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khiemtranKuching is the capital of Sarawak, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Sarawak! Borneo! Aren't those words alone enough to conjure a tingle of excitement? This is the land of the Dayaks and the White Rajahs, of vast jungles and (traditionally) only distant authority.
The word kuching means "cat" in Malay. It's not 100% certain that the name came from the Malay word, but there is a Bukit Mata Kuching ("Cat's Eye Hill") nearby and the name may have followed the river from there, as it were.
Incidentally, if you don't know any Malay, you might still recognise at least one word in that last name. Mata means "eye" as in Mata hari "Eye of the day" i.e. the sun.
As you'd expect there are cat statues everywhere, and also a famous Cat Museum.
Kuching was quite an interesting city, and certainly very pleasant down by the river where there was a long promenade and a heritage walk. We saw sampans plying their way back and forth across the river and long boats racing at dusk.
Sarawak is one of the few states where the Malays are not in the majority - the largest ethnic group is the Iban, followed by the Chinese - and so there was a slightly different social texture than you find on the penisular. In Penisular Malaysia, most people can be categorised at a glance into Chinese, Indian or Malay (with Orang Asli forming the forth group). In Kuching, it was quite hard to tell even after they started speaking (quite often everyone seemed to speak Chinese, English and Malay).
The south side of town (delineated by a set of four cat statues) was conspicuously Chinese flavoured, and most of the shops had Chinese signs. On the other hand, there were also lots of concessions to the Muslim population - pork was quite hard to find for example.
This is Gerai (stall) 25 at Top Spot, a seafood centre cleverly located on the roof of an open air carpark. You select the seafood on display and then nominate how you want it cooked.
And the finished product...
The main highlight of Kuching were the various museums. There was a small, but excellent Chinese Museum. No pictures of this, unfortunately. It had a fun display where you could press a button to hear speech in different dialects, including Hokkien, Cantonese, Hainanese, Hakka and Teochew. Although the Hainanese reportedly had a Sarawak "twang"...
There was also the large Sarawak Museum, which filled several buildings. If you've been reading my last few posts, can you identify the butterfly in the picture?
Yes, it's a Rajah Brooke's Birdwing. And the museum was founded by Charles Brooke, the second White Rajah of Sarawak.
Sarawak is also famous for two dishes - Sarawak laksa and Kolok mee. No pictures of the laksa (although we had it for breakfast and also once with dinner at the James Brooke Cafe). Here's the Kolok mee. Our guide Alex told us that just about everyone starts their day with a bowl of this each morning.
There was also a bit of a frontier feel to the state and a sense of pride in their independence. Flights to Peninsula Malaysia were pointedly "International" flights, while flights from KL to Sarawak were just as pointedly tagged as "Domestic".
Another of the locals was telling us quite proudly how well integrated the different the different races in Sarawak were - how everyone looked just as brown and how the different groups learned from each other. Long before Malaysia had its "1Malaysia" campaign (a recent national initiative) he told us, there was already a "1Sarawak". It is worth noting, however, that it was a somewhat different story across the border, not so long ago, on the Indonesian side of the island.
The word kuching means "cat" in Malay. It's not 100% certain that the name came from the Malay word, but there is a Bukit Mata Kuching ("Cat's Eye Hill") nearby and the name may have followed the river from there, as it were.
Incidentally, if you don't know any Malay, you might still recognise at least one word in that last name. Mata means "eye" as in Mata hari "Eye of the day" i.e. the sun.
As you'd expect there are cat statues everywhere, and also a famous Cat Museum.
Kuching was quite an interesting city, and certainly very pleasant down by the river where there was a long promenade and a heritage walk. We saw sampans plying their way back and forth across the river and long boats racing at dusk.
Sarawak is one of the few states where the Malays are not in the majority - the largest ethnic group is the Iban, followed by the Chinese - and so there was a slightly different social texture than you find on the penisular. In Penisular Malaysia, most people can be categorised at a glance into Chinese, Indian or Malay (with Orang Asli forming the forth group). In Kuching, it was quite hard to tell even after they started speaking (quite often everyone seemed to speak Chinese, English and Malay).
The south side of town (delineated by a set of four cat statues) was conspicuously Chinese flavoured, and most of the shops had Chinese signs. On the other hand, there were also lots of concessions to the Muslim population - pork was quite hard to find for example.
This is Gerai (stall) 25 at Top Spot, a seafood centre cleverly located on the roof of an open air carpark. You select the seafood on display and then nominate how you want it cooked.
And the finished product...
The main highlight of Kuching were the various museums. There was a small, but excellent Chinese Museum. No pictures of this, unfortunately. It had a fun display where you could press a button to hear speech in different dialects, including Hokkien, Cantonese, Hainanese, Hakka and Teochew. Although the Hainanese reportedly had a Sarawak "twang"...
There was also the large Sarawak Museum, which filled several buildings. If you've been reading my last few posts, can you identify the butterfly in the picture?
Yes, it's a Rajah Brooke's Birdwing. And the museum was founded by Charles Brooke, the second White Rajah of Sarawak.
Sarawak is also famous for two dishes - Sarawak laksa and Kolok mee. No pictures of the laksa (although we had it for breakfast and also once with dinner at the James Brooke Cafe). Here's the Kolok mee. Our guide Alex told us that just about everyone starts their day with a bowl of this each morning.
There was also a bit of a frontier feel to the state and a sense of pride in their independence. Flights to Peninsula Malaysia were pointedly "International" flights, while flights from KL to Sarawak were just as pointedly tagged as "Domestic".
Another of the locals was telling us quite proudly how well integrated the different the different races in Sarawak were - how everyone looked just as brown and how the different groups learned from each other. Long before Malaysia had its "1Malaysia" campaign (a recent national initiative) he told us, there was already a "1Sarawak". It is worth noting, however, that it was a somewhat different story across the border, not so long ago, on the Indonesian side of the island.
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Date: 2012-01-21 08:31 am (UTC)The designs in the cloth and the modern architecture have a peaceful, playful, lilting shape. I saw that too in a photo looking down on two or three rivers, but this time the "sarawak art" search didn't have it -- unless I was misremembering this one:
https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT4SkqS6m4GKrl5qDK2qMq7jFcDZGKL25lVjT5mPQxhWZbmOsK6
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Date: 2012-01-21 08:41 am (UTC)http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&biw=1138&bih=519&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=gubtDuGZ-ol1-M:&imgrefurl=http://muluview.blogspot.com/2010/08/sarawak-to-remain-green-for-future.html&docid=aJtDD4gzpYEHJM&imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gNeMdjMyDp8/THOCGfx2pnI/AAAAAAAAADc/O8q75Mu9yVo/s1600/sarawak%252Briver.jpg&w=800&h=533&ei=QHgaT-jwN4vSiAK2zu2mCw&zoom=1
And doesn't this look like something out of old 'science fantasy'?
http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&biw=1138&bih=519&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=AxjbBtZNSQ1GXM:&imgrefurl=http://www.etawau.com/Geography/Kuching/NewDunSarawakComplex.htm&docid=EZqmE9oit8zbZM&imgurl=http://www.etawau.com/Geography/Kuching/DunSarawakComplex/DunComplex2.jpg&w=730&h=496&ei=QHgaT-jwN4vSiAK2zu2mCw&zoom=1
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Date: 2012-01-21 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-21 08:43 am (UTC)http://www.google.com/imgres?start=241&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1138&bih=519&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=zaEXty_vOtXOLM:&imgrefurl=http://timlaman.com/contents/Photo%2520Galleries/Borneo%2520Rain%2520Forest/image-ngs0_7916/&docid=prJUTUPlIKyQtM&imgurl=http://cdn.lightgalleries.net/4bd5ec0079abc/images/ngs0_7916-2.jpg&w=800&h=538&ei=Q3kaT6W5OMrciQLi6fWeCA&zoom=1&chk=sbg
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Date: 2012-01-21 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-21 07:09 pm (UTC)Heh; reminds me of Berlin, which is pronounced "bear lean" in German, which folk etymology connects to Bär (bear); the city's arms feature a bear, and seven foot stuffed bears are everywhere in the touristy part of the city.
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Date: 2012-01-22 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 07:39 pm (UTC)