The Tanah Melayu title of yesterday's post came from this line on the Malaysia Wikipedia page: 'Before the onset of European colonisation, the Malay Peninsula was known natively as "Tanah Melayu" ("Malay Land").'
Last night late late spent a delightful hour with our hosts Vidya and Wai in their home - after Katrinka and I attended a wonderful party at a neighborhood kids' resource place with lots of great food and fun games to watch. It's a holiday time. Met Vidya and Wai through Alan Senauke. It's a Buddhist Peace Fellowship connection. Mainly we see Wai when we're here because Vidya is so busy. Right now he's heading a Dengue fighting program for the government. He's flying out tomorrow to Bangkok to meet with a key militant monk. He's met with militant monks in Sri Lanka and Burma - that I know of. I don't know what he'll do but I see it as him encouraging peace and so forth. See this article on that subject. He's coming back Sunday so maybe will have time to get more out of him on that.
Anyway, he said that Tanah Melayu is not a pre colonial name. It was all separate kingdoms or whatever and that Tanah Melayu was a British creation to facilitate their extracting all the wealth they can from this part of the world. So I guess I was a colonialist dupe.
Have written periodically about Vidya and Wai and their school where we stay. Need to get that all under one roof here. - dc
Last night late late spent a delightful hour with our hosts Vidya and Wai in their home - after Katrinka and I attended a wonderful party at a neighborhood kids' resource place with lots of great food and fun games to watch. It's a holiday time. Met Vidya and Wai through Alan Senauke. It's a Buddhist Peace Fellowship connection. Mainly we see Wai when we're here because Vidya is so busy. Right now he's heading a Dengue fighting program for the government. He's flying out tomorrow to Bangkok to meet with a key militant monk. He's met with militant monks in Sri Lanka and Burma - that I know of. I don't know what he'll do but I see it as him encouraging peace and so forth. See this article on that subject. He's coming back Sunday so maybe will have time to get more out of him on that.
Anyway, he said that Tanah Melayu is not a pre colonial name. It was all separate kingdoms or whatever and that Tanah Melayu was a British creation to facilitate their extracting all the wealth they can from this part of the world. So I guess I was a colonialist dupe.
Have written periodically about Vidya and Wai and their school where we stay. Need to get that all under one roof here. - dc
