Selamat from Melaka, Malaysia

Selamat is how we say "hello" in Malaysia. Malaysia is located between Thailand and Singapore. We took a bus from Singapore to Melaka, a port city in Malaysia. On the four-hour bus trip they showed a movie. We were surprised because it was an American movie in English. Melaka is a pretty city on the Straits of Melaka (also spelled Malacca). Because of its unique culture, UNESCO, which is a part of the United Nations, has declared it a place of special historical importance. The Portuguese, Dutch, British, Japanese, Indian, Arabs and Chinese traders have left their imprint on its culture.

In the center of the historic part of the city there are several brick-red buildings built by the Dutch settlers in the 1700s, including a beautiful church. A fun way to tour the city is in a brightly decorated trishaw. A trishaw is a bicycle with a sidecar where one or two people can sit. Another way to see the city is by taking a boat tour on the Melaka River. On the boat we made friends with Maddie. Just like Maddie, we liked it on the river because we saw many interesting sites and it was cooler. It is very hot and humid in Melaka.

There are many museums in Melaka including one about a Portuguese treasure ship that sank offshore and one dealing with kites but the most interesting one was The Museum of Enduring Beauty. What we saw was amazing. There were pictures of the ways people in other countries have decorated or changed their bodies to look beautiful. We saw pictures of people who had pierced their lips then inserted big objects in the hole so it looked like they had a plate on their bottom lip. Others had done the same thing with their ears. We decided it was like having pierced ears only more extreme. Others were images of people with a lot of tattoos but it didn’t seem so different because today many people have tattoos. It was very interesting even though some of the beauty treatments are no longer in practice. The objective of the museum is to help people realize that different cultures do things differently. People in different countries have different ideas of what is beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

When we went on a tour in a trishaw we stopped at several houses of worship and also at Mr. Sam’s Shoe Shop. His family has been making shoes for many generations. He showed us very tiny shoes, some only 4-inches long, made by his grandfather. Many years ago the Chinese thought that women with the smallest feet were the most beautiful so females would bind their feet to keep them small. It was painful and some ladies had feet so small they couldn’t walk. We remembered what we saw in The Museum of Enduring Beauty, and even though we are glad women don’t bind their feet any more, we understand that everyone wants to look beautiful.

When we finished sightseeing we went to the mall, which is just like the ones in America. We bought ice cream at Baskin Robbins and enjoyed watching the people. Most of the young people had on blue jeans and t-shirts but there were many different styles of dress including Indian saris, teenagers in short shorts, and others completely covered in a strict Moslem manner. People from many countries settled in Melaka and many have stayed true to their culture. We decided there are many ways to look attractive. That’s what makes the world so interesting.

Hello from Singapore

Hello! That is the common greeting in Singapore. Singapore was once an English colony just like America. Singapore has been a crossroads on the trading routes for hundreds of years with people from India, Malaysia, China, Holland, Portugal, and England. There were so many different languages it made it difficult to do business. When the English came they brought their language and over the years the people developed a language called Singlish. Singlish is a combination of English and words from all the other languages. The government has promoted the Speak Good English Movement because they think that when business people arrive in Singapore and hear Singlish they don’t take the businessperson seriously.

Because so many different people came here to work and live there are interesting walking tours. We took a walking tour of the Chinese neighborhood where the traditional homes have been beautifully restored. They are called shop houses because they had their shop on the ground floor and lived in the top floors. Many of the shops have bamboo eaves above the shop because bamboo symbolizes luck and success.

One day we took a cable car to Sentosa Island. At one time there was a fort to defend it from invaders especially during World War II. After the war the island was developed as a recreation area and named Sentosa, which means "peace." It is an improvement over the former name, which meant "death from behind." We made two friends, Summer S. and Evelyn B. They are students learning to be tour guides. They told us about things to do on Sentosa. Our favorite was the Images of Singapore where we learned about life in Singapore past and present. One display showed Malay children playing hopscotch and playing with a top. Seems that all children like the same things. Our guides told us that in Singapore, "The World becomes one because it is where the four winds come together. From the East we get our strong sense of family, from India we get our idea of peace, from Malaysia our sense of community and from Europe our need for harmony."

One of the most exciting things to do in Singapore is to go on Night Safari. Many jungle animals are nocturnal. From the tram tour we saw lions, hyenas, jackals, and other night animals on the prowl. The lights are dim like it would be a full moon night and fences were so well disguised that we couldn’t see them. They also had a native group from Borneo that did an incredible fire-eating show. We could feel the heat from the flames and couldn’t figure out why they didn’t get burned.

We also went to the Science Museum with amazing optical illusions and educational displays. They even had an area called Snow City. It is very hot in Singapore and it never snows so people are fascinated by snow. They love to touch it to experience how cold it is. They can’t imagine living someplace where it snows.

Singapore has the world’s tallest Ferris wheel called The Flyer. It is 541-feet high. Each "car" can carry 28 people. The view of the city from the top is amazing. There are so many things to do in Singapore that we want to visit again. But, we must remember not to bring any gum. It is against the law to bring chewing gum into Singapore because people where spitting it on the sidewalks and sticking it places. Singapore is a very neat and clean county. Maybe this is not such a bad idea.