Manglish & More

I got back on Sunday from my trip to Malaysia. I had an incredible experience and an awesome time. I met so many great people and took over 100 pictures. After trying to figure out which ones to put in my blog, I decided to start with this one taken from the Malaysian Twin Towers. Security was very tight even when compared to any post 9/11 NYC building. But once up there, I thought the view was spectacular. I think this particular picture was taken from the office of a video game company that I visited. The founder is from Sacramento, CA, USA of all places! He's been in Malaysia for over 7 years. When I asked him why he decided to setup and settle down in Malaysia, he said it reminds him of California in the 70's. I was never in California in the 70's, but it sure didn't remind me of California in the 90's!

The Malaysia that I saw was a very interesting place. My first thought is that it felt like a slightly more developed and cleaner version of Thailand. The people are friendly like Thais, are generally darker skinned, the climate is warm, and the food is delicious and cheap. The people I met were also quite fluent in English and at least 2 or 3 other languages. I was surprised to find that many of them speak better English and Mandarin than most people in a former British colony like Hong Kong! In addition to English and Mandarin, many of them speak Cantonese and Malay fluently as well. They also speak a mangled, Malay, slang version of English called Manglish. Apparently Manglish speakers can communicate fairly well with Singlish (Singapore's version of English) speakers even though they are quite different. I've never been to S'pore either. But I learned of a love/hate relationship the two countries share among so many other things. I usually research a place before I travel there, but I just didn't have the time this time around.

There's so much more I could write about my incredible week in Malaysia, but it's late so I'll save it for another entry.

The pace in Malaysia was slower than HK. Once I got back to Hong Kong the pace picked up almost immediately. It must be the air in HK or something. As soon as I got home I felt that I was right back in the thick of it. More on that possibly in my next blog entry.