Kuching

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Kuching
Nickname: "Cat City"
Location in Malaysia
Coordinates: 1°33′00″N, 110°25′00″E
Country State	Malaysia Sarawak
Establishment	Uncertain, granted city status in 1988
Government
- Mayors	North: Abdul Hamid Mohd Yusoff South: Chong Ted Tsiung
Area
- City	1,863 km²  (719 sq mi)
Population (2006)
- City	599,900
- Density	322/km² (834/sq mi)
Time zone	MST (UTC+8)
- Summer (DST)	Not observed (UTC)
Flower = Allamanda
Website: Kuching North: http://www.dbku.gov.my/ Kuching South: http://www.mbks.gov.my/ Padawan: http://www.mpp.gov.my/

Kuching is the capital of the East Malaysian State of Sarawak. Kuching is the most populous city in the state of Sarawak and the fourth largest city in Malaysia^[1].^[2] Kuching was elevated to city status on 1 August 1988.

s administrated by Majlis Bandaraya Kuching Selatan (the Council of The City of Kuching South) covering a smaller but a more densely populated area of 61.53 square kilometres. There are those who believe that the divisions in power for the Northern (primarily Malay and Bumi residents) and Southern (primarily Chinese residents) districts came about due to ethnic reasons in the 1980s. There are also those who believe the administration is divided due to geographical reasons, as the Northern and Southern districts are linked by only two bridges spanning the Sarawak River. The third local government is Majlis Perbandaran Padawan or Padawan Municipal Council (formerly known as Kuching Rural District Council) which mainly administers the rural areas within Kuching district. It covers a large portion of Kuching district with an area of 1,431.82 square kilometres.

Contents 1 List of city area in Kuching 1.1 Kuching North City Hall area 1.2 Kuching South City Council area 2 History 2.1 Origin of name 3 Geography 4 Demographics 5 Filming Location 6 Future & On going developments 7 Education 8 Transportation 9 Tourist attractions 10 Cuisine 11 Arts, Entertainment and Culture 12 Gallery 13 External links 14 References

[edit] List of city area in Kuching

[edit] Kuching North City Hall area

• Petra Jaya
• Satok
• Kuching City centre (West)

[edit] Kuching South City Council area

• Kuching City centre (East)
• Padungan
• Stampin

[edit] History

Sarawak was a part of the Sultanate of Brunei 200 years ago but as a reward for its help in putting down a rebellion, it was ceded to a British adventurer called James Brooke who ruled it as his personal kingdom. Kuching was made his capital and headquarters. The Brooke family ruled Sarawak until the Japanese occupation in December 1941. Kuching surrendered to the Japanese forces on 24 December 1941, and Sarawak was part of the Japanese Imperial Empire for three years and eight months, until the official Japanese surrender on 11 September 1945 on board HMAS Kapunda at Kuching. From March 1942 the Japanese operated a POW and civilian internee camp at Batu Lintang, three miles outside Kuching.^[3] After the end of World War II the third and last Rajah, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke ceded Sarawak to the British Crown in 1946. Sarawak and the British Commonwealth fought an "Undeclared War" with Indonesia to keep Sarawak from being absorbed into Sukarno's Indonesia. The British gave Sarawak independence in 1963 and together with North Borneo (Sabah) and Singapore, helped form Malaysia. (Singapore became independent soon after).

[edit] Origin of name

The origins of its name have never been clear. "Kuching" does translate into "cat" in Malay ^[4] ("kuching" is an old Malay spelling, whereas the new official Malay spelling today would be "kucing" but both of them are pronounced the same), in specific reference to the domesticated cat, but it may actually be a variation of the Indian name for "port" - "Cochin". Kuching was first settled by Indian traders who set up base at Santubong. Artefacts of Hindu origin can today be seen at the State Museum. The city has never been remembered for having a significantly larger population of cats when compared to others. In fact, the many cat statues, the Kuching Cat Museum and other association with cats have been part of a modern effort of tourism; many travel brochures refer to Kuching as "Cat City" or the "City of Cats". Otherwise, they hold no real meaning for the residents and are not considered by locals as romantic.

There are other theories which attribute the name to a fruit called "mata kucing" or "cat's eye"; it would seem that trees bearing this fruit used to grow in abundance by the river banks - where the city proper lies today. There is a hill in the heart of the old city called Bukit Mata Kuching which could have been as responsible.

[edit] Geography

Kuching is situated at the banks of the Sarawak River on the North-Western part of the island of Borneo. The longitude and latitude of Kuching is 01°33' N, 110°25' E.

The climate in Kuching is tropical, moderately hot and receives substantial rainfall. The average annual rainfall is approximately 4,000 mm or 160 inches^[5]. Kuching is the wettest city in Malaysia. The wettest times are during the North-East Monsoon months of November to February. The temperature of Kuching ranges from 20°C to 38°C but the average temperature is around 23°C in the early hours of the morning and rises to around 33°C in the mid afternoon. This temperature stays almost constant throughout the year if it is not affected by the heavy rain and strong winds during the early hours of the morning which would rarely bring the temperature down to 20°C. The temperature would also rise to 38°C under rare cases due to the haze caused by open burning from Indonesia during the dry season but it is a good thing that haze rarely occurs in Kuching.

Kuching receives an annual average of five hours of sunshine per day. In January, during the height of the monsoon season, the average sunshine per day is approximately 3.7 hours. The heavy rains during this period sometimes results in flooding.

[edit] Demographics

Kuching has the 4th largest urban area in Malaysia, after Kuala Lumpur-Klang Valley, Ipoh and Johor Bahru.

The population of 810,000 (2006 census; Kuching City South - 230,000; Kuching City North - 190,000; Padawan- 3rd Mile/ 7th Mile/ 10th Mile - 390,000) in the city is made up of a mixture of Malays, Dayaks, Chinese and some Indians and other ethnic groups. The Dayaks can be further categorized into Ibans, Bidayuhs, Melanaus and many others. The Chinese are made up of Fujianese (Hokkien) in the city areas and Hakka in the suburbs mainly. Other Chinese consist of Foochow (Fuzhou), Teochew, Hainanese, Cantonese, Henghua and others. Another colourful side of Kuching is the number of mixed marriages between the races that crosses not only two cultures into one but children with two, three or more heritages.

The main religions of the peoples of Kuching are Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. Malays practice Islam and all Malays are Muslim by law. Chinese practice either Buddhism or Christianity. Most Dayaks are Christian except the Melanaus who are mainly Muslim.

The majority of people in Kuching are capable of communicating in Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language) as well as English. English ability can however vary greatly from person to person. The dialect of the Malay language spoken in Kuching is known as Bahasa Sarawak (Language of Sarawak), which has lexical differences with the dialect spoken in Peninsular Malaysia.

On top of Malay and English, a Kuchingite can usually speak his own ethnic dialect/language. An Iban can speak Iban, a Bidayuh speak Bidayuh and the Chinese usually several Chinese dialects, the most common being Hokkien and Mandarin in Kuching but so far, mandrin has been widely spoken language than hokkien since it is well known by all other chinese ethnic. For the Bidayuhs, the dialect of Bidayuh spoken in one kampung/village may vary greatly with another kampung/village. It is also common to find people who can speak more than just Malay, English and their native tongue, not only due to the wide practice of mixed marriages but because of the close rapport amongst the people of Kuching.

A small minority however, speak English as their first language.

[edit] Filming Location

Kuching offers some of the world's greatest natural flora and fauna. With this, several international film makers have made their ways to Kuching and chosen Kuching as their filming location.

One of the more famous Hollywood movies, The Sleeping Dictionary financed by Fine Line Features has shot up the film here in 2000. Up to date "The Sleeping Dictionary" is probably the most well-known Hollywood production which was filmed in Kuching, Sarawak.

Other famous Hollywood movies shot in (and around) Kuching included:

1) Farewell to the King (Orion Pictures) John Milius (Director) Nick Nolte, Nigel Havers, Frank Mcrae, Marilyn Tokuda; actors. Year: 1987

2) Welcome Home (Columbia Pictures) Franklin Scaffner (Dir) Kris Kristopherson, actor. Year: 1989

3) The Intended (IPC Films) Kristian Levring (Dir) Janet MacTeer, JJ Feild, Brenda Fricker, Olympia Dukakis, actors. Year: 2002 (* Special note: this film starred 2 Oscar winners and a Golden Globe winner.)

4) The Sacred Planet (Walt Disney Films) Jon Long (Dir.) Documentary Year: 2002

5) The Sleeping Dictionary (Fine Line Features) Guy Jenkins (Dir) Jessica Alba, Bob Hoskins, Brenda Blethyn, Hugh Dancy, actors. Year: 2000

The common link in the locations of these international productions is a Malaysian company named "Southeast Asia Film Locations Services" headed by a local Malaysian Chinese based in Kuching, Edgar Ong; whose partner, Chandran Rutnam (whose bases are in Sri Lanka, Berlin & Los Angeles) have jointly been instrumental in attracting these major studios and film producers to use Sarawak in Borneoas the backdrop.

Rutnam is an Oscar winner for his film "Indochine" (starring Catherine Duneuve)which won the Foreign Film Oscar in 1991. In 2007,another co-production "Water" (Dir: Deepa Mehta) was nominated for a Foreign Film Oscar.

Besides Hollywood, Kuching is also a target film location for Hong Kong while Japan used to shoot a Japanese Series briefly in Kuching. Currently, Indian's Bollywood are also making their ways to Kuching to shoot up an adventure Bollywood movie. ^[6] This has indirectly attracted more Indian tourists to visit Sarawak because of the film. ^[7]

[edit] Future & On going developments

• Plaza Merdeka Shopping Center - A brand new CBD shopping mall with 350,000 sqft of nett leasable area plus a 290 room Boutique hotel complex located in the historic heart of Kuching.
• Boulevard Shopping Complex - The new regional mall located along Jalan Datuk Tawi Sli in the 4th Mile area. ^[8]
• Dewan Undangan Negeri - A new Sarawak State legislative assembly complex. ^[9]
• Grand Centro - The biggest shopping complex cum hotel apartment project in Kuching, with some 1,200,000 square feet of gross building area. ^[10]
• Green Heights Mall - Kuching's first suburban neighbour hood small mall, with an international cold storage market. ^[11]
• Kuching Tower - A 315 rooms 5-star hotel cum office complex, standing 39-storey or 150 metres tall, will be Borneo tallest building. ^[12]
• Novotel Interhill Kuching - An international 388 rooms 4-star hotel cum 3-storey up-market shopping centre, it's a 23-storey building. ^[13]
• Sarawak Convention and Exhibition Centre ^[14]
• Sarawak International Medical Centre
• The Spring - A new lifestyle shopping mall covering some 400,000 sq ft of lettable area. ^[15]

[edit] Education

Kuching is home to the international campus of Swinburne University of Technology, a branch of a major university from Melbourne, Australia. The campus, known as Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, now currently in expansion, is not the only university in Kuching city. Branch campus of UNITAR and UNIMAS's Medical College are located in Kuching. (Technically, the campuses of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and UiTM are in the Samarahan Division). The Polytechnic of Kuching is located at the further end of Matang Road in the Serapi Mountain which provides further education at the diploma and certificate levels.

Private education in the city comes in the form of various private colleges as well as training institutes. Notable examples include Lim Kok Wing University College, King Business Institute, IBMS, Inti College, SeGI College, Taylor College, Chermai College, PTPTL College as well as Stamford College to name a few.

For primary and secondary education, like other towns in Malaysia, Kuching has it equal shares of the 'sekolah kebangsaan'(National type schools), Chinese schools, mission schools, several international school and minus the Indian School. The mission schools were founded by foreign Christian missionaries during the Colonial occupation. Most Chinese schools were built and continuously sponsored by the rich Chinese businessmen. The older sekolah kebangsaan were formerly Malay schools which were converted by the Ministry of Education into day school. All schools are now under the charge of the Ministry of Education. The two International Schools are Lodge and Tunku Putra. These were built to cater to the children of expatriates and parents who wish to have an English-based education for their children.

[edit] Transportation

Roads within the town are of a reasonable standard, though traffic congestion often leads to long tailbacks during rush hour, and especially on Saturday mornings. Because Kuching is located near the equator, expect potholes to develop on the roads during the monsoon season (usually around the end of the year, coinciding with winter in the northern hemisphere). Roads leading outside of Kuching to the interior are of a slightly more dubious quality but are being upgraded from time to time, although the main resort roads (e.g. leading to Damai) are also reasonable.

Transport by taxi is reasonable but it is usually difficult to flag down one on the street since there are only popular amongst tourists. One can get a taxi from the taxi stand near the corner of the Electra House/end of India Street, in front of hotels or by contacting them through the telephone. Intrepid back-packers can try the public transport by antiquated, smoky, non-airconditioned buses or the 'van sapu' (mini-van converted into mini-buses) which offer cheaper mean of getting to places. Air transport is served by nearby Kuching International Airport, currently the subject of several expansion projects. Those trying to get a birdeye view of the City, has the option to hire a helicopter or small planes from the Hornbill Skyway.

Kuching is served by several major bus companies. Among others, Chin Liang Long Motor Vehicle Co. (traditionally blue) serving Kuching South, Matang Transport Company (yellow and orange) serving Matang-Kubah and Petra Jaya Transport Company (Black, yellow and red strips) serving Kuching North. The Sarawak Transport Company (traditionally green) and Bau Transport Company (Orange) have routes from Kuching to other smaller towns. A large portion of the buses in service are antiquated and not air conditioned. The fares are low. Although, the routes are poorly documented, the stops have no names and the buses not well known for being punctual - it is not difficult to get to places because Kuching is a friendly City and most of the people are able to communicate in simple English for directions. For tourists and tourists only, the State Ministry of Tourism has provided bus shuttles to transport tourists around Kuching.

Road signs adhere to the Road Sign Standards issued by the Ministry of Transportation. Kuching is also famous for its many large traffic circles or roundabouts. The roundabouts are efficient at handling medium scale traffic. However, as traffic continues to rise in Kuching several roundabouts have given way to traffic lights and over and underpasses.

Kuching, like most towns in Sarawak, is connected to each other by water transportation. Between the banks of Sarawak River, near the City Centers, many 'tambang' (small boats) can be seen commuting the people. For those staying along the river banks, it is a faster mean of getting to the other side where the commercial centres are located. The Wharf for express boats to further away places is now located near the Sim Keng Hong Port or known to the elderly local as Tanah Putih Port.

[edit] Tourist attractions

Within the town, there are several museums such as the well-known Sarawak Museum, Chinese Museum, Cat Museum, etc, which are definitely not to be missed when visiting Kuching. Interesting landmarks and sites are the Astana (the Rajah's former palace), Fort Margherita, Tua Pek Kong temple and Main Bazaar. The Kuching waterfront, which is really a riverside esplanade, is situated right next to the main hotels and commercial heartland of the city, and offers a pleasant walk in the evening. When you are tired of strolling, the old shops on the opposite side of the waterfront will gladly sell you all manner of 'antiques' and tradecraft.

Some other interesting areas near the centre of town include Padungan Street, which is the main Chinatown area of the city. Shops here appear virtually unchanged from 20 years ago, and offer fascinating insights into life as it was then. Meanwhile, Carpenter Street and India Street still maintain their olde world charm, though the relentless process of globalisation is slowly encroaching. The old Courthouse building forms the link between Carpenter Street and India Street, and is well worth a quick stroll as you re-live the faded colonial splendour (now restored and modernised). The many well-manicured parks dotted around the city are also great to visit.

[edit] Cuisine

Kuching has a number of notable local dishes served at hawker stalls:

• Kuching 'kolo mee' or 'koh-loh mein' (egg noodles, flash-boiled and then served with (classically) garlic, shallots and sliced barbeque pork also known as "char siew")
• Sarawak Laksa (a spicy coconut prawn paste-based soup served with rice vermicelli, eggs, prawns, chicken, deep fried tofu and occasionally clams)
• Tomato Sauce Mee (crispy noodles served with tomato sauce, vegetables, and meat) or Tomato Sauce Kuay Teow (flat rice noodles) are the most well-known hawker dishes served.

Custom ordered dishes (usually called the "special") are available on request. Most hawker stalls serve a variety of these three dishes, but locals often debate vigorously as to where to find the best variety. Visitors should be aware that portions are half of what is usually commonly found at Chinatowns in the West.

While global chain outlets (McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf) are ubiquitous in the prime commercial complexes, a local fast food chain "Sugarbun" also serves a variety of Malaysian food in a more Western (plastic trays, brightly-lit menus, uniformed staff) style.

[edit] Arts, Entertainment and Culture

Kuching is also noted for creative local bands which successfully crossed over from the independent scene to the mainstream such as Old Automatic Garbage, The Times and Nice Stupid Playground. There are many more local independent bands that are active in the circuit and Kuching is also known as the 'indie rock capital' of East Malaysia. Local entertainment personality/musician/TV host Jason Lo is also a Kuching native. On top of that, critically-acclaimed film director Tsai Ming-Liang was also born in Kuching. Writer/director James Wan, co-producer of the horror film series, Saw, was also born in Kuching.

[edit] Gallery

Malaysia-China Friendship Garden	Chinese Gateway - (Malaysia-China Friendship Garden)	Kuching Waterfront	Fort Margherita, Kuching
St. Thomas Cathedral, Kuching	The Tua Pek Kong, Kuching	Divisional Mosque, Kuching	Pavillion Building (19th C.) and textile museum
Brooke Memorial near old Courthouse	Memorial to the Freedom Fighters of Sarawak	Historic tree at Padang Merdeka (Independence Field)	View of the Kuching Waterfront across Sarawak River towards India Street and the old Indian Mosque
Colonial Heritage: the Courthouse, Round Tower and Pavillion built during the time of the White Rajahs	Plaza Walk outside Sarawak Plaza	Sarawak Cultural Village	View from Bukit Siol Kuching
Front View Of Kuching MBKS

[edit] External links

• Kuching North City Hall
• Council of the City of Kuching South
• Kuching City and Regional Map
• Pictures of Kuching
• Kuching Tourism
• Kuching Gossip
• Kuching travel guide from Wikitravel

• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 1.5544° 110.3546°
  • Mapping from Multimap or GlobalGuide or Google Maps
  • Aerial image from TerraServer
  • Satellite image from WikiMapia

[edit] References

v • d • e Sarawak
Divisions	Betong Division • Bintulu Division • Kapit Division • Kuching Division • Limbang Division • Miri Division • Mukah Division • Samarahan Division • Sarikei Division • Sibu Division • Sri Aman Division
Cities	Kuching (capital) • Miri
Towns	Asajaya • Ba'kelalan • Bau • Belaga • Betong • Bintangor • Bintulu • Dalat • Daro • Debak • Julau • Kanowit • Kapit • Kota Samarahan • Lawas • Limbang • Lingga • Lubok Antu • Lundu • Mato • Meradong • Mukah • Marudi • Pakan • Pusa • Saratok • Sarikei • Sebuyau • Serian • Selangau • Sibu • Simunjan • Song • Spaoh • Sri Aman • Tanjung Kidurong • Tatau • Tebedu

v • d • e Cities in Malaysia
Alor Star • George Town • Ipoh • Johor Bahru • Kota Kinabalu • Kuala Lumpur • Kuching • Malacca Town • Miri • Petaling Jaya • Shah Alam