Malaysia's National Past time

Ask anyone what America's national past time is and you will get one quick answer from 99% of people: baseball. If you were to survey other countries my guess is that sports would enter into most of the national past time arguments. In Malaysia there are no sports. No Little League baseball, no Saturday morning soccer leagues, no professional sports, no high school athletics, no university sports teams. Nothing. In fairness, I will say a handful of people play futsal (indoor soccer) and there are a handful of pickup soccer or basketball games. If you were to compare Kuala Lumpur to Denver, Colorado it would look like this: Denver-hockey (Avalanche), basketball (Nuggets), American Football (Broncos), baseball (Rockies) and soccer (Rapids), probably 40 or more high school teams, probably 6 universities with teams. Kuala Lumpur: a few soccer teams in the Malaysian Super League or whatever it is called. Now, I could launch into America's unhealthy obsession with sports but but I'm not, this blog is about Malaysia's national past time.

So, what do Malaysians do during the weekend? What would be their national past time? Simple: the mall. When foreigners arrive in Malaysia and are taken to their first mall, they usually have to pick their jaws up off the ground. I have never been to a mall in the US that would be considered equal to the top dozen here in KL. On any weekend, the mall is packed with a crowd greater than the Christmas crowds in the USA. Two facts I can't back up but believe to be true are these. 1) Malaysia has more shopping malls per capita than any other city on earth. 2) The parking areas are roughly double the size of a US mall because of the massive number of visitors. One of the largest malls in the world is in KL, Berjaya Times Square. It supposedly has 7.5 million square feet of shopping. I have been there once and was completely unimpressed. (Wikipedia is confusing, saying on one page that Times Square it the 13th largest mall in the world and on another page that it is the largest. Let's split the difference and say it is 7th largest in the world. And my students wonder why I won't let them cite Wikipedia!)

I created the national past time comparison because last night as I left the Curve (FYI, 1 km from the Curve is 1Utama, another huge mall) the scene reminded me of the one you see in the US after a sporting event finishes. Stop and go traffic inching out of the parking areas, long lines of red tail lights trying to enter onto freeways, 20 minutes waits to get from the parking spot to traffic that is flowing near a normal pace.

A few final thoughts about sports in Malaysia. Malaysians love soccer but they love the English Premier League. The time difference means that many games come on late at night, after midnight. Guys will get up and watch the game in one of two ways (that I know of). One is to watch it at home. The second is to go to a local restaurant (mamak stall) that is open 24 hours and meet up with friends. I really miss the community aspect of watching sports, like a good Super Bowl party (at a decent hour). Lastly, Malaysians will like one of four teams in the English Premier League: Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea. If they like a different team, check their passport because they may be imposters!