KL the city of the future-- maybe

Written in langkawi while sweating a lot

(the following is best read aloud with a booming newsreel voice)

Kuala Lumpur is MODERN. Shiny skyscrapers pierce the skyline next to transit hubs with LEED certified apartments and public parks. A monorail snakes between glistening office building. This is the future we were promised (as opposed to Ethiopia which is the future we were warned about). Kuala Lumpur is marching toward MODERN-I-TY.

OK you can stop the newsreel voice now.

I visited Kuala Lumpur briefly, many years ago, when I was 17. (Not quite half my life, but close enough) It has changed dramatically. When I was there, the iconic twin towers were just stumps. Now they are fantastic and magical parts of the skyline. We visited the top of the towers on Wednesday.

They are striking and modern and they glisten up in the air. According to the architect of the towers, Cesar Peli, the sky bridge between the buildings is a “gateway to the infinite”.

View from that gateway to the infinite

Well then. The tour to see the towers starts with a film about Petronas, the Malaysian state oil company that has its headquarters in the towers. It was an exercise in corporate and political propaganda. Extremely good corporate and political propaganda. Given that so many developing countries that find oil are thoroughly destroyed by the insuing corruption and social stratification, I have to give Petronas and the Malaysian government some props for a job well done. Of course, almost anything looks good when compared to Nigeria.

Kuala Lumpur is also the greenest (is that really a word?) city I have ever visited. I mean green in the literal sense. The city is filled with plants. We were told that Kuala Lumpur means muddy confluence (ain’t that a sexy city name). It was once the muddy confluence of two rivers in the middle of the jungle where early miners found tin. After a few hours in modern KL, it is clear that without consistent and concerted human intervention that jungle will take its muddy confluence right back.

This is a city that would make any friend of any urban forest swoon. It takes so much time and so much effort to get our puny little street trees to thrive in San Francisco. In KL, they are getting ready to take over the place.

On our second day in KL we had a day of urban forest (umm, urban jungle) exploration. There is virgin jungle in the middle of the city with hiking trails and visitor education. The tourist authorities explained that the jungle acts as a giant “green lung” for the city, providing oxygen and cooling down the surrounding urban landscape. I thought hiking through a jungle with views of skyscrapers sounded like a kick, so we went to check it out.

Andrew in a different kind of "urban jungle"

A few years ago, when we were traveling in Japan we entered an urban forest next to a temple. It was a hot day and the minute we entered the woods the temperature dropped from miserable to pleasant. I was hoping for a similar experience in KL. Alas, it was the exact opposite. The urban jungle may cool down the rest of the city, but inside it is damn hot. There is no breeze and the hot air just circles back on itself. Andrew is excited about visiting the jungles/rainforest in Borneo. Standing in that urban jungle I started to dread that particular adventure.

KL has another park/urban green space with an open-air aviary, a butterfly park and an Orchid garden. We decided after the “Andrew gets attacked by cheeky tropical bird” experience in South Africa that we would skip the aviary. I remembered the butterfly park from my last visit to KL. I was with 4 other girls between 15 and 20 years old. We brought in a can of Coke and dripped the soda on our arms so the butterflies would land on us and feed on the sugar. With hindsight this doesn’t seem like the most civically or environmentally beneficial practice, but hey, we were teenagers and no one told us to stop. This time we did not bring our own nectar, and we really didn’t need to. The butterflies were pretty darn cool even if they didn’t land on us. These are epic butterflies.

Some are bigger then small birds. Others have whole faces on their wings. In short, these are the butterflies I read about as a kid with my Dad in Ranger Rick Magazine. As you would expect, it was unbelievably hot in the butterfly park. It was “feel the sweat drip down you back into your underwear” hot. If the butterflies hadn’t been so cool I would have left much sooner. I mention this because there was a guy in the park wearing a hooded sweatshirt. He kept the hoodie zipped through the whole park. I so don’t understand locals here.

We walked out of the butterfly enclosure into a fabulously air-conditioned exhibit on the insects of Malaysia. Some were dead and mounted. Others were alive and squirming, slithering and shuffling behind thick glass. There were a few beetles so big and so gross that no amount of glass between us would be enough. I was not a huge fan of the extremely fatal scorpions either. I would have run out, but it was cool inside, so I tried not to think about it and just cool down. Note: when I ran into some serious beetles without the benefit of a tank a few days later I was glad I had been prepared. Still, if I never see one again for the rest of my life, that will be OK. Learning about all the bugs that live in jungles did not make me more excited about that Borneo idea….

White people wilt in this heat. White women, especially. I see them on the train or in a café and think, “wow, that woman looks hot, bothered and awful. Shit, I probably look like that too.” (photographic evidence supports this) This is cankles weather. White women who weren’t beef to the ankles to start with are by the end of the day. Local women, however, wear long sleeved shirts made out of a non-breathing petroleum based fabric, long pants, headscarves and they seem unperturbed by the heat. I stare at them and wonder how they can look so calm, cool, and non-shiny. This brings me back to a realization I had throughout Africa: “in general, white people are funny looking.” I have come up with a new phrase to express the particular pink color that white women from very northern countries acquire here: “Tomato paste-y“.

Local women wear these fabulously vibrant patterned clothes that make them look like walking flowers as they cross the tree-lined streets.

One last note: I know we are big nerds, and I know that normal people are not fascinated public transit like Andrew and I are, but riding a monorail as it snakes though buildings really is a thrill. (for all you Simpson’s fans I filmed Andrew singing the monorail song while on the monorail) I know it makes no sense for SF, but I want one now, they are just so much fun.