OUR HONG KONG WELCOME

Southeast Asian Shores: Malaysian Insights and Island Escapades

Kuala Lumpur: Jasmine’s “Chop-Chop” Tour and Memorable Tales

A Reluctant Start and a Welcoming Guide: After the Vietnam excursion neither of us really wanted to take this one in Kuala Lumpur. We were supposed to leave at 8:45. But we’re still in the Royal Court Theatre waiting. It doesn’t seem like any bus has left and we don’t have the most positive attitude as we finally go onto our bus #11 this time even though the sun is out and the bus has no air-conditioning or toilet. Hmmm… Not again. 

Our guide was a woman, Jasmine. “Good morning Everyone. Today is what I call the ‘chop-chop’ tour. A quick tour of Kuala Lumpur.”

Jasmine’s Engaging Commentary: Past the reclaimed land and floating house, past the mangrove trees where Jasmine says long tail monkeys hang out Jasmine tells us about Malaysia. “We love everybody” she says. GJT and I look at each other. What does that have to do with anything I think. But she has such a welcoming open approach she engages us on the bus. “We want to avoid slums in big cities.” She tells us how the city decided to build a city then the first thing is to build houses for the workers so that slums don’t begin. She told us Malaysia is a Muslim country 22% Chinese who have come since the 1400s;  65% Indians who came to sell textiles to the sultan and trade spices. She talks about families and languages spoken telling us everyone speaks two languages. She talks about schools. Everyone is listening. She makes us laugh saying that Kuala Lumpur has Intel and it’s a big presence. The chemical industry makes up 7% of Malaysian products but she’s sure we have all encountered Malaysia through its products. She talks about rubber products, medical gloves, latex and then condoms. Her souvenir suggestion is for everyone to buy condoms made in Malaysia. The bus breaks out in laughter. 

Stories from the City: We stopped at four places and for each one she had memorable stories to tell us. Here are just a few:

The Dalmatian Dog: In the men only club that is opposite the Clock Tower in the Kuala Lumpur she talks about this powerful woman who went in with all the men and she would come out and gossip telling the wives who was there and all the antics going on. The woman brought her Dalmatian dog to the club and one clever man decided to take the dog from her saying he would look after the dog while she enjoyed herself. What he did was have the dog sit in the door front, so if the Dalmatian dog was there, the men who didn’t want this powerful woman to gossip about them would avoid the club. No dog, no woman there. 

The Flood and Drying Money: And then there was the flood which made all the money in the bank that was in the safe in the basement wet. What to do? They dried it out by putting it all on the grass on the square with special guards to make sure that no one took anything. 

The Petronas Tower Race: For the Petronas Tower she took us through the story of the race to build the towers. Two separate towers and two separate countries each had a contract. Whoever built the final pinnacle first would win. “People were taking bets on who would win: Japan or Korea.” She said that what Korea did was build the pinnacle inside so no one could see it. Japan’s pinnacle was seen. It looked like Japan and then overnight the Korean side pinnacle was there and Korea won. The point was that since that pinnacle no one knew about the company’s name, afterwards everyone knew about the Korean company Samsung! 

A Tour Done Right: She did an amazing job with tour. We made it back on time, we saw everything that was scheduled to see. We all had different stories to remember and different places that meant more than others. GJT and I both felt this was the way tours should be run with this kind of precision and humanity. 

The guard (remind you of Britain?) standing outside the King’s Palace.