The Malaysian cross-cultural experience

It's been about a century and a half since I last posted ... forgive me but I couldn't find my blogs until Blogger implemented a better integration to gmail. I thought I'd kick off this round of posts with a comment on Malaysia. Through work, I've had to travel to Malaysia a few times over the years -- mainly Kuala Lumpur (KL).

Malaysia is truly one of those "crossroads" places. A unique mix of at least 4 dominant cultures: Malay (the indigenous), Chinese, Indian, and British. Furthermore, the predominant religion among the Malay people is Islam so that too adds a unique layer through the multicultural fabric.

I have 2 favorite activities when I visit Malaysia: shopping for DVDs in Chinatown and hanging out at the Sunway mall.

DVD shopping in Chinatown is, of course, buying pirated disks on the street ... but before you get your boxers in a knot, I do have some fundamental principles that I follow. The most important is that I will never buy a dupe of a released DVD. I work in the software industry and I have some sensitivity to IP issues. Really the only ones I buy are the new release, still in theater movies, that are generally shot with a hand held video camera in a cinema. I buy these disks as souvenirs and not so much to see the movie. In fact, I only buy the ones that I know I will pay to see in a cinema, cable pay-per-view, or purchase a legitimate disk later on. But I find that nothing is funnier than watching the movie bounce up and down as the bootlegger tries to hide the camera when the usher walks by. Althought the Malaysian government is trying the clamp down on this piracy the KL Chinatown still has a fair number of vendors (as of spring 2007).

The Sunway Shopping Centre is in the suburbs of KL. For the last few trips, I stayed at the Sunway Pyramid resort hotel which is attached to the shopping mall. There is also a giant water theme park called the Sunway Lagoon as part of this mega complex. Initially, I hung out at the mall as a matter of convenience. The hotel is far enough away from the main city that it was not very easy for me to get to the city. In the end though, I always enjoy my strolls through the mall. First, there is a large, full size skating rink in the middle of the mall. Being from Canada, I get a kick out of seeing people who live on the equator trying to ice skate. There is also a full range of Ancient Egypt inspired decoration including a giant sphynx-like lion statue. I have a favorite hair stylist that I go to where I get my hair washed and cut plus an intensive scalp massage for about $15. At Christmas, they have the most amazing lights depicting snowmen, sleighs, Santa, and snow flakes ... yes, those predominantly Moslem Malaysians do up Christmas quite well!

The main point with the above is to not shy away from the "modern" side of life at a travel destination. In fact, these malls are where most typical middle class Malaysians hang out ... and you truly get a genuine sense of their everyday culture ... as opposed to a cultural snapshot of life 150 years ago as endorsed by some travel guide book. So go ahead ... head to the mall, eat some KFC, and don't forget to ask about the latest mobile phone plans from the countless vendors screaming at you to switch plans.

Buying a camera in Japan

It used to be that it was actually more expensive to buy electronics in Japan than in Canada and the only reason you did it was the experience or to get things you can't get at home. With the recent rise in the Canadian dollar, I found that one could save a decent amount of money and get a unique experience. For photo buffs, there are two unique experiences for equipment hunting: vintage and new.

Japan has an enormous passion for old photo equipment and there are many shops around Tokyo (Shinjuku and Ginza districts for example) with massive selections of vintage gear. For the usual stuff like Leica M series, Rolleiflex, Zeiss Ikon medium format, etc., you'll pay top dollar and possibly significantly higher than on e-bay. I've found that for more recent medium format equipment, the prices are great with lots of more recent medium format cameras from Bronica, Fuji, Rollei, etc. going for about the $500 range possible about a quarter of the price of when new and still in great shape. I bought a Fujica GS645S a few years back for about $400. Even if you are not buying simply window shopping is a great experience ... my friend calls it "Camera Porn". Will try to get actual store names at some point.

Buying new means going to one of the millions of electronics stores that sell everything from photo to stereo to rice cookers. Prices are about the same everywhere. Major chains include BIC and Yodobashi. Decent outlets exist in all major centers including Shijuku, Ginza, Ikebukuro and elsewhere. I went to a BIC in Ginza. I had my sights on a new Fujifilm Finepix S9100. About 2 months from being released in Canada. I got to the store the morning of the day that the model was released. The guy at the store thought I might be the first in Japan (hence the world) to buy one of these models! Being a gadget freak that means something to me ... I bought the camera and the accessory wide angle adapter that brings the 28mm (35 equiv) down to 22mm without noticeable degredation of image quality. I had the option of getting a 5% consumption tax waiver for being a foreigner. I chose instead to enroll in the BIC points plan where a percentage of the purchase price (in my case the camera gave 8%) can be used for a subsequent purchase. I took the 8% and applied it to the accessory lense. Overall, it cost less by not taking the tax waiver. I figured I saved about $200 by buying in Japan and for a precious 2 months, I'll have the only unit in Canada. Most outlets do have some English speaking staff. Most cameras have English menus and manuals.

Kyoto ... the non-Tokyo

My first time in Kyoto. Spent 3 days, a couple of which was work. Some random comments in no particular order:

• a great ride on the Shinkansen bullet train from the Tokyo Station to the Kyoto Station took about 2.5 hours on the Super Express Nozomi line. Price varies from about $100 to $200 depending on the class. Definitely an nice experience for us North Americans starved of rail experiences.
• Kyoto National Museum has a nice collection of Japanese (and a few Korean and Chinese) art and artifact from ancient to 19th century. Very impressive collection of statuary, ceramics, prints, calligraphy, etc. We see samples of this stuff in various Western museums but it's sooooo much more impressive when you catch it on prime time.
• The New Miyako hotel right by the train station has great rooms and a wonderful Japanese breakfast restaurant for about $150.
• Philosopher's road in one of the many temple districts is a wonderful walk that winds through a picturesque part of the city leading to the Ginkokuji (the Silver temple) one of the main tourist attractions.
• Kiyomizu Shrine with a giant statue of Budha and some magnificent buildings nestled into low mountains.
• Kyoto University. One of the great academic instituitions in the world. I was there for work so I only saw a couple of buildings but for those who enjoy academic pilgrimages in general, you shouldn't miss this one. Being a hotspot for foreign visitors, there are also some intresting (and affordable) restaurants that have English menues and senses of humor. I ate at James' Place which is a tribute restaurant to James Brown. They serve Japanese style hamburgers (no bun). Filling lunch for under $10.

Kyoto has over 2000 temples. It has guidelines to restrict height of new buildings. It was not obliterated in WW II, and it's simply smaller than Tokyo. This ancient capital of Japan is, I think, what most of us believed Japan was before our naive expectations are shattered by Shinjuku and the rest of the Tokyo urban juggernaut.

Prior work

This isn't an entirely new concept. For work, I manage a blogging site called MaplePrimes which is a community of mathematicians fascinated by the Maple software system. Within this site, I introduced an collaborative book called Singular Planet, an embryonic collection of travel destination that would be of interest to math types.

Why a Nerd's guide?

Simple ... most travel guides seem to be written for old people, young urban hipsters, or tree-hugging mountain-climbers. Yes, I am not as young as I used to be, I think I was hip at some point in ancient history, and I do like a brisk walk in the woods but there are so many things that interest me that the conventional guides to travel seem to not cover well. For instance, my work is somewhat mathematical in nature and I get a big kick out of retracing the footsteps of science and math types. Westminster Abbey in London is far more appealing to me than the Tower of London because Isaac Newton among others, is buried there. In florence, the Santa Croce cathedral was far more interesting to me because of Galileo's tomb (among others) than the main cathedral as spectacular as it is. I recently found out the Goettingen in Germay is the historic mathematical center of Germany due to its famous citizens Gauss and Hilbert among others. When I go to California, I always try to stop by a Fry's Electronic mega store ... a staggering tribute to all things great and silicon-based.

My wife is a nerd as well ... of a different flavor though. Her gig is philosophy, political science, and dance, and the arts. So when we travel, we tend to pick places like Weimar (cultural center of Germany) and Mainz (home of Gutenberg) instead of Munich, or Florence instead of Rome. We're not globetrekkers by any means but we do try to get one major trip in every year and I get out a few times through work. This blog will try to recall places I've or we've visited and any nerdy thoughts that come to mind.

I hope you too can offer some of your suggestions as well.

Stimulating travels all ...

Tom 4 from Waterloo, Canada