Chinatown.
Most Malaysians are of either Indian, Chinese, Indonesian or Malay descent and like so many ethnically diverse communities around the world they haven’t always integrated particularly well with one another. The cultural mix that makes up Malaysia is fascinating and is a truly unique blend that has influenced the food, the architecture, the arts, and religion significantly, but there is definitely a Malaysian identity that prefers to distinguish itself from these influences as being truly Malay, not Indian, not Chinese.
Do we engineer our experiences fit our expectations?
I first arrived in South East Asia almost ten years ago now. At the time I was fresh faced, lacked any real experience of eastern culture, couldn’t understand why there was a hose next to the toilet, or why anyone would eat curry for breakfast. Although landing in Kuala Lumpur wasn’t quite the baptism of fire that Bangkok can provide, as a 19 year old travelling alone it certainly felt no less alien. I remember my arrival well. The sweltering heat, draining humidity. It was strange, exciting, energising. I’d heard so many exotic stories about the distant and seemingly fictional cities of Bangkok, Saigon and Phnom Penh – all evocative of truly foreign lands, so alluring and full of Eastern promise. The drug smugglers, the sex stories, the history, the movies, it all conspired to formulate my expectation and sense of adventure. The dirty, small alleyways of Chinatown fit the bill nicely and satisfied my fantasy, but this was not an introduction to Kuala Lumpur or Malaysia. This was a Chinatown.
“I think this is what the whole concept of ‘Going Local’ is based around – understanding a place for what it is, not what you want it to be or expect it to be.”
On my first night I stayed in a small guesthouse above a restaurant, wandered through the night market, ate some streetfood, woke up to a strange breakfast of Nasi lemak. I loved Asia, I loved Chinatown. I explored other parts of the city on foot and marvelled at how developed it was. In Chinatown things were cheap, colourful, busy, intriguing, more stimulating than the huge modern, familiar shopping malls that dot other areas of the city. For a traveller it’s character and culture we yearn for. We want to see something different to what we have at home. We yearn to experience. However, allowing our desires and expectations to overtake the reality of what exists is foolish and unfair. Kuala Lumpur is an incredibly modern city and it’s important to take home that message as well as the unfamiliar, cultural and historical experiences we have. With increased maturity, greater world experience, better knowledge of the city, and a very local insight into the country I now realise that my first impression was incomplete to say the least. It probably served more to satisfy my own expectations than provide me with a true insight into how people live in Malaysia. I think this is what the whole concept of ‘Going Local’ is based around – understanding a place for what it is, not what you want it to be or expect it to be.
Cultural integration
As you become more conscious of cultural enclaves in cities around the world – Chinatown, Little India, Little Italy - it becomes fascinating to see how people can cling so rigidly to the culture they’ve grown up in as the world around them changes. Whether they relocate for a new life somewhere completely different, they still wish to import their old ways and systems. This cultural mixing takes place all over the world as people migrate and make demands on their new home to recognise the heritage they left behind, but do different cultures and communities ever fully integrate and accept each other, or do they always remain like foreign bodies within a host?
As another cultural dispute arises in the UK around the wearing of a veil in school it seems as though a lack of willingness by immigrants to understand another culture’s concerns or to compromise on the values they once left behind makes it extremely difficult to find common ground. Does this mean that some immigrants will always feel discriminated against by their own refusal to assimilate into the very culture they sought to benefit from and change their lives with.
Some of the best Satay I’ve ever eaten is made by a Malay man called Zainald in the heart of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown – he’s been trading for years and is about the only Malay vendor in the area – there is indeed hope that not everyone is divided and that we can all live together successfully.
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Remember it’s only Chinatown
Zainald grills his Halal Satay in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown / Photo by Stephen Chapman
Most people around the world will be familiar with a Chinatown, often the location of cheap sleeps and hives of activity day and night. I recently returned to Kuala Lumpur and was granted a fascinating perspective on this area from the point of view of a Malay and it emphasised something extremely important.
Whether it’s based on a desire to rough it and to get under the skin of a place, or on Chinatown being known as a backpacker hangout, many travellers end up gravitating there. When you use Chinatown as a base from which to explore, particularly in Asia, there is a tendency to believe that it is in some way representative of the culture and character of the city within which it’s based, and for Kuala Lumpur and many other cities around the world this is far from the truth. It is no more representative of a city in Asia than it is of San Francisco, New York or London. There is no denying its value and influence, particularly on Kuala Lumpur, but it is only a small piece of the cultural jigsaw that makes up a city.
Why stay in Chinatown?
Chinatown is never the best first impression for a new visitor. Often regarded as dirty, unpleasant, unhygenic and undesireable. Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur is never on the list of a Malay person’s places to go, let alone somewhere to sleep and eat. “Why stay in such a hole when there are some incredible, clean, well run low-cost places in a far more seductive parts of the city?” I was told, and I must say that I have to agree, not that there aren’t some decent places to stay in Chinatown.
Most Malaysians are of either Indian, Chinese, Indonesian or Malay descent and like so many ethnically diverse communities around the world they haven’t always integrated particularly well with one another. The cultural mix that makes up Malaysia is fascinating and is a truly unique blend that has influenced the food, the architecture, the arts, and religion significantly, but there is definitely a Malaysian identity that prefers to distinguish itself from these influences as being truly Malay, not Indian, not Chinese.
Do we engineer our experiences fit our expectations?
I first arrived in South East Asia almost ten years ago now. At the time I was fresh faced, lacked any real experience of eastern culture, couldn’t understand why there was a hose next to the toilet, or why anyone would eat curry for breakfast. Although landing in Kuala Lumpur wasn’t quite the baptism of fire that Bangkok can provide, as a 19 year old travelling alone it certainly felt no less alien. I remember my arrival well. The sweltering heat, draining humidity. It was strange, exciting, energising. I’d heard so many exotic stories about the distant and seemingly fictional cities of Bangkok, Saigon and Phnom Penh – all evocative of truly foreign lands, so alluring and full of Eastern promise. The drug smugglers, the sex stories, the history, the movies, it all conspired to formulate my expectation and sense of adventure. The dirty, small alleyways of Chinatown fit the bill nicely and satisfied my fantasy, but this was not an introduction to Kuala Lumpur or Malaysia. This was a Chinatown.
On my first night I stayed in a small guesthouse above a restaurant, wandered through the night market, ate some streetfood, woke up to a strange breakfast of Nasi lemak. I loved Asia, I loved Chinatown. I explored other parts of the city on foot and marvelled at how developed it was. In Chinatown things were cheap, colourful, busy, intriguing, more stimulating than the huge modern, familiar shopping malls that dot other areas of the city. For a traveller it’s character and culture we yearn for. We want to see something different to what we have at home. We yearn to experience. However, allowing our desires and expectations to overtake the reality of what exists is foolish and unfair. Kuala Lumpur is an incredibly modern city and it’s important to take home that message as well as the unfamiliar, cultural and historical experiences we have. With increased maturity, greater world experience, better knowledge of the city, and a very local insight into the country I now realise that my first impression was incomplete to say the least. It probably served more to satisfy my own expectations than provide me with a true insight into how people live in Malaysia. I think this is what the whole concept of ‘Going Local’ is based around – understanding a place for what it is, not what you want it to be or expect it to be.
Cultural integration
As you become more conscious of cultural enclaves in cities around the world – Chinatown, Little India, Little Italy - it becomes fascinating to see how people can cling so rigidly to the culture they’ve grown up in as the world around them changes. Whether they relocate for a new life somewhere completely different, they still wish to import their old ways and systems. This cultural mixing takes place all over the world as people migrate and make demands on their new home to recognise the heritage they left behind, but do different cultures and communities ever fully integrate and accept each other, or do they always remain like foreign bodies within a host?
As another cultural dispute arises in the UK around the wearing of a veil in school it seems as though a lack of willingness by immigrants to understand another culture’s concerns or to compromise on the values they once left behind makes it extremely difficult to find common ground. Does this mean that some immigrants will always feel discriminated against by their own refusal to assimilate into the very culture they sought to benefit from and change their lives with.
Some of the best Satay I’ve ever eaten is made by a Malay man called Zainald in the heart of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown – he’s been trading for years and is about the only Malay vendor in the area – there is indeed hope that not everyone is divided and that we can all live together successfully.
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