Authors: Peter Lynn
Date Submitted: May 31, 2004
Article Type: Journal

The excellent Pasir Gudang festival in Johor State at the Singapore end of Malaysia is growing and getting better every year; there were more than 140 invited international fliers there last February. Festival organizers are rightly pleased with how well it’s working and are committed to making this event even stronger in years to come. The chairman of the Johor development corporation in his address at the after-match function articulated a main rationale for this event as showing a face of Islam to contrast with the terrorist images that we are subject to day after day in the international media.

In this, the Pasir Gudang festival is completely successful, presenting a Malaysia that is friendly, outward-looking, and increasingly prosperous.

Developing friendships between international and local kitefliers surely makes it easier, on both sides, to put aside those dark tribal thoughts that seem to spring to mind unbidden when we are immersed exclusively in our own cultures.

PDF Link: Journal Issue