Ariel 'Foreign Bureau'

By Jonathan Kent, Reporter, Kuala Lumpur, 18 January 2005

Malaysia is not unlike north Oxfordshire. Let me qualify that. Yes, having been in Kuala Lumpur for almost two and a half years, having previously worked for Radio Oxford, I have spotted the odd difference.

Malaysia is only three or four degrees north of the Equator, it’s a fairly constant 33 degrees and oppressively humid. When people in Banbury scrape the frost off their windows on a January morning, they might well offer to swap.

Just over half the population here is ethnic Malay and Muslim; the rest is Chinese, Tamil, Punjabi or from any one of the indigenous peoples such as the Iban, Dyak, Kadazandusun – and of all religions.

I’m aware that few people in Charlbury go out for breakfast wearing loincloths and armed with blowpipes, as might some of the Orang Asli who live in the jungles of Pahang.

No, the reason that Malaysia is not unlike north Oxfordshire is its news patch. It is one of those places where not much happens to make the world sit up and take notice – at least not on the scale that things happen in, say, Baghdad, Beijing, or even Brussels.

Trawling through the parish newsletter

It can be a good thing. For example, when the tsunami struck on Boxing Day, Malaysia escaped the worst, drawing upon some of the luck which seems to have helped it through much of its history.

Thailand to the north and the Indonesian province of Aceh to the west were hit particularly hard. In Malaysia around 70 people were killed by the tsunami – tragic enough but a mercifully light number compared to the tens of thousands who lost their lives elsewhere.

If you want the world to take an interest in Malaysia, you have to make them interested. Scanning the New Straits Times or the stories put out by the national news agency Bernama is not that different from trawling through the Cropredy parish newsletter back in England.

The killer story is probably buried on page 13, at the bottom; like the minister who advocated mass circumcision ceremonies as a means of bringing people of different races together.

I have encountered some new problems to be sure. Unlike the Malaysian government, West Oxfordshire district council never accused me of trying to strain diplomatic ties between Kuala Lumpur and London (though I suspect they wanted to).

Extraordinary petri dish of a place

And sometimes it does get deathly quiet here. Then, the only thing to do is go and lie by the pool or indulge in the number one past-time: eating.

Malaysia is a nation masquerading as one very large restaurant and, while there may be no substitute for a pint in the Falkland Arms in Great Tew on a Sunday night, I’m afraid that Britain has no answer to black pepper crab.

But what makes this part of the world most rewarding is the opportunity it offers to meet people from every walk of life – no less the humble than the mighty. Many of them, like rubber tappers and refugees, are rarely allowed a voice, but of course it’s their stories I remember most vividly.

It’s a real privilege being able tell the world about this extraordinary petri dish of a place: its broadband internet and bamboo huts; its people of all races and religions mixing and on the whole rubbing along together pretty well.

It’s all about finding something that will make people sit up and watch or listen – just like north Oxfordshire.

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