Malaysian adventures

Catherine Pattison, a journalist for the Otago Daily Times, The Star and Drivesouth, travelled to Malaysia in April 2010, with an Asia:NZ media grant, to research and write several features about local cultural, sports and environmental activities. In 2008, Catherine won the inaugural Diversity Reporting Awards run by the Whitireia Journalism School. Here she reports on her Malaysia assignment.

During my trip to Malaysia in April 2010, I sought to cover a range of topics – cultural, environmental, local people and a sporting event – and managed to get notes for features on all four.

Two features and two editorials have already been published, and two more are to come.. My writings will be run in a community newspaper, regional newspaper and on motoring websites, which means a wide cross-section of readers will see them.

I had no serious difficulties undertaking my project and on the whole Malaysian people were very helpful and friendly.

I have broken down the rest of my report into each feature article I researched over there.

Songkran Festival (Traditional Thai New Year)

I arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, April 12 and flew out to Penang the following day. Upon my arrival in the late afternoon, I went straight to the Georgetown tourist information centre to find out how and where the Songkran Festival would be celebrated on the island. It had unfortunately closed early but I managed to find a calendar of events which listed the Temple of the Reclining Buddha (Wat Chayamangkalaram) and its next-door Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple as hosting the festivities that day.

Songkran is usually celebrated for three days, from April 13 to 15. I decided to head out to Wat Chayamangkalaram the next morning to see what I could salvage for my story.

I unfortunately missed the thousands of Thai nationals, tourists and Buddhists who flocked to the two temples to have a gigantic water fight and dance in the street, while still honouring the principles of Songkran, which are to do with respect for the elderly.

Luckily, a kind temple worker Kunraya Booncharernsap, of Thailand, took pity on me, showed me newspaper clippings of the previous day’s events and gave me a great run-down on how it is celebrated differently in certain parts of Thailand and Malaysia.

My story focused on the fact that Songkran has varying degrees of significance depending on where Thai people live or come from. For example, even though she now lives in Penang, Malaysia, Kunraya still honours an 18-day system of traditions and observances that Songkran entails in her home province of Chang Mai.

While I would have liked to have been at the celebration and believe it would have added a lot to the story I am still pleased with the slight change of angle as it broadens the feature beyond Malaysia to encompass Thailand.

A difficulty I encountered was finding detailed information about Songkran before I left New Zealand. There was nothing definitive on the internet so I contacted the New Zealand High Commission in KL. They tried to help out but the festival is not really celebrated in the southern or middle states of Malaysia.

On the advice of a motoring contact’s Malaysian wife I went to Penang where she believed that, if the festival was celebrated anywhere in Malaysia it would be there.

The feature was published in Dunedin’s The Star community newspaper.

Pulau Tioman – Enviroment Versus Development

I had originally chosen Besar Island in Malaysia’s east coast for this feature but research undertaken while over there suggested Tioman would be a more valid island to visit to investigate this idea.

Regarded as one of Malaysia’s most pristine islands, it is part of a marine park encompassing nine islands. It attracts about 190,000 visitors every year and there is friction about the proposed development of an international airport in the main village of Tekek. It is believed it would further increase commercial tourism and there was an active campaign against it which saw the project shelved.
 
In Tekek, I found an English lady who runs a six-week volunteer dive programme (Blue Water Ventures), bringing people from around the world in to study the reefs for damage from tourism and climate change. She also does conservation education with local villages and schools.

I had a great interview with her and spent time with her volunteers, including accompanying them on the reef surveys. I also contacted the Malaysian Nature Society which campaigned successfully against the proposed new airport. Aspects of both interviews will be combined for a feature on Tioman for the Otago Daily Times’ features section.

Homestay – Tanjung Piai

My homestay was located about an hour southwest of Johor Bahru in an area called Tanjung Piai. Organised by Johor Tourism, it was a good insight into the life of the kampung (village people) as well as an excellent chance to eat a lot of home-prepared Malaysian food!

With my host I visited a local resort, national park, pineapple farm (pictured), honey bee operation, fish sausage factory, coconut farm and the village school. While it was really geared towards Singaporean tourists it was still a good practical way of seeing how the local industry functioned.

Speaking Malaysian would have been a huge advantage as many of the people we visited did not speak English so my host would have to translate. Often he would chat with them for up to an hour in Malaysian and I was unable to participate in the conversation, which was a little frustrating and boring for me.

The resulting feature ran in the same issue of The Star as the Songkran story.

Zero To Hero TV Programme – Malaysian Rally

The Malaysian Rally took place around Johor Bahru and I was based there for five nights.

I  had a long interview with the executive producer of the Zero to Hero reality TV programme - designed to find Malaysia's next top rally driver. I also interviewed the winners of season two and followed their progress throughout the rally. They finished fifth overall in the Malaysian Rally section.

My motoring editor will give me a page to write up this feature for the Otago Daily Times’ motoring section Drivesouth.

A real highlight was that I got to go out to the rally stages with the Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC TV) film crew to watch the action. They were all Kiwis and upon learning I was a motoring journalist, gave me the microphone for the event and I did all the driver interviews.

It was a great experience and I wrote an editorial for the Otago Daily Times’ motoring section Drivesouth: read here

I was so fascinated by all the scooters in Malaysia that I decided to write another motoring editorial on them: read here

Overall, I believe my project was successful in achieving its objective of highlighting Asia’s diversity to New Zealanders.