Week of Festivals

This weekend was the Malaysia Week and the Latin American Festival.

Malaysia Week lasted five days from 30th July to today. It was a good way to introduce the country to the people here. Location is everything. If it's right, everything fits together. Otherwise, it's a dread to keep it for another day.

Malaysia Week at the Potters Field

I have mixed feelings about the location of this year's Malaysia Week. We used to have the event in Covent Garden, which is like smacked in the middle of central London. This year we had it at the Potters Field, a park on the southbank of the Tower Bridge, which is almost like having an event in Padang Merbok - a location which is recognisable, relatively strategic but still a little isolated from the rest of the attractions. To put into perspective, Covent Garden is like having the event in the Bukit Bintang area.

Traditional performances

Food prices were a little steep by stalls standard. It was quite a struggle to rope some of my colleagues from Malaysia and Singapore to attend the event. The first thing people asked was if there were food. The question that followed was the price.

"7 to 8ish quid." I said.

"What?! No thanks..." was the common reaction.

Some even quipped, "How can they promote tourism in the country if the first impression about Malaysia is a rip-off!"

Malaysian food

To be fair, Thailand had their festival too and their food was around this price. But of course, if the prices were lower, a lot of people would have been able to enjoy the taste of Malaysia. Malaysians included.

Personally I felt the prices were just about right, only if the event was held in either Covent Garden or Trafalgar Square, like Thailand's. After all, the entire event was sponsored by the Malaysian government. That means there is no cost to the stall keepers. So I see no reason why should the stalls charge so much for food.

While we have been telling new Malaysian visitors not to convert while they're here, we'll still find it a struggle to convince them to go by the 1:1 ratio because we probably wouldn't pay RM7 for a meal at the pasar malam!

Of course, if the event was held in Covent Garden, five days would have cost Malaysian tax-payers a bomb! Then again, I asked if we really needed five days? I thought a weekend event was good enough.

Other than that, I had a good time at the event. It wasn't a place that I could spend the entire day unless if I had nowhere else to go. It was a good opportunity to meet up with other Malaysians or Singaporeans. Not that it matters, but for a moment I thought I was back in Malaysia, hadn't the Tower Bridge helped keep reality in check!

Another petty issue worth pointing out is that "tecnically" if we were to have such an important event to promote the country in a big city like London, we should "tecnically" be more careful with typo errors. Things like this affect our reputation!

On the southern side of London, there was a Latin American festival. Today wasn't the best of time for an event like this. It was gloomy and the rain was random. I had to use the umbrella on many occasions.

Paging for hermits...

And why do I see Jamaica's flag in here??

Performances by Latin American countries

But I still had lots of fun. It was a great day out with Cantab mates after lunch. We started with dim sum in Chinatown. Then we met up with two other mates in Burgess Park where the festival was held.

Dim sum lunch with Cantab mates

Churros con chocolate

Cantab mates

Arson victims

Eventhough the festival was bigger and livelier, it's not fair to compare it with the Malaysia week because the festival was a conglomeration of all Latin American countries while ours was just us.