Field Trip to Chinatown

The first place I visited was the jamek mosque. This mosque is where Kuala Lumpur started back in 1909. The jamek mosque is the oldest mosque of Kuala Lumpur. It was built in triangular piece of land because nobody wanted to build on a triangular piece of land as they would get more money out of a rectangular piece of land. So the mosques and the temples were built on what was left, triangular pieces of land. Kuala Lumpur was then divided into two parts, at the right of the mosque were all the governmental buildings while at the left of the mosque were the commercial buildings. the decorations in the mosque were symmetrical, repetitive but also sober. On the small minarets of the mosque were croissant moons, the symbol of Islam. In the mosque men were doing their ablutions and praying, it seemed calm and serious.


On the way to the Hindu temple we passed by several stands of flowers, they were offerings for the gods. The Sri. Maha Mariamman Temple was built in 1873. It was dedicat

ed to the goddess Mariamman. Compared to the mosque the temple was colorful, animated and full of decorations. We saw several people, they were praying, putting Bindi on their forehead, lighting up candles and placing offerings over the statues of the gods. The statues are sacred symbols, people worship them as if they were human. On the walls were huge paintings of divinities.

We then went to the Chinese Temple,the Guan Di temple. Which is actually a Cantonese Temple dedicated to Guan Di, God of the war and of Literature. At the entrance was a small step, to prevent the bad spirits from coming in. The temple was mostly in red and golden with a lot of dragons drawn and sculpted. near the enscence , that we could strongly smell, were fruits, drinks, fake money and all sorts of things that could be helpful to an ancestor during its second life. there were a lot of people in the temple, more than in the Hindu temple, it was animated as well. People also came here to have their fortune told.

Overall all three of these places of worship were very interesting. All of them have a place of worship and worship an an cestor or God(s). I particularly liked the Hindu temple, because of the atmosphere, it was animated but at the same time calm and seren.