True Malaysian Spirit!

(Picture from TheStar.com.my 19th August 2007)

Okay, Merdeka Day was a whole weekend ago and I was supposed to write about my 'fireworks" experience but hey, I'd been down with a flu bug...if I miss my spinning classes , it's usually serious..but enough about me.

So how did the international fireworks show in Putrajaya go...from very far away and inside the comforts of Shang-Ri La Putrajaya's coffee lounge, quietly brilliant! But what was truly amazing and I feel I need to express my sincere gratitude for the "Malaysia Boleh" attitude, was the hotel lounge's manager's willingness to personally carry two chairs and a lounge table for my friend and I and despite confessing his frustrations at being short staffed, served us food (very good mee goreng by the way) where all the kitchens in the hotel except one were closed and cooks disappearing to celebrate Merdeka, it was 2330 after all when we finally got there, count down to Merdeka 50 years!

Customers were still pouring into the hotel and very hungry ones like yours truly, who had braved traffic jams from Kuala Lumpur since 7pm and missing dinner time and this hotel happened to be the nearest around main square of Putrajaya where a huge jam leading to the Convention Center where the "action" is had been building up since 9pm where we hiked up the hill and actually mistook the bright lights of the Istana Melawati as the beckoning lights of our own shang ri la.

To be told that the fastest food available is mee goreng and nasi lemak , will be just a mere forty minutes wait was unbelievably comforting, because we felt what it must be like during wartimes and we were trapped in a building with no food and no idea when if any will arrive .

But I was a proud Malaysian that night. You know Malaysians are truly patriotic when they are willing to brave traffic jams just to watch fireworks display (of international standards of course), bring family , young and old and stand in the face of chilly winds of Putrajaya up on the bridge; parked along the many highways of Putrajaya; all along the main roads of the city and await the fireworks to herald in the country's fiftieth birthday, unconcern that the fireworks competition that had been starting promptly at 10pm for the whole week is suddenly late and "speculations' and "rumour" as to the actual time started circulating, that it could be starting at 12 midnite after all.

Most just took it in stride and seem almost unnaturally nonchalant and graceful about this little "delay". Just patiently waiting , chatting and rebonding with family members, catching up with old friends whom they bumped into all with the same patriotic purpose...just to celebrate the nation's 50th birthday... ahh...ever true the Malaysian spirit ... check out www.YouTube.com for some videos of the fireworks...