Home for the Holidays

My Brothers, the Dog, and I

Or “How I Went Home and Came Back Again”

There is nothing like going away and coming back to make things both wondrous and strange. Going home for the Christmas and then returning to KL again, I was able to experience that strange familiarity of homecoming from two directions.

Christmas in North Carolina was not part of the original plan. Before I left in August, the plan was for my parents to come visit KL sometime in May. As I began my adjustment to the heat, spice, and humor of life in Malaysia some of my stories made more of an impact on my mom than others. “It’s really hot in Malaysia isn’t it?” and “How long is the flight to KL, again?” slowly led to the conclusion that my parents would rather meet half way, in a place, say, like Hawaii, than take the marathon flight out to KL. One bout of homesickness and several Kayak.com searches later, when I realized that it was cheaper for me to fly home than fly to Hawaii that settled it. I was coming home for Christmas!

The week before I went home I could barely focus on anything else. My big “try to finish this stage of research before you leave” push was met by an all time productivity low as I intermitently checked the weather in Charlotte and added things like “see uncensored movies” and “cook Malay for parents” to my ever growing list of things to do in North Carolina.

Even the Mulu caves with their gargantuan caverns and rugged legacy of titanic forces could barely keep me from chattering on about North Carolina when I went to visit Munirah in Miri. Somehow, in the midst of tropical jungle with hand eating catepillars and gigantic walking stick bugs everywhere, I managed to say something like “oh, this limestone reminds me of home . . .” I think Munirah wanted to hit me!

All of the anticipation and the buildup still couldn’t compare to what it felt like to finally be home. I nearly knocked my dad over when he walked into the airport. For a few days, the sheer familiarity of life at home made life in Malaysia fade into those recesses of the mind reserved for dreams. My littlest brother Jake had grown another foot or so since the summer. Clay, my little brother, had survived his first semester at college, in engineering school no less! And my dog, Cassidy, looked something like a petite polar bear in her winter coat of fur.

I spent the next two weeks soaking up all the aspects of American life, both the small and the cosmically important, that I had missed in KL. Catching up with friends and hanging around with family were the best. But little things like small talk with strangers and sugar free flavor shots also added to the holiday cheer. There was a friend filled visit to Chapel Hill and Greensboro followed by Christmas with the family and then a dash up to Duplin County to see my dad’s side before it was finally time to say goodbye, again, and fly across the sea.

Three things struck me during my reunions with friends from college and high school. First, everyone looked a tad more serious and professional than they had before I left. Winter styles will do this, but I could tell there was something more. And, my friends in law school will kill me for this, but they especially seemed to have acquired this serious glamour and were far more analytical than they were before.

Second, everyone, except those still in college and those in TFA, mentioned how hard it was to find friends and a network half as interesting as the ones they had known in college. It seemed everyone was struggling with how to fill their time. While sad, this made me feel a little better about my own struggle to connect with people in KL.

Finally, I realized that for the next several years at least or until we all either move to DC or found a retirement home for Chapel Hill graduates, the holidays are going to be one of the few times when I will be able to catch up with my closest friends in person. The holidays are more exciting than they were in college, but also bittersweet.

The flight(s) back to KL was mostly uneventful. On the runway in Newark, the pilot did make a rather peculiar announcement that we would be delayed a bit ” so they can saw a piece back onto the plane,” but missing parts or not we still made it into Hong Kong just fine, if three hours late.

New Year’s Eve in the Hong Kong transfer terminal was probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. A few seconds before the stroke of midnight, one of the pink-scarfed airline attendants manning the transfer desks counted down the time on her phone and then shouted across the hall to the attendants manning the desks on the other side. “Happy New Year!” trilled back and forth from either side. One attendant almost fell out of her chair trying to call friends to wish them a happy new year as her friend jumped up and down beside her. The airline attendents kindly included the only two occupants of the transfer hall, a matronly Fillipino woman and me, in their cheer. As the sounds of New Year’s wishes filled the hall, the Fillipino woman sat up from her berth on the airport benches and said to me “Happy New Year – next year will be better!” with an ironic twist of her head to encompass the gleeful airline attendants, the empty airport, and our spot in the transfer hall.

A good thirteen hours later when I finally arrived at my apartment, KL seemed so familiar but yet unreal. The doormen raised their eyebrows as I walked in – perhaps in reference to my two week absence or the heavy winter coat thrown over my bag. After winter in North Carolina, KL resembled a pungent sauna smelling of spice and fermentation. Brighter, hotter, louder than I remembered, it was still, in an almost inverted way, my home.

More Pictures from Sabah!!

Ok, here are the rest of the pictures from Jess and my most excellent Borneo rainforest adventure! I hope you enjoy.

Danum Valley River Shot

Danum Valley is one of the most special reserves in Sabah. The amount of wildlife there was incredible. Just sitting on the porch of the canteen we could see all sorts of species from hornbills to gibbons!

Forest Canopy Shot

My one regret from the trip is that I didn’t look up at the canopy enough. You can see how beautiful the greenscape over our heads could be. I spent too much time checking my socks for leeches!

Enter the Jungle

This was a rather sturdy suspension bridge leading into the main trail area at Danum. It was always a sight to behold before enter the jungle itself.

Artistic Bug Photo

Traveling with an ecologist was hilarious at times, especially during her frequent stops to pick up, look at, or photograph bugs. This shot turned out to be pretty artistic. Maybe a second career for Jess? Once she’s done working at DeLong Labs in Cambridge, of course!

More Tigers Leeches - Oh My!

Oh leeches! These are Tiger Leeches, one of the two dominant leech species in Borneo. They are incredibly colorful with streaks of orange, blue, green, and sometimes red. They’re also faster and more persistent than their boring brown Borneo Leech cousins.

Forest Butterfly

One of hundreds of beautiful butterflies we saw in and around Danum. There were so many different species we lost count!

Tiger Leech!!

We also lost count of the number of leeches we saw. Yuck!

Super Neat Bug

Ok, I wish we’d been able to get a less blurry picture of this bug, but this was the best we could do. I think the humidity was a little too high. Check out the nose and beautiful colors on this one. Jess says that she saw several different varieties of this bug up in Perak, each one a different combination of fantastic colors.

Rolly Polly Bug

Yep, there goes Jess, picking up a bug! She had a special thing for rolly pollies and hermit crabs. To be fair, I had a thing for cowry shells.

Can You See the Crocodile?

I’m glad we saw this guy (over three meters long!) towards the end of our boat tour. Crocodiles were definitely on my species wish list before the trip so I’m glad we got to see one. After seeing so many alligators in the US, I was itching to see their more dangerous cousins!

Sleeping Trogon

The best time to look at birds was actually at night when they came low in the canopy to roost. Because they can’t see in the dark, the birds wouldn’t twitch so much as a muscle no matter how close you came to them. We were probably two or three feet away from this couple when this shot was taken.

Lots of Elephants!

Our guides estimated that all in all, between the ones on the river shore and the ones back hidden in the bamboo, the herd of pygmy elephants we saw had over 70 individuals! We were incredibly lucky to see them. Because they had two baby elephants under a month old with them, they didn’t retreat into the forest as fast as they would normally have. It gave us a great chance to watch the elephants play and to be watched in return!

Elephants with Month Old Baby

You can see one of the tiny elephant calves right here. They were adorable!

That’s all the photos! I’m still working on getting a camera before my trip to Penang and my trip to Sarawak. Hopefully, I’ll have more photos to post in the future!

Sabah!!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Jess, a forestry researcher from the States, and I embarked on a mad dash adventure to Sabah in Malaysian Borneo in hopes of visiting the legendary Danum Valley rainforest preserve. Here are some photographic highlights (courtesy of Jess’ photography skills, my camera has been busted for the last month or so – apologies to those of you who have been wanting more pictures):

Jess Playing in the Street Market

Kota Kinabulu has a wonderful Sunday night market full of fruit, food, and neat handicraft vendors. As we were walking through the market, two older men motioned us over to try our hands at the gamelon. Jess was a natural – perhaps a new musical star in the making!

Roadside Fruit Vendor

The fruit in Sabah was amazing. Here you can see my favorite type of fruit, salak fruit, which is incredibly hard to find in Kuala Lumpur. No good explanation yet for why it is so hard to find. The best one I have heard so far is that it is considered more of a “kampung fruit” (i.e. village fruit). I guess I’ll just have to start making trips to villages then!

Yep . . . scorpion . . . that's what we found in our hotel room

This was an interesting interlude. We were getting ready to turn in the night, lazily chatting about our plans for the next day, when Jess sat bolt upright and gasped “what’s that by your shoe?!” Sure enough, we had a huge night visitor. Not deadly, but it would have hurt a lot if we met his stinger.

Green Pit Viper

Sometimes traveling in the jungle brought back memories of a book I had when I was little called “Prickly and Poisonous.” It was full of the most colorful illustrations of all the world’s deadliest species. This one, the green pit viper, was everywhere on our first night walk outside Sandakan. We saw four that night alone. They are disarmingly delicate sitting like tiny green gems among the night foilage. But if they bite you, it’s pretty much over. The crazy thing is that the pit vipers were not the most poisonous snake I saw while in Sabah. While looking for cowry shells on Sapi island, I glanced down to find a beautiful blue and black sea snake with the merest hint of gold on its nose floating in the tidal pool at my feet. It was absolutely the most beautiful and most deadly creature I saw on the entire trip. I just wish I’d had a camera with me!

The Lizard Who Thought He Was A Leaf

We felt some serious “be the leaf” vibe from this little lizard zen master. There was a lot of leaf imitation going on in the forest – from a bird that flew like a falling leaf to a giant horned frog who looked just like a leaf except for the fact that he was massive! (picture of the frog coming soon)

Beautiful water view off of Sapi Island

Ok, so this image was supposed to rotate a bit. Sorry – it’s still a beautiful view if you turn your head!

Many more photos coming soon (or at least, as soon as I find a better internet connection!)

Capital Controls = Sexy Again

For those of you wondering about the brief hiatus over the last week or so, I just got back from a trip to the rainforests in Sabah. Expect to see tons of pictures in a post coming soon!

In the meantime, the recent economic crisis and mouldering recession have wreaked havoc on economic doctrine creating space for some exciting developments in the world of economics. For example, the existence of asset bubbles is now much more widely recognized; the rationality of markets much less so. There is now rising concern over where the next asset bubble will occur, and what options countries have to prevent asset bubbles in the first place. The end result – capital controls are sexy again.

In the early days of the financial crisis, there was a mass flight to safety among investors in developed markets. Many investors took their funds out of the falling stock market and placed them in “safe” assets like cash, gold, and Treasuries. Now, the race for higher returns in on again. With returns in the developed world held down by slow recoveries and low interest rates, investors have turned to those members of the developing world still reporting sky high growth rates. This has meant a flood of investment into China, Brazil, and India.

The massive influx of capital into these economies has sparked worries about potential asset bubbles. The real estate market in China has been singled out for particular concern. History, and Kindleberger, have shown that concern, even when strongly expressed by central banks, dampens but does not prevent the formation of asset bubbles. To prevent potentially destructive asset bubbles, governments are in need of stronger policies. For China, Brazil, and India this has meant a return to their historic reliance on capital controls.

All three countries – China, Brazil, and India – either have capital control regimes or are in the process of implementing them. China has had substantial controls on capital account convertability for quite some time. During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, some economists argued that these controls helped insulate China against contagion from the afflicted markets. Brazil, also, has a history of using capital controls but for shorter durations. Brazil experimented with capital controls briefly following its financial crisis in 1999. India, in recent years, has been fighting to break free of its history of a tightly regulated and over-bureacratized economy. Faced with large inflows of capital, it too, however, has reverted to its historic use of capital controls to stem the inflows.

Historically, it is not surprising that China, Brazil, and India would resort to controls. The real shock is the calm with which the financial community has accepted these developments. The Economist, last week, rather than excoriating India for using capital controls, merely offered advice how to design controls with the least market distortion. This is significantly different from the hue and cry raised over Malaysia’s use of capital controls in 1997. This time around, capital controls are being treated as a legitimate policy option, rather than a frontal assault on capitalism.

The jury is still out on the ultimate benefits and consequences of capital controls. However, I hope the recent lack of furor is a sign that the financial crisis has cleared space for real policy debate rather than reflexive ideological fights. Policies which admit the occasional imperfection of the markets should not be taken as an assult on capitalism, but rather ideas for how to make capitalism work better.

Air Conditioning . . . It’s Gonna Be Big!!

Asking a Malaysian about what seasons her country has can lead to some surprising answers. Most often, you will be given some sardonic rendition of the classic “wet and wetter” or “hot and hotter”. Only occasionally will you be met with a blank stare. Rarely, you will hear my favorite answer, one that readily identifies its author as a wit. The best answer is “summer and winter.”

This may be confusing to my geography conscious readers. They will quickly point to Malaysia’s astonishing proximity to the equator and to its formerly lush stretches of tropical rainforest. The latter are increasingly now lush stretches of oil palm or rubber plantations, but still tropical, nonetheless. All of which would stand as evidence that Malaysia definitively does not have a “winter.” However, these arguments only demonstrate that the person making them has never been inside a Malaysian bank, or office, or home, for that matter.

The crux of the joke is that Malaysia really does have two extreme seasons, seasons which can vary by as much as 40 degrees! Malaysia’s two season aren’t “summer and winter” and they don’t come a year apart. Malaysia’s two seasons are “inside and outside.”

The culprit behind Malaysia’s strange weather pattern isn’t global warming and it certainly isn’t el nino. It’s air conditioning or in these parts of the world, “aircon.” Friends back home may be surprised to learn that I always carry a jacket with me in Malaysia. It’s not because I’m afraid a chunk of polar ice cap will break off and coming heading this way. (Although, a part of me does wonder if I should be worried about that possibility. And if I should visit Bangladesh sooner rather than later.) It’s because you really can freeze in some of the offices around here.

Air conditioning is a terrific productivity booster. Living in a tropical environment you quickly learn how much the heat can slow a person down. A retired Malay investment banker I spoke with a few days ago joked that Malays, also known as sons of the soil, “clung to the earth” in ancient times, not because they loved the land per se, but rather because the heat made them so sleepy.

On the other side of the Straits, Lee Kuan Yew, master of efficiency, famously supposed speculated on the possibility of enclosing Singapore in an airconditioned bubble or on giving each resident a personal airconditioning unit to be worn about the neck. There is a high likelihood that these quotes are apocryphal, a highly efficient tropical city-state’s urban myth. But they’re understandable, nonetheless!

I’ve only recently gotten on the extreme airconditioning bandwagon and it has very little to do with striving for higher productivity (although it does help). Just in the past month, I’ve found myself physically craving fall. Sometimes when the airconditioning is on high, I’ll catch myself thinking of apple cider, cozy sweaters, and early evenings reading by the fire. At night, it’s the strangest thing, I dream about falling leaves.

Now, when someone in the office turns the airconditioning on high and my nose starts to feel like it might fall off, I grab my jacket, snuggle into my chair, and google images of falling leaves.

(On another funny airconditioned note – Old Town White Coffee shows commercials in its CIMB building branch. My favorite is from Korea’s tourism office. The main pitch for visiting Korea is that they are a “land of four seasons.” The first half of the commerical shows a happy couple dancing through falling leaves, falling snow, and then falling cherry blossoms. It’s terribly effective. I don’t even like kimchee and I’m thinking about going to Korea!)

((Another note – Michelle from my language class joked that Malays make small talk by asking each other “have you eaten yet?” only because the weather here never changes.))

Nobel Prize!!

Wow! Just a few minutes ago my friend Arlene texted me to say that Obama had won the Noble Peace Prize! I was completely blown away. First off, lately peace prizes and US presidents have been somewhat antithetical. Engaging in two wars has a way of disqualifying one from winning awards for peace. But more importantly, and maybe this is just a symptom of my ongoing Obama-phoria, it seems like the latest indicator of how much Obama has done to restore the US image abroad.

Traveling internationally with Obama in office has been an entirely different experience from traveling with Bush in the White House. Taxi drivers, fellow researchers at UM, and travelers met along the way still have issues with many of America’s policies. America obviously has a lot of work to do on our immigration policy and thinking to do about how we use our might to promote good governance abroad. But regardless of how they feel about America’s policies, the people I have met almost unanimously love Obama and what Obama means for America. One woman I met from Iraq, was almost in tears as she described how much hope her family has that Obama can bring her country peace. For the people I have met, Obama represents the hope that America can be good again.

Part of me knows that for a sitting president, winning the Nobel Peace Prize before you’ve pardoned your first turkey may be a little too soon. I definitely agree with Arlene that it would be better to wait and judge the totality of Obama’s time in office. A lot can change in a little over three years. That being said, Obama has consistently weathered multiple harrowing political attacks that could easily have reignited race-bating in America. And he has done so in a way that promotes unity rather than divisiveness. His “On Race” is definitely going to be remembered as one of the most transcendent speeches in American history.

I just hope that winning the Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t add to what must already be an enormous amount of pressure resting on Obama’s shoulders. To know that so many people have invested their hopes in him must be a powerful burden. And now, as a sign of those hopes, he has been given the world’s most prestigious prize. Can you imagine what Monday is going to be like for him? “Gee, thanks for the congratulations everybody. But, um, we’ve got to get back to work . . .”

An Incredibly Interesting Day

Today, like most days in Kuala Lumpur, was an incredibly interesting day. Coming back to my apartment I was chased first by a rat and then by a dainty poodle named “Mama”. At work, I was given a new printer and a new officemate. And at language class, I learned that only the first wife gets to call herself “Datin” if her husband is knighted “Datuk.” However, second wives should not give up all hope of getting a title. If the first wife dies or is divorced they then inherit the title. All of this sounds like the basis for a juicy soap opera.

The most interesting thing, however, happened at dinner. I was sitting at one of my favorite Indian restaurant’s long communal tables devouring a plate of nasi briyani dan ayam goreng (briyani rice and fried chicken). ABC, which stands for “A Best Cafe”, is at the top of my list of Indian restaurants because the food is good, the waiters friendly, and none of the men eating there have tried to hassle me, yet. It seems pretty popular in general because it’s always hopping, even after 10:00 pm, like tonight. So I wasn’t too surprised when someone sat down at the table next to me. What made me do a double take was the fact that my tablemate wasn’t Indian, but Belgian – a Belgian who had just been kicked out of Indonesia, no less.

He and nine others who had all been working for the same NGO had been kicked out of Papua ostensibly over complications with their visas. But, he revealed, they are only the latest in a long line of NGOs that have been forced to leave Papua over the past several months. Before them, the Clinton Foundation had been forced to leave. While in KL trying to resolve their visa issues, the Belgian and his colleagues had learned that the International Red Cross looked like it too would be forced to leave the island. With the Red Cross gone, only one solitary representative of UNDP would be left.

This trend seems particularly ominous. Despite Indonesia’s recent elections which were conducted without violence and with only minimal reports of corruption, there are still a number of factors that prevent it from being a true model democracy. Two huge factors are the army and inter-communal tension, both of which are present in Papua. Kicking NGOs out of a region that is prone to interethnic and religious strife seems like a sure sign that something sinister is on the horizon. But the question becomes, will journalists and the general public pay attention to these low level developments before actual violence breaks out? or is the newsworthy threshold only crossed once people have been killed?

For now, the Belgian and his colleagues are stuck in Malaysia trying to resolve their situation while worrying about the safety of the human rights activists they were in Indonesia to protect. On top of their current problems, they have to wonder what will happen if they are not allowed to return to Indonesia, what will happen if there are no NGOs left to report on the actions of the Indonesian army in an increasingly volatile region.

An interesting day for sure . . .

Photos!!

In repsonse to readers’ requests, I am slowly learning how to add photos to my blog. Here are the first few from August. As I get better at the html process, I’ll be adding more!

Lalu-lintas (traffic!)

Traffic can certainly be intense around KL, especially during Ramadan when there are three rush hour periods – one in the morning, one afterwork, and one right before breakfast time in the evening. Here is a relatively calm traffic scene from nearby Sogo.

Streetview Near Sogo

I love the colorful converted rowhouses and streetside shops. Sometimes I just pause to admire the colors that are used on buildings. All the bright color just adds to the festive feel of the activity teeming around my neighborhood.

Balloon Man and Motorbikes

The poor balloon men! Somehow, despite all the crazy parking jobs and obvious traffic violations that occur around the market we’ve only ever seen the balloon men get ticketed. Maybe the police just don’t like balloons??

Starbucks Jelly Coffee Promotion

Starbucks is super expensive in Malaysia. It actually costs more here even after converting back to USD than it does at home. To make up for the loss of price competitiveness, they have monthly promotions. This month’s promotion is “Coffee in your Jelly/Jelly in your Coffee!” Sorry, I haven’t tried it so I can’t tell you exactly what that means!

Petronas Towers at Night

And of course, the requisite Petronas Towers photo. At night the area around the towers is a lively gathering spot. The fountains, backlit by submersed lights, and the glowing towers make quite a sight!

A Need for Recognition

Visitors to Malaysia will quickly be told that the Petronas Towers are the tallest free-standing twin towers in the world; that the Berjaya Times Mall is the largest single column mall in Southeast Asia; and that the Lake Gardens Bird Park is the largest covered aviary park in the world. Amidst all of these superlative titles one is apt to notice that qualifiers abound. Sure, after investing so much to build the Petronas Towers it is understandable that Malaysia would want to extoll their virtues and distinction as landmarks, but why the need to constantly measure, compare, and subsequently label everything else?

Given this question, one which has puzzled many a visitor to Malaysia, I was shocked to find an answer in my current reading book. Take the following passage for example:

“It is the story, this one of these years, of an always mounting hymn of thanksgiving for Progress, of the appearance of Rotary and a great outburst of boasting, a vast upsurge of vociferous pride in “the biggest towel mill on earth,” in “the biggest cotton mill under one roof in the world,” in car loadings and bank clearings and millions of this and millions of that.” – C.J. Walsh, The Mind of the South.

This quote does not come from a book about Malaysia. Rather, it comes from a book written almost seventy years ago to explain attitudes in the Southern United States at a time when they were experiencing their own rapid cycle of development. Yet its depiction shares an eerie similarity to the national boasts one finds here in Malaysia.

Walsh’s attributes the South’s need to boast about its achievements in the early 1900s to an almost defensive need for validation after having been told for so long by its Northern neighbors that the Southern character was inimical to industrialization. Walsh claims that the South had a need to prove itself after being told for so long that it would not, could not achieve prosperity.

It is not hard to see how a similar explanation could fit Malaysia. After granting Malaysia its independence, the British left behind many of their colonial attitudes towards Malays. The British preferred to do business with the Chinese because they doubted the Malay work ethic. Some have claimed that this ethnicization of employment under British rule was part of a deliberate attempt at control.

After the British left, doubts about the Malay work ethic were carried forward by Malaysia’s own leaders. Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, famously wrote The Malay Dilemma. In this book, he claimed that Malays lacked the work ethic and initiative to industrialize their own country. It probably did not help that at the time, Singapore, Malaysia’s neighbor and fellow former British colony, was rapidly on its way to becoming an international banking capital. Malaysians must have looked across the straits and wondered what Chinese-majority Singapore had that they did not.

Now, fifty years after independence, Malaysia has a lot that it can boast about. Besides tall buildings, its history of steady growth is enviable in the developing and the developed world alike. But you can still sense a fragility behind that boastfulness, a lingering insecurity about their achievements among many Malaysians. Tonight, our Bahasa Melayu teacher, after welcoming yet another German gap-year volunteer to the class, joked seriously – “Volunteer-la? When you come here you must know many people here working hard for money. Maybe someday-la, when we are rich we will send volunteers, but now, no.”

“Someday-la” – the ability to say that is itself something to brag about.

That’s Right – You’re Not From Texas

First things first, Lyle Lovett is amazing. Failed marriage to Julia Roberts and crazy, uncle-chasing pet bulls aside, his music is great. If you haven’t heard his work before, I highly recommend you check out “This Old Porch”, “If I Had A Boat”, and “That’s Right, You’re Not From Texas.”

That last song came to mind this evening when I ran into an American couple on the elevator. I realized that they were from America after I overheard them trying to explain to an elderly Malay man how far Texas is from Kuala Lumpur. As the elevator made its way up to my floor, we fell into conversation. Turns out, they had held Fulbright lecturer positions in Zimbabwe! It was such a neat experience to randomly meet a couple who had been through their own version of setting up life in a new environment. I just wish the ride up had taken a little bit longer so that I could have heard more about their experiences! (and gossiped about life under Mugabe!)

I did, however, get to have a nice chat today with the researcher from India who shares my office. He just published a book on affirmative action policies in India, which is quite a hot topic. His project in Malaysia has been looking at what lessons India can learn from Malaysia’s affirmative action policies as it considers extending affirmative action into the private sector. Underlying our conversation was the observation that our three countries – India, the US, and Malaysia – have all implemented affirmative action policies, but each in its own way. After his time in Malaysia, my companion observed that functioning multicultural societies do not develop overnight, but they can, perhaps, be engineered.

That at least has been Malaysia’s philosophy. Recently, however, the Malaysian press has been consumed with worry about its multicultural status after a group of protesters threw a cow’s head at a Hindu temple and, in a separate incident, an undercover Muslim reporter spat out communion at a Catholic church. More worrisome than the events themselves and far less heartening than the press’ demonstration of concern, has been the government’s response, or rather lack thereof. In Malaysia, it remains to be seen how committed the new government is to the difficult task of multicultural engineering.