A JARRING cultural clash was in progress. The heavy metal rock band playing in the Sweet bar on Jalan Telawi Satu was mixing incongruously with the call to prayers coming from the loudspeakers of a nearby mosque. Welcome to Bangsar, a trendy southwestern suburb of Kuala Lumpur, where the mix of races making up the population of the Malaysian capital is nowhere more evident. Malays, Chinese, Indians and expatriates from around the world throng its streets to shop in two supermarkets, eat in its wide selection of restaurants and drink in its many bars. There is a live-and-let-live attitude among people in Bangsar that is often lacking in other parts of Malaysia. Mosque-bound Malay men wearing the songkok headpiece and Malay women in the face-encircling tudung stare with curiosity but no obvious aversion at people drinking alcohol, which is forbidden to them. They share the footpaths with men in business attire and young women - mostly Chinese and Indians but also a few Malays - dressed in short, designer dresses that show off their bare legs. At an open-air Chinese restaurant, the loudspeaker-enhanced voice of the mosque's ulama is at an uncomfortable decibel level, but no one remarks upon this except newly arrived expatriates. In neighbouring Selangor state, religious officials raid nightspots looking for Malays breaking syariah - Islamic laws. But they stay away from Bangsar. Recent comments by City Hall officials about the need to tackle Kuala Lumpur's social ills have prompted concerns in Bangsar that Selangor's tighter controls might be extended to the capital. But one defiant bar owner said he expected Bangsar's liberalism to continue. 'With so many foreigners now working in Malaysia, there has to be some place where they can have a night out,' he said. 'They won't touch Bangsar.'
