Selamat Pagi! This past spring semester, ten Gusties, including myself, were met with this Malay morning greeting as part of our Semester in Malaysia: Living Diversity study abroad program. No matter where you go in Malaysia, locals will greet you with the warmth typically reserved only for morning greetings. Hospitality is Malaysia’s specialty, as is food. I had the good fortune to eat a lot of food from a lot of different culinary traditions. Mornings were filled with multiple breakfasts of nasi lemak or roti chanai washed down with sweet kopi o and teh tarik, followed by lunches of chicken rice or hokkien mee, with a late-night dinner of delicious palak paneer to end the day.
Apart from delicious food, I had the opportunity to meet many fantastic people whom we Gusties will never forget. The International Center at Universiti Sains Malaysia was filled with many wonderful people who helped us with every problem that came our way, from visas to cultural misunderstandings. I loved our “International buddies”, students who volunteered through the International Center to help us find our way around campus and navigate the complex Malaysian sociopolitical and cultural structures.
Beyond campus, we learned about the Malaysian sociopolitical and cultural landscape from locals we met during class field trips to places such as Malacca, a center of trading since the 1500s, Kuala Lumpur, the nation’s capital and major metropolis, and Georgetown, a former British colonial port. We also had a direct immersion into Malay culture during our homestay in the sleepy kampong (village) of Kota Aur.
A key part of the Malaysian culture I learned, was Islam. I didn’t expect that my time in a nation, where a significant majority of the population follows Islam, would provide all the answers to my questions about Islam. However, funny enough, I ended up leaving Malaysia with more questions about Islam than I arrived with. I learned how to become at peace with these questions and with the contradictions of Malaysian life.
Gusties studied the history, language, religions, sociology, politics, and literature of Malaysia. We saw temples, mosques, clan houses, pasar malams (night markets), tropical islands, sultanate palaces, mountains, rainforests, beaches, estuaries, and mangroves. Malaysia offered us a lot to absorb, and I swung from overstimulation to complete comfort with all of the experiences that Malaysia offered to us throughout the arc of our trip. I found it difficult not to be humbled on a daily basis by the experience of being an international student. Living in a place without speaking the same language, practicing the same faith, and understanding the same, subtle cultural cues as others around you challenged my views on my nationality and my identity.