Muddy Confluence

Where Klang Meets Gombak - August 2009

Kuala Lumpur, in the Malaysian language, means 'muddy confluence.' While the phrase technically describes the meeting point of the Klang and Gombak rivers around which this city of 1.6 million grew, I cannot think of a more apt image or metaphor with which to describe this city or this country.

Like the muddy waters at the base of the Masjid Jamek, this is a place that is thick with culture, religion and race.

While ad campaigns like 'Zoom! Malaysia' (with rappers harmoniously waxing rhapsodic about the country in Malaysian, Mandarin, English, and Tamil) or movements like the Prime Minister's '1Malaysia' initiative (with its trademarked '1' logo dotting the landscape and marketplace) do their part to celebrate and emphasize the beauty found within this diversity, powerful crosscurrents and undertows lurk just below this seemingly calm surface.

The water here is anything but clear; as differing peoples, strong traditions, and long histories merge in 21st century KL, turbulence sets in, world views collide, detritus is kicked up, and peaceful eddies of resistance are formed.

While familiar Western landmarks like Starbucks and Shopping Malls (not that they aren't part of the cultural churning) make navigating this new territory fairly easy, I'm daily intrigued and surprised by what comes bubbling up to the surface all around me - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

As the mid-day light dances across the waters, the over all effect is hypnotic. The delicate ripples on the surface attract the beholder's eye - yet they bely the incredible force of the currents commingling just out of sight. Competing currents of Politics and Faith, of Tradition and (Post-)Modernity, and Currents of Destruction and Re-Creation.

Here at the muddy confluence, where Klang meets Gombak I have come to learn and to be formed.