Guns, Germs and Steel

What role did geographic location and natural resources play in the the development of Malaysia?

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Malaysia is strategically sited just north of the Equator (2 30' North, 112 30' East). This beautiful country with an area of 329,750km is made up of two separate parts, East Malaysia and Peninsular Malaysia. Malaysia's climate has high humidity, hot temperatures and two seasons wet and dry. Rainfall in Malaysia is plentiful and its soil is fertile. Malaysia is protected from natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Malaysia is situated midpoint of trade routes making the Straits of Malacca possibly the leading shipping lane on the planet! The Straits of Malacca is the main shipping channel between The Indian Ocean and The Pacific Ocean, linking Europe and Asia. Over 50,000 vessels pass through The Straits per year, carrying about a quarter of the world's traded goods including oil, rubber, palm oil, tin, spices such as pepper and other commodities.



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Malaysia is blessed with abundant natural resources in areas such as agriculture, minerals and forestry. Malaysia's climate and its fertile soil enable many different types of plants to be grown all year round. Plants like rubber trees and oil palm trees were originally found in other places like Brazil and Africa. The British introduced them to Malaysia and we ended up becoming the biggest growers in the world. Malaysia also has a lot of tin and oil. We were also once the biggest exporter of tin in the world. Our oil is mainly found under the sea near Sabah and Terengganu. Today we no longer produce a lot of tin or rubber or oil compared to other countries but we are still one of the biggest exporters of palm oil. You can see how huge the oil palm plantations are when you drive on the highways.


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With its great geographic location and abundant natural resources, Malaysia was very attractive to countries and peoples from all over the world. Ships and traders from Europe and Asia stopped over in Malaysia and introduced new things, cultures, food and ways of thinking and doing things. People from other countries who came to Malaysia didn't have to worry about natural disasters like what is happening in Indonesia now. They didn't have to struggle to get food or to live in a land with bad weather. We have benefited from learning the best of Western and Asian cultures. Today, most Malaysians can speak three or more languages like English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia. We have a good education system that was taken from England. The natural resources like oil, tin, rubber, palm oil and timber that Malaysia exported to other countries generated a lot of wealth for Malaysia. The wealth was used to develop Malaysia and improve our standard of living. Our roads, airports, buildings, schools and hospitals are today among the best in the world. So in conclusion, we can say that Malaysia's geographic location and natural resources played a very important role in the development of Malaysia.




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REFERENCES.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia

http://geography.about.com/library/cia/blcmalaysia.htm

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/drabble.malaysia

http://travel.110mb.com/natural_resources.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Malaysia

A strange day for little Finn, the mudskipper.

One day, Little Finn woke up from his muddy bed with a funny feeling that he was going to see something exciting that day. He went to say morning to his parents and to eat his breakfast. After that, he asked his parents for permission to go out and play with his friends. His parents gave him permission since it wasn’t a school day.When Little Finn and his friends were playing mud ball, he told his friend: "Hey Tom, today when I woke up I had a funny feeling that we were going to have an adventure ."  " Gee, I hope you are right. It would be fun to have an adventure" said Tom. Little Finn was feeling very cheerful and was having a nice time playing with his friends in the mud when his mother called him to return home for lunch.

When he was eating his usual delicious meal of mud pie made out of insects, he heard noises from outside his house. Little Finn and his parents went out of their house and saw some VERY large creatures. He knew these creatures were humans. His parents and the older folk in his village constantly reminded him and the other young mudskippers to stay as far away from them as possible. He had been told since he first learnt to walk on his fins that the humans were dangerous. He had seen only a few humans in his life. Usually they were smaller and did not venture very far into the mudskippers’ territory.

The humans he now saw were different. They were bigger in size and there was a lot of them. The noise they were making was thunderous. They were falling about and sinking into the mud. One of the giant creatures even sank into the mud up to about his head. The other creatures pointed at him and made thunderous “Ho Ho Ho” sounds. He did not know what it meant but he was very scared.

Soon everyone from his village were out of their homes. The giant human creatures almost squashed Tom's house. Tom and his family began to panic. They just skipped round and round in circles."Tom, get into the mangroves, quick!" little Finn shouted. Tom and some other neighbours then skipped deeper into the mangroves and stared at the humans.Soon all the mudskippers were skipping away in terror. Little Finn and his parents too went deeper into the mangroves to watch what was happening.

The humans continued to stomp around the mudskippers’ village. The ground shook every time the humans’ gigantic limbs pounded the mud. Bits of mud flew into the air and towards the mudskippers like meteors or missiles. There were mini explosions when these bits of mud hit the ground.

What happened next was very surprising. The humans began to plant small mangrove trees! The mangrove trees were like guardians of the territory.  LittleFin had heard the old stories about how the trees had protected the mudskippers for hundreds of years. They blocked the giant waves from destroying everything in the territory. But over the years, the old mangrove trees had begun dying. Some parts of the mudskippers’ territory didn’t even have mangrove trees anymore.

The humans made huge holes in the ground and with their huge hands, planted the trees and then covered the holes again. Was this how the mangrove trees first appeared in the mudskippers’ world? Little Finn and his parents had always thought that the humans were bad because they had seen humans cut down the forest and the trees. But here they were doing the opposite! He thought that maybe the humans were not as bad or dangerous as the older mudskippers said.

Soon, all of the humans departed, creating earth-shaking vibrations. But some of them left behind strange artifacts – big black structures shaped like an “L” but with an entrance at one end. Were they spaceships or vehicles? After all, the humans moved around in them.  Some of Little Finn’s neighbors explored them and when nothing bad happened, used them as their homes.

It had been a really exciting but also a frightening experience for Little Finn. He had woken up that morning expecting an adventure. But he hadn’t expected to see something as strange as the humans started stomping and falling around causing much chaos just because they wanted to plant the mangrove trees.Even though the humans were nice enough to plant the mangrove trees, their clumsiness created havoc in little Finn's village. Little Finn hoped that there wouldn't be any more humans tomorrow to cause more chaos........



                                         The End



Here are some pictures of a mudskipper:

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish/mudskipper.html

http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2009/12/mudskippers-leaping-at-chek-jawa.html