Malaysia is one of those countries where I didn’t have a particularly strong sense of the place before I visited. What little I did have seems to have been stuck in the mid-1850s, a vague impression of beaches, piracy, and colonialism.¹ And, yes, I knew I wouldn’t be sitting on a fancy hotel terrace in a rattan chair sipping a G&T watching ships exchanging broadsides. But I didn’t know what would have replaced it.

Arriving in Penang it was obvious what had replaced it: global capitalism. I was starting with a few days in George Town before traveling on to Kuala Lumpur, and to get into the Old Town you have to travel through just a mess of traffic and skyscrapers and roundabouts. Apparently in the 1980s, faced with blocks and blocks of unmaintained historic homes and businesses the local government bet big on tourism and knew exactly the sort of thing to attract it: brand new fancy shopping malls. Twenty years of battles with the residents ensued, with a lot of irreplaceable architecture torn down and lost, before they finally impressed upon the powers-that-be the value of all those existing buildings. It’s been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2008.

George Town also exemplifies what makes Malaysia unique. It’s been a hub of trading and cultural intermingling since the British founded it in 1786, mixing Chinese, Malay, Indian, Peranakan, Eurasian, and Thai influences.² So you could spend your time in the shopping malls. Or you could spend your time wandering past newly restored historic buildings, ducking in hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and marveling at the intermingling that’s happened in this corner of the world over centuries. I know which I recommend.

While I was in Penang I toured the Blue Mansion, a restored heritage building from 1904. It’s an eclectic building, mixing Chinese and Occidental styles throughout; there are ironworks from Glasgow and tiling from Stoke-on-Trent alongside Chinese cut and paste porcelain and a layout heavily influenced by the principles of feng shui.³

The life of the merchant who built it, Cheong Fatt Tze, is fascinating. He rose from humble beginnings — he was working as a shop assistant in Batavia when he married the shopkeeper’s daughter, only to inherit the shop shortly thereafter when the owner unexpectedly died — to eventually become known as the richest man in China, the “Rockefeller of the East.”⁴

He was incredibly cosmopolitan, comfortable in Eastern or Western company, with an apparently chameleon-like ability to fit in just about anywhere. When he died in 1916 both the Dutch and the British flew their flags at half-mast in his honor. He had business interests scattered across Southeast Asia and owned countless residences.⁵ He served as the Chinese Consul-General for Singapore, became the Chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and founded the first European-style winery in China.⁶

It took me a while to figure out what I found weird about his story, and it finally occurred to me: in the West, minorities just don’t get to be talked about in that way. I can think of plenty of stories where foreigners assimilate seamlessly into Western society. And plenty of stories where Westerners become adept at navigating foreign cultures as easily as they do their native culture.⁷ But despite learning how to navigate two different cultures being a skill virtually every immigrant has to develop,⁸ it’s certainly rarely presented that way.

So here’s Cheong Fatt Tze, who embraced Western style as well as Eastern style, took the best of what he liked from both, and got fabulously wealthy for his efforts. I mean, that story’s not unique. I’m just not used to hearing it told from the other side.

After Penang I went to Kuala Lumpur, and discovered what I’d describe as “George Town on steroids.” It’s obvious in retrospect that anyplace which built the tallest buildings in the world in 1998 is probably going to be a bit overdeveloped, but it’s one thing to vaguely realize that and another to see it with your own eyes. There’s still a lot of the more ramshackle storefronts around — I wandered down the stretch of the most famous street food alley and you can totally buy your skinned-frog-on-a-stick ready for boiling in a hot pot — but it’s mixed with dozens of glitzy, gleaming skyscrapers. The cheapo hotel chain I was staying in⁹ coexists with all the top-end fancy options like the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton.¹⁰

Kuala Lumpur has a lot of green space scattered throughout the city. Standing on top of one of those buildings, you can see the roofs of urban sprawl and clusters of trees competing for space throughout the city. There’s still a patch of rainforest preserved downtown,¹¹ and you can see the mountains ringing the city in the distance. I got a chance to go out to the outskirts¹² and experience it a little more directly. But then you’re still only an hour’s drive from downtown with its skyscrapers and luxury malls.

That’s all built with oil money, of course.¹³ It’s staggering to think of all the money that’s been poured in. The base of the Petronas Towers is a giant high-end¹⁴ mall, strongly reminiscent of the one I visited in Dubai.¹⁵ Which is another question: why do these places always aspire to be the exact same thing?

But the thing I realized as I was leaving the city is that, to America, Kuala Lumpur doesn’t really exist. I mean, moderately well-educated Americans would be able to name the capital of Malaysia, possibly point to it on the map. But it’s got over 8 million people in the larger urban area. It’s the capital of a country with a GDP in the same range as Ireland and Hong Kong.¹⁶ Being here, it feels like a big deal.

So maybe it’s not just my understanding of the world that’s stuck in a previous century. I’m not saying Americans ought to have some mental understanding of where Kuala Lumpur fits into the world. But it feels a lot like we made up our minds what bits are worth knowing about the world and what bits aren’t, and whether they made sense or not back then, they’re looking pretty arbitrary in the present day.

Next: Singapore (SIN) to Ko Samui (USM)
Prev: Krong Siem Reap (REP) to Penang (PEN)

Footnotes

¹ I also sort of thought Sagat from Street Fighter was Malaysian? But no, turns out he’s Thai.

² Not to mention whatever seeped in from the Brits

³ The inner courtyard is open to the sky, providing an incredible amount of light to both floors, and the center of the area has an ingenious pool to catch the water. As it rains, downspouts throughout the mansion collect the water and channel it through a pipe, the opening of which is shaped like a coin. This slowly fills the pool — the rain and flowing water ensuring prosperity will gather in the mansion — while hidden outflows higher up guarantee it’s not going to flood the ground floor.

⁴ My hotel was located on Cheong Fatt Tze Street in Penang.

⁵ He had eight wives, and apparently one of the keys of his success was to scatter them among Batavia, Penang, Shanghai, and Singapore in separate houses and have each of them oversee the local businesses. It also cut down the chances they would run into each other at brunch.

⁶ Even bringing over an array of Austrian experts to oversee it

⁷ Sir Richard Burton, for example

⁸ See what kind of backlash those who can’t or won’t are subject to.

⁹ citizenM, which may be a slightly soulless global business hotel chain despite the art direction, but did feature one of the most comfortable beds I’ve encountered while traveling around coupled with the most solid WiFi I’ve found in Southeast Asia

¹⁰ With my nerves kind of frayed, I dithered about booking a three-hour spa treatment at one of the luxury spas at the Ritz-Carlton and eventually did. It included a full-body scrub made of turmeric, rice, and galangal, which marks the first and only time I’ve ever had a healthy tan.

I will definitely do it again, in a year or two, which is about as often as I can afford that sort of thing.

¹¹ At the base of the 7^th tallest freestanding tower in the world, natch

¹² There’s a firefly colony in Kuala Selangor which lives on the banks of the Selangor River that have learned the trick of synchronizing their flashes. It’s one of the most eerie things I’ve seen; it doesn’t feel natural, having hundreds of fireflies blink in unison.

¹³ There’s a reason for the “Petro” in the Petronas Towers.

¹⁴ Well, highish-end. There was a Chili’s, among other options.

¹⁵ And like the one in Dubai, I took the opportunity to watch a movie there. In this case Onward. It was fine.

¹⁶ Granted, much lower population. But even so.