Trip Up North (Malaysia)

On a recent business trip I traveled to the Northern extreme of Malaysia, almost touching Thailand, roughly thirty kilometers from my path. While on the trip I experienced a beautiful array of sites and tastes, blends of various spices, meats, vegtables and ultimately cultures. That is one thing that strikes me about Malaysia - it is an amazingly diverse geographic area. On this particular trip we drove to the island of Penang (Northwest Malaysia) where you can view colonial buildings origanally errected by the British East Indies Company in the late seventeen hundreds and then travel not fifteen kilometers east to the astoundingly not Malaysian sounding town of 'Butterworth.' While in Penang Justin and I took our breakfast at a small outdoor cafe across from our hotel, the type of restaurant that my Mother would never dream of eating at (no offense Mom). As we started our meal, over loud speakers the Islamic call to prayer commenced, reminding me of the Islamic grip over Malaysia. Leaving Penang and the town of Kulim we drove through mountain passes to the town of Ipoh, a predominantly Chinese town. These Chinese, or more appropriately Hakka ethnic group within China proper, migrated to Ipoh in the early 1900's to extract the tin that had just been discovered in Perak county. Along with these Chinese, or maybe before (I need to do more research) is a large minority of ethinic Indians. Forgive my lack of research as the Indians might have come before the Haka, possibly the Indians traveled to Malaysia with the British, or even earlier? Regardless, you have this great confluence of Chinese (Hakka), Indian, and to a lesser extent Europeans (several large multinational companies have manufacturing facilities in Ipoh mostly related to the semiconductor industry). This theme of the diversity of Malaysia was, yet again pounded into me over lunch as I ate a 'banana leaf' meal with my company's Swedish Plant Manager, one of our product line managers who is French, my company's Indian Production Manager, my Chinese technical manager, Indian Engineering Manager who actually has a British name due to his family being Christians, and me. If you are wondering, banana leaf meals are just that, your plate is a freshly cut banana leaf on which is placed your choice of meat (my favorite is the mutton), assorted vegetables and a smattering of spices. You can then either take your fingers or your utensils, and mix the food up or eat selectively. Toping off this theme was the trip back to our facility were I observed that most of the ladies in the office were wearing the Muslim headscarf called a 'hajib'.
What a place to live.