The D&O Diary’s Asia assignment continued last week with a first-time-ever stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital and largest city. Kuala Lumpur is rightly well known for its modern skyline, including its distinctive, huge skyscrapers, as well its rich cultural heritage.

The primary purpose for my visit to Kuala Lumpur was to participate in an event sponsored by the Chan Ban Eng law firm. The firm was holding the event to celebrate its 50 year history but also in order to launch a new book about D&O in Malaysia, on which I collaborated with my good friend JJ Chan, the firm’s managing partner. The event attracted a large audience, including a number of very distinguished guests. I enjoyed the chance to be a part of this event as well as to meet many members of the Malaysian insurance community. I also enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate the event with JJ and all of my friends at his law firm, includig Fazleeza Azli, Phoebe Ng, and Jael Ho.

The Kuala Lumpur event celebrated more than 50 years of legal practice of the Chan Ban Eng law firm, as well as the launch of the D&O insurance book for the Malaysian D&O insurance community.
I was happy to be a part of this celebratory event for JJ Chan and his law firm. The book launch was itself the culmination of years of planning and effort.
With Simon Moi, of Newline Asia; JJ Chan; Rachel Flynn of Newline Asia; and Jackie Mah, of the Institute of Corporate Directors of Malaysia.
I enjoyed the chance at the law firm event to meet a number of members of the Malaysian insurance community, including Harroshan Singh and Shirley Ling of Howden Malaysia.
I also enjoyed meeting and talking to this lively group: Syahirah; Michael Leong; Sarah Sariman; and Ormiela Abbraham, all of AON Malaysia.
One thing I particularly enjoyed about this event was the food. The event was held in a Japanese restaurant, so after the speeches and ceremonies, we all enjoyed a lovely meal of sushi and sashimi.

With Mohd Fikri and Michael How
With Winnie Chew of Munich Re Syndicate in Malaysia. I first met Winnie at a PLUS Chapter event in Singapore two years ago.
With Jeremy Leow of Chubb. Jeremy came up to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore for the event.

I also had some time while in Kuala Lumpur to try to get to know the place a little bit. It is such an interesting city, with its sweeping skyscrapers and its colorful cultural heritage.

Kuala Lumpur, with an urban area population of 8.8 million, is surprisingly large. It is in fact a little larger than New York. This picture and the following one were taken from the observation deck of the KL Tower, which is one of the highest towers in the world.

Perhaps Kuala Lumpur’s most distinctive and well-known local landmark is the twin 88-story office buildings of the Petronas Towers. For a time in the late 90s and early 2000s, the Petronas Towers were the world’s tallest buildings.
Another of Kuala Lumpur’s landmark office buildings is the Merdeka 118 tower, which is currently the second tallest building in the world. “Merdeka” means independence and the building’s spire is meant to evoke the hand gesture of Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s first prime minister, as he declared Malaysia’s independence on August 31, 1957.
Another of Kuala Lumpur’s famous buildings is the Jamek Mosque, which is located adjacent to Independence Square, at the junction of the Klang River and the Gombak River. The junction gives the city its name — “Kuala Lumpur” means “muddy confluence.”

While the city’s buildings are noteworthy, what really makes Kuala Lumpur interesting is its food. The food is amazing. I not only had a lot of great meals while in KL but I also had an astonishing variety of food as well.

My first night in Kuala Lumpur, Phoebe Ng of the Chan Ban Eng law firm took me for dinner at the city’s most famous food street, Jalan Alor. It would be an absolute crime to visit KL and not see Jalan Alor. In fact, a visit to Jalan Alor alone would justify a trip to KL.
Phoebe and I had a great meal at a Chinese restaurant along Jalan Alor. The fish dish on the right in this picture is Sting Ray. It was excellent.
After dinner, Phoebe and I strolled along Jalan Alor, and we tried some of the offerings available, including, for example, sugar cane juice, mixed with a little bit of ginger and lemon. Really good, not too sweet.
Both Phoebe and I also tried some Snake Fruit (Salak). I liked it, Phoebe didn’t.
For dessert, Phoebe and I had a little bit of steamed rice. It is served with cane sugar and grated coconut. I really liked it.
On Sunday morning, I joined JJ and his team for a dim sum brunch. That’s JJ in front, and in the second row, Phoebe Ng, Fazleeza Azli, and Jael Ho. JJ and his colleagues were such good hosts while I was in Kuala Lumpur.
Dim Sum at The Han Room, at the Palace mall.

On more than one evening while I was in KL, we enjoyed some traditional Malaysian food, all of it was great, but I particuarly enjoyed the satay.

On my final day in Kuala Lumpur, which I spend with Phoebe and Jael doing a little bit of touring, we had something of a Asian food extravaganza.

For breakfast, we ate at a Mamak food shop. Mamak is the name given to the Indian Tamil Muslims in Malaysia. Great stuff, it made for an excellent breakfast.

For lunch we ate at Yut Kee Restaurant, which features Hainanese food (featuring food from the Chinese island of Hainan). Really excellent chicken dishes, including a Chicken Chop (pictured in the lower left). I particularly liked the hot drink pictured in the ceramic mug on the orange plate. It was a slighly sweetened mixture of coffee and tea. Very highly caffinated — I was talking a blue streak for the rest of the afternoon.
For dinner, we had Korean food, which included among other things meat grilled at our table. Expanding my culinary horizons.
One enjoyable thing Phoebe, Jael, and I did on our day of touring in Kuala Lumpur was to visit a craft studio and make our own batik. I was surprised how much fun I had doing this. Jael and Phoebe obviously have a talent for it, I should stick to my day job.
I suppose this isn’t bad for a first effort but I am painfully aware that a lot of my color choices were driven by a desire to cover up my boo-boos.

Another interesting things we did on our day touring KL was to visit the Islamic Arts Museum. The museum wasn’t featured prominently in the guide books, but I would have to put the museum on the list of must see things in KL. It was really interesting.

For starters, the museum itself is a beautiful building — bright, open, airy, comfortable.

The museum also has a fine collection of beautiful art, beautifully displayed.
A beautifully illustrated hand-copied version of the Quran.

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After three weeks in Asia, it was finally time for me to head home. It was quite a trip, including stops in Mumbai, Bangkok, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. By the time I returned home, I had literally travelled all the way around the world.

My overall impression from my travels is that South Asia and Southeast Asia are incredibly dynamic and energetic places. All four of the cities I visited are huge. The transformation that is taking place in these cities is also huge. Despite all of the changes, they each also retain their unique cultural and historic character. The food alone is fantastic. It is also kind of fantastic that one can so easily visit these far away places – among other things, I was able to speak English everywhere I went. As distant and different as all of the places are, we are also increasingly interconnected, in many very important ways.

But as the saying goes, East West, Home is Best. It was a great trip, but I was happy to finally head home.