Racing in Malaysia
Or: How I flew 23,000 miles to drive a diesel station wagon in soul-crushing traffic, sleep in a hotel with bloodstains on the headboard, and lose a race to a 1.5-liter hatchback mostly because I was driving a 1.3-liter hatchback.
“That car we just passed on the shoulder back there? That was a police car.”
I look back and sure enough, Bobby’s right. It’s a Proton Wira, which is an old Mitsubishi Lancer built right here in Malaysia, by a state-owned corporation, to a standard kindly described as unambitious. There’s a policeman driving it. With the policeman hat and everything. He looks completely unconcerned that he’s just been passed by a bright-yellow Renault hatchback doing more than twice the speed limit.
On the shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Bobby laughs. Strictly speaking, his name isn’t Bobby, but it’s the name he uses because his real name, which is Mandarin, isn’t easy for English- or Malay-speaking people to say. So he’s Bobby. Like almost half of the people living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, Bobby is of Chinese background. At nearly six feet tall, handsome and self-assured, he speaks perfect English. He’d make a great American, I think. He certainly has a founding father’s share of disrespect for authority. “If you have an expensive car here, the cops generally leave you alone,” he says. “He couldn’t catch us anyway.”
In the time it takes Bobby to say those words, he’s made another high-speed shoulder pass, ducked across four lanes, split a gap between two 50-cc scooters, and shifted up into the fifth of our Renaultsport Mégane’s six forward gears.
“So, let me get this straight,” I say. “Because we’re driving a $25,000 car—”
“But here,” Bobby reminds me, “it’s 240,000 ringgit.”
I can do that currency math in my head. I’ve been doing it for days now. That’s about $80,000.
“Okay. Because we’re driving an $80,000 car, and I still can’t understand why a $25,000 car is an $80,000 car here, but that’s okay, because we are driving an $80,000 car, we can go as fast as we want.”
Bobby’s nose crinkles as he considers what to say next. He’s a stickler for truth and accuracy; as we’ve bombed across Kuala Lumpur and the neighboring state of Selangor like Cannonball Run entrants, he’s spoken eloquently about the younger generation’s lack of respect for Confucian principles.
“It’s possible,” he allows, “that you could get pulled over. You’d have to pay the policeman. Maybe 100 ringgit. Or a little more.”
“So as long as I have 30 bucks on me, I’m free to violate any and all traffic rules.”
“Make sure you do, in fact, have it on you,” Bobby advises. “Your platinum American Express is not valid to a policeman.”
