Remember, It's Only Chinatown

Remember, It’s Only Chinatown

Stephen Chapman
10 June 2009

Chinatown is often the area for budget accommodation and an intriguing cultural experience in its own right. But remember that it doesn’t represent the entire city.

Zainald grills his halal satay in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown. Photo © Stephen Chapman

Most people are familiar with a Chinatown, often the location of cheap eats and sleeps and hives of activity day and night. I recently returned to Kuala Lumpur (capital city of Malaysia) and was granted a fascinating perspective from the point of view of a Malay and it emphasised something extremely important.

Whether it’s based on a desire to rough it and to get under the skin of a place, or on Chinatown being known as a backpacker hangout, many travellers gravitate there. When you use Chinatown as a base from which to explore, particularly in Asia, there is a tendency to believe that it is in some way representative of the culture and character of the city within which it’s based, and for Kuala Lumpur and many other cities around the world this is far from the truth. It is no more representative of a city in Asia than it is of San Francisco, New York or London. There is no denying its value and influence, particularly on Kuala Lumpur, but it is only a small piece of the cultural jigsaw that makes up a city.

Why Stay in Chinatown?

Most Malaysians are of Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and/or Malay descent and, like so many ethnically diverse communities around the world, they haven’t always integrated particularly well with one another. Malaysia’s fascinating cultural mix is a truly unique blend that has influenced food, architecture, arts and religion significantly, but there is definitely a Malaysian identity that prefers to distinguish itself from these influences as being truly Malay – not Indian, not Chinese.

Chinatown is subsequently never the best first impression for a new visitor. Often regarded as dirty, unpleasant, unhygienic and undesirable, Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur is never on the list of a Malay person’s places to go, let alone somewhere to sleep and eat. “Why stay in such a hole when there are some incredible, clean, well-run low-cost places in far more seductive parts of the city?” I was told, and I must say that I have to agree, not that there aren’t some decent places to stay in Chinatown.

Do We Engineer Our Experiences to Fit Our Expectations?

I first arrived in Southeast Asia almost 10 years ago. I was fresh-faced, lacked any real experience of eastern culture, couldn’t understand why there was a hose next to the toilet, or why anyone would eat curry for breakfast. Although landing in Kuala Lumpur wasn’t quite the baptism of fire that Bangkok can provide, it was strange, exciting, energising. I’d heard so many exotic stories that conspired to formulate my expectation and sense of adventure. The dirty, small alleyways of Chinatown satisfied my fantasy, but this was not an introduction to Kuala Lumpur or Malaysia. This was a Chinatown.

On my first night I stayed in a small guesthouse above a restaurant, wandered through the night market, ate some street food, woke up to a strange breakfast of nasi lemak. I loved Asia, I loved Chinatown. I explored other parts of the city and marvelled at how developed it was. In Chinatown things were cheap, colourful, busy, intriguing, more stimulating than the huge modern, familiar shopping malls. For a traveller it’s character and culture we yearn for. We want to see something different. However, allowing our desires and expectations to overtake reality is foolish and unfair. Kuala Lumpur is an incredibly modern city and it’s important to take home that message too.

With increased maturity, greater world experience, better knowledge of the city and a very local insight into the country I now realise that my first impression was incomplete, to say the least. It probably served more to satisfy my own expectations than provide me with a true insight into how people live in Malaysia. I think this is what the whole concept of ‘Going Local’ is based around – understanding a place for what it is, not what you want it to be or expect it to be.

Cultural Integration

As you become more conscious of cultural enclaves in cities around the world – Chinatown, Little India, Little Italy – it becomes fascinating to see how people can cling so rigidly to the culture they’ve grown up in. This cultural mixing takes place all over the world as people migrate and make demands on their new home to recognise the heritage they left behind. But do different cultures and communities ever fully integrate and accept each other, or do they always remain like foreign bodies within a host?

Some of the best satay I’ve ever eaten is made by a Malay man called Zainald in the heart of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. He’s been trading for years and is about the only Malay vendor in the area. There is indeed hope that not everyone is divided and that we can all live together successfully.