colourful Malaysia

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There are a lot of foreigners in Malaysia. Just get on any of the public transportation e.g. bus, light transit, etc and you may hear quite a number of different languages being spoken. Where some of them are tourists coming from euro or Middle East or just anywhere in the world, quite a large number of them are workers working in Malaysia.

Sometimes I feel like asking myself, where am I? But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I love seeing people coming from many parts of the world. Different colours, looks, styles and languages. All of them are coming here to experience Malaysian culture, lifestyle or places of interest.

When you see somebody that looks like a Malay or a Malaysian Chinese, or even Malaysian Indian, think again. Listen carefully to their language. Just now I saw a couple with a son sitting between them in the train. The husband looked like a Malay and her wife more like a (Malaysian) Chinese. Then when I heard them talking, to my surprise that they were talking a foreign language. It sounded like Thai, but not it. Maybe Cambodian or Vietnamese. Then there were another couple sitting beside me. I thought they’re Malays. But suddenly one of them took out a camera to capture a photo and they talked to each other in Indonesian. So they must be tourists from Indonesia. Then right in front of me were Arabs. Not far away were Caucasians not talking in English but in other European  language.

There were once I was asked by an Indian for direction. I thought that he was a Malaysian Indian that I gave the instruction in Manglish mixed with Malay. Then he looked confused and told me that he just arrived in Malaysia few days before that.

And nowadays you can simply see Africans everywhere. And most of them are students studying in Malaysia.

Without all those tourists and workers from outside, Malaysia is already a multicultural country consisting Malay, Chinese, Indians and a lot more other native tribes. We live next to each other, doing things together and sharing and visiting each other houses during major celebrations.

Being home for holiday (and being away during the rest of the time) really makes me appreciate more and thankful for living in such beautiful and colourful country. A country called Malaysia.