When you get to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, one of the first things you notice about the place are the signs. You might see a sign saying “Tandas” and “toilet”, for example, with Malay on top and the English translation below. The positioning and ordering gives it away: you’re not in Kansas or any other predominantly English-speaking country any more. When you get to the immigration counter, it’s the same thing: “pasport asing” on top, “foreign passport” below.
The dual-language of everything at KLIA should actually come as no surprise, seeing as it is a pretty major aviation hub for many other international destinations. It’s often a stopover for travellers going to other Asian destinations; Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Japan, etc, or even to places in Europe. There’s few places you can’t get to from Kuala Lumpur by air, seeing as it’s very centrally located in the grand scheme of things.
When you think about it in terms of demographics, the signs with two languages on them make even more sense: Malaysia is incredibly ethnically diverse. Wikipedia says there are a boatload of Chinese people in Malaysia, so it must be true.
What’s interesting, though, is that as an Australian-born Chinese I feel as though there’s such a cultural divide, even though there really isn’t. Not including English, I’m fluent in one of the three languages (I’m OK in Mandarin and can get by in Cantonese, don’t even bother talking to me in Malay) and understand a further two dialects, so in terms of verbal communication I’m not doing too bad. But when it comes to all the day to day stuff that goes on, I’m just not used to it.
For example: like many Aussies, when I’m at home I usually have some kind of cereal for breakfast. Fruit Loops when my mum isn’t hounding me about how it’s just sugar and colouring, otherwise some other Kellog’s derivative. (But never Weet Bix.) That doesn’t happen in Malaysia. Instead, for breakfast you get a choice between noodles with pork, noodles with soup, or noodles with whatever leftovers we had from last night. The first few days I was over here I didn’t really eat much for breakfast, not because I wasn’t hungry, although that was a convenient excuse, but because I’m just not used to having that kind of “heavy” food first thing in the morning.
It’s not just the food, either. Maybe it’s just because I’m a little separated from any relatives in good ol’ Tassie, but family gatherings seem to be a big thing here. We usually go to Malaysia for Chinese New Year, of course, but also because it was my grandma’s 80th birthday. For that we’re booking out an entire restaurant — upwards of 20 tables of eight people each — which should give you an idea of how big these things can be. There’s nothing like that in Australia, the closest thing being maybe Greek/Italian family get-togethers, not that I’ve ever experienced one of those.
My point is, everything is so different in Malaysia compared to back home. Their keluar is our exit, their SDN BHD our PTY LTD, their dilarang merokok our no smoking. Street-facing stores are plentiful, sure, but the real retail experience lies in their indoor malls, which completely dwarf ours; multi-levelled, fully-air conditioned, takes-all-day-to-fully-explore behemoths which would be enough to make any Westfield run and hide in awe.
