"Truly Asia"

We booked a cultural show+ dinner online for RM110, which included transfers and a shopping stop at Petaling Street, Chinatown for an hour.

Nothing exciting here

The guidebook we picked up at the hotel said that dinner and show at Seri Melayu costs RM66.70. The dinner at was excellent primarily because of the spread of all the Malaysian dishes you can imagine (or have heard of). My brother instantly became a fan of the Malaysian halo-halo, ABC (Air Batu Campur) or ais kacang because of the rose syrup, which he has loved since we visited Bangkok.

Watching cultural dances reminds us how close we are to our Southeast Asian neighbors.

The Malaysia Truly Asia song is guilty of essentialism but does drive a point (aside from leaving an earworm for days). Malays, Chinese and Indians all have to live together to keep Malaysian society in one piece. Of course, that doesn't mean that all are equal in all respects--the politics of race, while unnoticeable to tourists, is very much at work. But it is still how enviable how they were able to unite symbolically while remaining distinct culturally.