Multiculturalism in Malaysia: Physical Superficiality or Permanent Tension?
"Multicultural Asia," for someone who has never been outside East Asia, is largely an oxymoron and impossibility. Even the most cultural diverse in the region, China, has no real diversity to speak off. Minorities languish in the political, economic, and obviously demographic dominance of the Han Chinese, who has made assimilation an ultimate goal in creating a stable society. And then, an East Asian who shows up to Malaysia is simply dazzled, amazed by how the Malays, the Chinese, and the Indians have together carved out a truly multiethnic country where no one is more foreign than the other.