Malaysia doesn’t make it to the news very often in Berlin, especially the news digests that flash on the little U-Bahn (the underground) video screens.

(Well, the annual Formula 1 Malaysia Grand Prix is the exception, but there’s nothing particularly Malaysian about that.)

In fact, I remember only two times that Malaysia featured on our local U8 train line screens. The first was the 2009 Syariah Court sentencing of a Muslim model to be caned for drinking beer, and the second, the 2010 shooting of a tiger.

And those “Malaysian stories” summed up the country for Berlin’s train commuters. ω