George Town,The Georgetown vernacular is a jumble of modern buildings and traditional shophouses

George Town The Watergate tapes from President Nixon are made available to the public and Fausto Martin ’80 is the first from Belen to listen to the tapes (including the Smoking Gun tape of June 23, 1972 and President Nixon’s question to John Dean: “Is that a union problem?”) made available in 1980 by the National Archives; Congressman Claude Pepper (D, FL) says his proudest vote to date in Congress was for the Lend-Lease Act in 1941; Esther Peterson, Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs; flags fly at half-staff for January 19th death of retired Supreme Court Associate Justice William Douglas; first Belen students to see the Albert Einstein Memorial Statue at the National Academy of Sciences dedicated in 1979 honoring the centennial of Einstein’s birth; Senator Richard Stone (D, FL); the six U.S. embassy aides who escaped Iran with help from Canada arrive in D.C. and stay at the Sheraton National along with the Close Up Program; Albert Hernandez ’81 receives the Alan J. Ellender Fellowship to attend Close Up and will become a Teacher of Social Studies at Belen; as a guest speaker at Belen from the Iliff School of Theology, Dr. Hernandez said on August 28, 2006, that participating in Close Up was “one of the most formative and influential educational experiences of my life.” Participants: 35

The United States Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington depicting the flag raising at the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima (1945) on Mount Suribachi as captured by photographer Joe Rosenthal; CU program from February 28 to March 6; Close Up workshop of liberal v. conservative remains one of the most enthusiastic sessions of CU; U.S. Senate considers appropriate punishment for the conduct of Senator Harrison Williams (D, NJ) in Abscam; Harrison, convicted in court for bribery, would later in the year resign from the Senate; the Lyndon B. Johnson Congressional Internship is awarded to Mr. Collins by Congressman Dante Fascell for the summer in Washington. Participants: 26

In Burma, the Chinese community was wrecked, along with everything else in the country, by Ne Win's nationalization program. This shut down the Chinese schools, sometimes, according to reports, by burning them. (Sometimes, according to reports, with the students still in them.)
I'd tell you about the Indonesian riots of the 1960s, and the exciting reunion tour of 1998, but you're getting the idea, right?
The Malaysian Chinese were a little bit lucky in this regard. In 1969 they were, like their Burmese and Indonesian counterparts, on the wrong end of a pogrom. It has become increasingly clear as documents are declassified that the official version overstated Chinese involvement in the outbreak, and understated the body count. But it was one of those rare civil disturbances that scares people back from the brink. It ended quickly, was confined primarily to Kuala Lumpur, and led to serious efforts to improve ethnic relations in Malaysia.
So the Chinese were able to stay (although Singapore, noting the wind direction, had seceded in 1964). Unlike his Burmese counterpart, Mahathir bin Mohamad's agenda was not one of isolation or ethnic purification, but an amalgam of nationalism and export-driven economic growth. Malaysia looked outward, and became famous for its neurotic pursuit of world records, landmark skyscapers, and maverick economic policy (encouraged, by the way, by a certain bearded guy we know).
Along the way a smallish majority-Chinese city called Penang kind of got lost in the shuffle. Situated on the Andaman Sea, Penang was once a key port in the British Empire, famous for its verdant hills, temples and clan houses, and the graceful lines of Fort Cornwallis :

There's no center, really. You just walk around. The Georgetown vernacular is a jumble of modern buildings and traditional shophouses (store on ground floor, family apartment upstairs). It's a little decayed, and at night even desolate, but the more you hang around, the more cool things you see.
The people are nice and the food is good. Well, actually, the food is not good - it is celestial...beyond category. Fresh produce and fish caught that morning, sauced in Indian curries with Malay spices...there is nothing else like it. For the cost of coffee and a roll at the Plaza, you can have three courses of the best food you can imagine, with change left over for the Tarzan movie. Try the hokkien mee, claypot noodles, and roti canai, with sweets after, washed down with madras coffee. Or just order randomly, it doesn't really matter - nothing tastes bad. It's amazing. For Anthony Bourdain to do shows from Malaysia and Singapore and not spend time in Penang - good God, what a blunder. It would be like going to Padua and skipping the Scrovegni Chapel.
Maybe one reason Penang's not front page news is a bit of shame on the part of Malaysia. Malaysia styles itself as big, new, modern. (Did you know Malaysia has over 200 golf courses?) Penang is a beaten-up old town. The more you poke around in it the more you see the old Malaysia, the country they're trying to stop being.
We visited a family acquaintance there, an old man. A few years before I was born he rented a bit of land, and with the help of some friends poured a concrete slab on it. He built a house and planted a banana tree in the back yard. Fifty years on he was still living there, sitting on the cool cement floor and watching 'Malaysian Idol' on an old Sony. He had a motorbike parked by the refrigerator, and a nice simple bedroom with mosquito netting. The breeze came off the ocean, up the street, and ran lightly through the eaves. It wasn't the sort of place the tourist authority would feature, but it worked for us.

George Town