I've seen things!

A few weeks ago, I my uncle (who is a doctor) had a conference to attend in Kuala Lampur (that’s in Malaysia for all of you who are as geographically challenged as I am). So I tagged along to go sightseeing with my aunt.

I found KL to be a really interesting city, but mostly because of how much of a contrast it was to Manila. It was clean! And not filled with pollution, bumper to bumper traffic, barefooted beggar children…It’s actually a very well designed city – wide streets and lots of green space. I’m not sure why this was so surprising to me. I guess, having never been to this part of the world before, Manila became my baseline standard on what to expect.

The visit led me to think a lot about why Manila is the way it is. Despite the extreme traffic, Manila isn’t this backwards, underdeveloped place. Belize seems far more “third world” to me – that country lacks the majority of basic infrastructure. There is one traffic light in the entire country, and two “highways” which are both single lane roads. But in Manila (if you are at least middle class), I can’t think of anything that I can get in the States that I couldn’t get here. Some things are harder to find, some are more expensive, but a LOT of things are much cheaper. And once you get out of the city, there are lots of things to do (mountains, oceans, beaches, caves…).

But after going to KL, I realized that much could be IMPROVED in Manila, and it would have far go to bear any resemblance to KL. Honestly, it seems to me that all the problems stem from population size. The city is totally overrun with people. Less people would mean higher paying jobs, less traffic, less pollution…And what I find a bit fascinating is that (I realize I’m delving into an extremely controversial issue and making broad generalizations but) this problem stems from the influence of the Catholic Church. The Philippines has about 500 years of Spanish colonial history. And the Church continues to be a strong cultural presence. I saw myself a church with banners plastered all over it proclaiming “say no to abortion, say no to contraceptives, say no to family planning…” But its so strange, because so many other historically Catholic countries (Spain and Italy for example) do not have this problem. My aunt and uncle explained that this is because those countries already have separated church and state, while here the politicians are all still afraid of angering the bishops. ALTHOUGH. There is currently a move to pass a reproductive health bill, allowing access to family planning information and contraceptives. So that’s cool in my book.

But KL. My two favorite parts of the trip were visiting this Chinese Buddhist temple and visiting the aquarium. The temple was one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever been in my entire life, which in a way was hard to comprehend because there was twangy oriental music playing, it was bright and well lit and colorful…and yet the location had this palpably calm presence. And the aquarium – well I’ve never been to an aquarium I didn’t enjoy, and this one was surprisingly well designed. I like going to aquariums in different places because they always feature the local fauna. And I liked that this one placed a significant emphasis on freshwater fish – usually those fish get treated a bit like second class citizens. Oh and the seahorses! Many seahorses. Which are adorably absurd creatures.