As I have been forgetting to mention, it has been tremendously hot since we have been here, hotter than Singapore and just as humid. Students back at NTU said its been getting hotter there, so I think we are exiting "winter season" and getting into an even hotter one. The temperature range in Singapore throughout the year during the day I don't believe ranges more than 10 degrees F (highest EVER recorded being around 92 and lowest EVER recorded around 71), but its just so hot here. This meant we decided to keep the day somewhat short and spend most of the day in the National Museum.
We decided to sleep in a little, since I have been staying up until 2am Skyping and writing blogs, and the others decided to go out at 11pm last night and explore until wee- hours of the night. Our first stop of the day was the National Museum of Malaysia (not the Malaysian Museum, which was right beside it, which was slightly confusing). It was actually a small museum, with 4 rooms in 2 stories going from pre-historic peoples through colonialism to present day. Here is what I learned:
There are many ancient (very ancient) burials and artifacts that have been discovered in the Malaysian peninsula. One of the most famous burial ruins, housing 35 bodies, is Gua Cha which is in Malaysia. It is 8,000 years old. This room featured what southeast Asia was like back in 225 million years ago during the age of Pangaea, and went through pre-human civilizations, burials, and artifacts that have been found in the region.
The next exhibit was the history of the kingdoms of Malaysia. There has been evidence showing the earliest kingdoms went back to the 2nd century AD. Power was exchanged through birth and different families had power, just like what you would think. Even through the years of different occupations (see more later), the kingdom was prevalent in Malaysia. This has always been one of the earliest ports of trade, coming from the Middle east and other parts of Asia. There have been many findings from sunken ships and looking at underwater artifacts to tell about the history. There have been hand-written Qurans discovered here from the kingdoms. This room also held about 200 years worth of maps from 1694-1830's. Most of the coastlines were similar, but some where not, kind of cool to look at. I learned Brunei (its one of the countries on the island of Borneo) originally had the whole Borneo island and parts of Indonesia in its kingdom, but it lost power in the 19th century and then the British came. Now its the tiny little city-state-like country it is today.
The third exhibit housed the colonial era. In 1511, the Portuguese sent explorers to the east. Some entered the hands of the Malacca's (Big Malaysian city), and some lower level people of importance were killed. Portugal got upset and sent an armada to take over. After 2 tries, the had occupied and controlled the Malacca's. The Malacca's fought back with an army said to be 20,000 people with 20 elephants (can you imagine, elephants in the army!). For over 150 years, Portugal rules Malaysia who continuously tried to fight back. They managed to stop the spread of Portugal into Bintan (Indonesia). The Dutch, who hated the Protugese, decided they wanted to try for the great Malaysia trade, and beat the Portuguese and claimed the land. Many from the north and east came to help fight back, but the Dutch won. A treaty much later on gave Malacca to the British, where they occupied the majority of the country. On Penang Island (I will visit here sometime), the UNESCO world heritage site of the town of Georgetown still stands, where the British occupation began and they built this colonial city which still stands alongside their defensive position at Fort Cornwalis. Malaysia was a great place for many goods, still today 20% of the world's natural rubber comes from here, as well as rice fields and coffee fields. The government, during the colonial days, offered 3 years of waved taxes for any farmer who planted coffee, a non-native plant brought it from Sri Lanka at the time. There was a brief blurb about the ~6 years occupation by Japan, which led you to believe it wasn't this long.
The next and final room started from the early 50's when Malaysia finally was by itself and trying to make a constitution. It was a little odd that the 40s were completely skipped, there was no mention about the resistance movements towards Japan, or the fact that the Malaysia's tried to help protect Singapore from Japan but lost. Nothing. Anyway, in the early 50's, the king chose some top men to be his ad visors and they had a few years worth of meetings with surrounding countries for help on choosing a system of government and witting a constitution. There was so much influence from the Islamic world, local South east Asia, and the British that it took a long time for the constitution to be written. Finally, in March of 1957, the Prime Minister came out to the country and to the world with the constitution and the official beginning of the country of Malaysia under their own government rule. They have the table the papers were presented on in the museum. Also during this time, was the State of Emergency. This started in 1950, when the Malaysian Communist party (MCP) formed, a communist group influenced by WWII. The MCP killed 3 British men, their first terrorist attack on the country. After the country was put into the emergency state, the MCPdisban until 1989.
The first Malaysia military was gathered together in March of 1933, where a group of 25 men from the "Experimental Malaysian Company" were sent to help fight against the Japanese. By 1950, there had been 7 Battalions formed. Now, at the age of 18 men are required to go through 3 months of boot camp (bonding as the poster called it) and they are picked by a draft system.
The government is said to be a "constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy". This means there is a king and queen, who are the military leaders and head. His first advisor is the prime minister, who also is in charge of Parliament. There are also sultans, who are relatives of the king, who lead the 13 states of Malaysia, and are only allowed to keep 5 years in power at one time.
I also learned the Petronas buildings were finished in 1999 and designed by an American architect. They sent their first astronaut into space in 2007.
One our way to the museum, we were trying to find a taxi and stumbled upon another Hindu temple. There was a ceremony inside, and we stood outside and watched for a bit. Chin May explained that the temples are for one person (their name is in the temple name), but as all gods, good and bad, are in a place together (like heaven), all temples have many of the gods in them to worship. He also told me the meaning of "sri", which is in front of all the temple names. It is the equivalent of a formal male title, like Lord. So when you refer to the gods, this name is in front. I asked him if that is where Sri Lanka got its name and he said yes. A while back, a very bad unpopular ruler worshiped the god Lanka and decided to name the country and capital city Lanka and Sri Lanka. As he was a bad guy, the name was changed after a while when he was gone, but was changed back to Sri Lanka, as that is how everyone knows it by.
We went to the National Mosque next. we had to wait around for prayer to end, and we were given robes to cover ourselves and our heads. It wasn't very interesting, as you cannot go into any prayer rooms since we aren't Muslim. They had a cemetery there, just a small one for "VIP's", like the prime minister and government officials. We stopped by the National Palace, which is the ceremonial palace for the king. (he doesn't live there). You cannot enter the grounds, so everyone stands outside the main gate and takes pictures. ,You can only see the driveway, one of the parade grounds, and the tip tops of the dome toppings of the buildings. There are 2 ceremonial guards out front "guarding" it. I believe they are positioned after the guards places outside the palace in Britain, they stand there and do nothing and people take pictures around them. We saw a police escorted caravan guarding one expensive vehicle and we were all hopping it pulled into the palace, but of course it didn't. The history of the palace was in front, which is quite unusual. in 1928, the palace was built by a very rich man as his house. When the Japanese took over, the converted the house into the officer's mess hall. When the British came to help run out the Japanese during WWI/II, the Royal Air Force used this as their HQ. Finally, in 1957 when the country declared its Independence, the palace became the house of the king.
We had issues getting a taxi home, since we were next to a highway, but we got back to the hostel which is where I am typing now. We do not leave until midnight, but we have nowhere else to go so we are just hanging here!
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