Saturday, December 11, 2004

Love thy neighbour...

With the last remaining days of a typical month-long Eid celebration in the country, residents of a Kuala Lumpur housing area got together last night to re-new their neighbourhood bond. For residents of Jalan AU1C/3K of Taman Keramat Permai, the occasion helped to keep themselves stay in touch with one another especially those who are new in the area. This is common all over the country. Fresh from recharging my neighbourhood network, I decided to have breakfast this morning at an eating place frequented mostly by those from Kelantan in Pantai Dalam, which used to be on the city's fringe. Apart from sampling some of the favourite morning meal of the east coast state in the peninsular, the eatery keeps patrons to stay in touch in their Kelantanese dialect of goings-on from work to politics and the current flood hitting the state. Some of them came all the way from other areas in the city in search of their favourite Kelantanese food. While they tucked in their food, they could easily see how far the place had developed over the years from a squatter colony to a low-cost housing area. What used to be their 'kampung', is now taken up by the newly-opened New Pantai Expressway linking the city to Subang Jaya.
On the regional scale, Malaysia's 'Prosper-thy-Neighbour' policy is widely recognised including by Indonesia.

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