Malaysia

Social Networks Shaped by the Sea

Malaysia is uniquely characterized by being geographically portioned by a sea. Its land mass is divided by 400 miles of the South China Sea, and it is perhaps the only country in the world that is separated by such a body of water. Approximately 70 percent of the country's population lives in the western peninsula, with the remaining 30 percent living in the east, on the island of Borneo. This geographic divide partitions the citizens into two distinct social groups. While the two lands are accessible by air travel, there is a surprising dearth of passenger boat service between them. The country is governed by the peninsula in the west, but the vast majority of Malaysia's natural resources are located in the east, on Borneo. This introduces a veiled conflict between the two subgroups, leading to a divided nation. When traveling between the west and east, separate passport and visa systems exist, even for Malaysian nationals on internal flights.

The internal dichotomy between west and east Malaysia is made clear in the contradictions between Kuala Lumpur, which is a fast-paced, progressive, modern-day Asian city, and Borneo, which is developing but still has entire villages without electricity and even maintains communal longhouses. The west is increasingly more commercially oriented; for a period of six years beginning in 1998, Malaysia had claim to the world's tallest building, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Those in the east seem to hold on to their less commercial, open-door policy and spirit; there are annual holidays that have sustained a long tradition of an “open house,” where people welcome other cultures into their homes, just as they welcome their immediate family and friends.

In regard to the county's external network, Malaysia is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) community, an economic, political, and social network of regional nations that works together within its member states and as a united front to nonmember interactions. It also has a national airline for travel beyond its borders. The external network can be loosely understood by looking at the service network of its national carrier, Malaysian Airlines. The flight schedule indicates that the country has strong ties to Europe and its Asian-Pacific neighborhood. The airline flies directly to 25 cities in Europe and 17 in India and the Middle East; by comparison, there is only one flight to the United States, one to Africa, and two to South America. Moreover, the ongoing global promotional campaign, Truly Asia, is an endeavor by the government to raise awareness of Malaysia for tourism and to attract foreigners to retiring in the country.

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