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July 02, 2004
(my) Last night [in Malaysia]
Today is my last day in Kuala Lumpur. I'm flying out tonight at 11:30pm local time (it's 9:15am now). Yesterday? Well, we met up with Jill, the girl from Friendster. The story version of the long story is that I chanced this fancy idea a week ago to friendster search for people in Malaysia. Unfortunately, Friendster doesn't allow you to search the location field and vicinity galleries are only valid with US zip codes. So I sought people who listed 'Malaysia' as their interest. I sent this message:
Long story is that with everything going on this week I ended up only with Jill, who is from Iowa and studying the impact of the 2.5% voluntary wealth tax on local Islamic societies. Kristel and I chatted with her for about two hours at KLCC, the enormous[ly fancy] shopping complex connected to the twin Petronis towers. It was an non-typically Malaysian afternoon - sitting inside a posh mall talking to Jill, who was definitely one of the more well-travelled people we've met.
Then we got home, where I penned 'Afternoon prayers' and Kristel's parents took us out to dinner again, this time to a restaurant in Petaling Jaya [the district we're in] famous for their gigantic prawns, crabs ans fish. I gorged myself and I remember turning to Kristel's parents halfway through the meal and saying "You've really figured out the best way to get me to shut my mouth." After that, Kristel and I left to meet up with Adrian Ow, a Harvard '07 (he actually was '06 but he had Visa issues post-9/11). We met at a Mamak, a roadside cafe/restaurant where people often go to hang out and chat with their friends (I'll get the correct spelling from Kristel when she wakes up). After that, we all headed to Zouk (http://www.zoukclub.com.my/), a recently renovated club near KLCC. I was fairly impressed with the club's spaces - but not too fond of the indoor smoking or the dancing. It was lady's night out (no cover for women) but we men managed to get in for free too, thanks to Kristel's well-connected friend. In fact, we got a table at the exclusive, members-only lounge hanging above the main dance floor. We sipped on champagne and fancy whiskey. In Malaysia, it's standard practice to buy an entire bottle.
I started hitting on an Austrailian girl only to have Kristel warn me off ("oh, she's someone's girlfriend and he's very protective"). Then I talked to another girl for a bit and she seemed interested in me but at some point left promptly. It was at that point that Kristel's other friend explained to me that in Malaysia, people generally don't get picked up. The hook-up culture is mostly non-existant in Malaysia and relationships are very dichotomous - you either come to the club single or dating and few people leave with a different status. So I suppose the H-bomb (dropping the Harvard name) works very very very well, but not well enough when I also tell them I'm flying out tomorrow. In hindsight I should have left that part out. The other difference between Malaysian clubs and American ones is the dance floor - people don't grind here... except for one or two couples here and there and a few of the ex-pats. One would certainly never think about approaching a stranger on the dance floor and hitting it off. Although Kristel's friend Kan entreated me to 'show us the way.'
Posted by rxu at July 2, 2004 10:11 AM