Introducing Mystery Class #5
|
||
Congratulations! You found us!
We have enjoyed being one of the secret Mystery Classes, and we are excited to tell you more about our ourselves, our school, and our country, state and city.
|
||
| Our School | ||
Our school is actually a home school, meaning we don’t attend school in a building with other kids. Instead, we do our studies in our own home.
|
||
| Our Country, State and City | ||
We live in the country of Malaysia, which is located Southeastern Asia along the South China Sea. Malaysia is quite interesting geographically, because it has two separate parts that are located a long distance from each other, with one to the west and the other to the east.
The west part is located on the west side of the South China Sea, on a peninsula shared with Thailand. Kuala Lumpur is the major city in the west part of our country. The east part is located on the east side of the South China Sea, on the Island of Borneo. We live in the east part of Malaysia, on the Island of Borneo.
The island of Borneo is one of the largest islands on Earth. It is also interesting because it is home to three different countries (or parts of countries). Specifically, Borneo is home to the entire country of Brunei; and also home to several parts of Indonesia, and to two parts of Malaysia. The two parts of Malaysia that are on the island of Borneo are both located in the northern area of Borneo. These two parts include the state of Sabah in the north/northeast; and also our state of Sarawak in the north/northwest of Borneo (Sarawak is shown in yellow on the map below).
Our city of Kuching is located in the southwestern area of Sarawak. It is the capital of Sarawak, and the most-populated city is Sarawak as well. Many also say that Kuching is the largest city on the island of Borneo too. Kuching is located very close to the equator, and also is situated along the banks of the Sarawak River. As such it is very hot and humid here. In fact, Kuching is actually regarded as being surrounded tropical rain forest.
The name of our city, Kuching, when translated into English, means "cat". And city residents seem to like that connection to cats. This is just one of the many cat statues around the city.
|
||
| Some History, Language and other Facts About Sarawak | ||
Before Sarawak became part of the country of Malaysia in 1963, it was governed for a time by men referred to as the "White Rajas". These men were members of the Brookes family from England. The first White Raja was named James Brooke, who began ruling in 1841. As a boy in school, he reportedly was interested in making a country of his own, instead of learning about how countries were made in history. And so he did. As a young adult, he reportedly heard about the Borneo revolution and decided to go and help its then leader, a certain Malay Prince names Raja Muda Hassim. The people of Sarawak speak many language — 44, actually, including Iban, Bidayah, Kayah Kenyah, Penan, Kelabit, Melanau--but the language used in the market is called Bahasa Malaysia. It’s not difficult to learn to speak — for one thing, there are no tones, like in the different languages of China. And people are friendly and helpful to new language learners. Just say, “Selamat pagi” which means good morning, and someone will probably respond, “Oh, you speak our language well!” It has been reported that some indigenous tribes of our state of Sarawak formerly practiced head hunting long, long ago. Today, the remains of this practice can be seen suspended from the ceilings of some of the older longhouses back in the jungle, or at the cultural village outside Kuching where examples of different longhouses have been built for people curious to learn more about the various cultures found here. It is believed that any such headhunting among warring tribes was officially stopped in 1899, when the factions from the Orang Ulu groups decided to stop and pursue peace and harmony. (Orang Ulu groups are those who live in the jungle and highlands, not along the coast.)
|
||
| Foods | ||
There are many favorite foods here—people just love to eat! But by far their favorite of the many tropical fruits is durian, the King of Fruit.
Durian takes some getting used to. One food critic, Andrew Zimmern, described it as, “…completely rotten, mushy onions.” I don’t think that’s quite right, though, because the fruit actually tastes sweet. The hardest part is getting past the smell, which is reminiscent of an outhouse or stinky feet. (Yuck!) Do you want to try it? It is available in the U.S. at specialty food stores.
|
||
| Sports and Games | ||
| Because there is so much rain here, playing games outside can often be disappointing since the rain will spoil the playing field. So, the sport of futsol has become quite widespread. Futsol is a form of indoor soccer played with a special ball and rubberized floor. Nets surround the playing field so nobody has to chase the ball when a kick goes out of bounds. Another sport they play here is badminton and it is played very seriously. As a matter of fact, Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia got the silver medal in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. For a small country like this, getting a silver medal was a big deal! Other Malaysians have climbed Mt. Everest (M. Magendran and N. Mohandas were the first) and sailed solo around the world (Azhar Mansur). |
||
| Other fun facts about Malaysia | ||
The Sarawak Chamber, in one of the caves in the Mulu National Park, is the largest cavern in the world—700 meters long, with an average width of 300 and a height of 70 meters. That is big enough to accommodate 40 Boeing 747s, stacked, or 10 Jumbos parked nose-to-nose. That’s one big room! Also, if you come to visit, remeber it’s against the law to ride an elephant in public! The law says, “Any person who rides or leads any elephant on any public road without the permission of the Chief Police Officer…shall be liable to a fine not exceeding 50 ringgit.” So, when you come to visit us, we’ll take a taxi, not an elephant. |
||
| So, that’s our home! And if you’d like to learn more about us or our home school, please email us! | ||
