There are two newspapers in KL – The Star and The New Straits Times – and I have become an avid reader whenever I’m sitting in a waiting room with papers available.
As an expat, I think it’s essential to find out what the current hot topics are among the locals –
and to learn about hazards that might not be immediately obvious to a European like me –
or, for anyone thinking of starting a pick-your-own coconut farm –
And it’s not just HGVs that are a danger for cyclists –
The paper has also given me a bit of a heads-up on what might be coming my way, as I graft away at the chalkface every day –
Religion features more prominently in Malaysian papers than it does at home. They publish the prayer times, which seem to be like the tide times published in Norfolk, and vary from place to place and from day to day.
And how about valet prayer services? I know that Papal indulgences exist, but have yet to see a newspaper story about them.
Some stories show a side of life that I haven’t yet seen –
– people digging to find condemned chicken dumped at the tip several days previously … and with temperatures rarely below 30 degrees.
It sometimes seems, with all its shiny skyscrapers, mega shopping malls and huge urban motorways, that Malaysia is a modern, developed country. But a glance at some of the stories in the paper shows that they still have a way to go –
and –
And shades of Romeo and Juliet (1594) …
But my absolute favourite headline to date has to be this one –
And it’s not even about Malaysia.