Last night I met some very nice Malays.  They are friends of my friend.  I was invited into there home for a belated birthday celebration for their 1 year old daughter.  I very much enjoyed getting to know them.  They served me some traditional Malay foods such as chicken satay.



You can see the satay next to the bowl of red stuff.  The red stuff was a sweet and spicy sauce.  The satay reminded me of Thai satay, but the sauce was more sweet and not as peanuty.  On the bottom of the picture you can see some Singapore fried noodles and in the middle were some traditional cookies.  All the food was very good.  I wish I had a bigger stomach so I could have ate more.  They also prepared some muruku which is a Malay/Indian chip.



These things are addictive like chips.  I think I need to buy some for my next train ride.  After dinner they showed me some pictures and explained a Malay tradition that babies go through when they lose their cord (within 7 days of birth).  During the ceremony they have a priest type person shave the baby's hair and cleanse the baby.  Then they feast with a big meal.  It was nice to learn about a new culture and some new traditions.  I very much enjoyed getting to know them throughout the night.  This was also my first interaction with Muslims.  So that was also very nice.  Especially since in America Muslims don't tend to have the best reputation with the America press.  For me it was nice to see the Muslims that the American press does not talk about.  The nice, welcoming, and just normal people that we can all be.  It was a good night.  Plus I got to spend time with some close friends throughout it all.