BY KARIM RASLAN
South China Morning Post
25 JAN 2017
Despite disquieting migration statistics, a young Chinese Malaysian couple say they are happy where they are and see prosperity ahead in the Lunar New Year
Seri Kembangan, Selangor, is 22km to the south of Kuala Lumpur and just 20 minutes away from Putrajaya, Malaysia’s gaudy administrative centre.
Sixty years ago, this would have been scrubland dotted by tin mines, rubber plantations and small market gardens. The area is home to a patchwork of predominantly Chinese Malaysian communities with a large Hakka contingent, hardened wayfarers from Southern China – a people accustomed to living on marginal land.
In the early 1950s, most of the inhabitants were corralled into euphemistically named “New Villages” such as Sekinchan and Jinjang as the British colonial authorities sought to quell a nagging communist insurgency.
But what was formerly a no-man’s-land has long since been transformed into choice real estate. There is the iconic Commonwealth sports complex, a Turf Club, that bizarre Mahathir-era hostelry the Palace of the Golden Horses and countless small factories, townships, shopping centres and housing estates. Continue reading “YEAR OF THE ROOSTER: GOOD FORTUNE FOR MALAYSIA’S DWINDLING CHINESE COMMUNITY?”