A skyline of 228 skyscrapers, the eleventh most crowded such skyline on the planet, dominated by the Petronas Twin Towers, with their 1483 ft of light and design against the dark of the night. I just landed after a gruelling 21 hours of flights, and this is how Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia welcomes me as I look down from my 13th floor balcony at the Setia Sky Residence. I’m too awestruck to be tired, and thinking that this cityscape simply was not there (or the majority of it wasn’t, anyway) just 15 years ago. My background in Economics takes over and instantly makes me associate the two towers with their owner, the oil tycoon Petronas, who built them, and I recognize several big names in the banking and financial world on top of other skyscrapers (which sort of ruins the magic, let me tell you). I am still completely unaware of how unrepresentative this is of the true nature of this country: but over the next two weeks, it’ll become very clear. The following morning, I am on a new flight, this time towards Kuala Terengganu. As we take off, I’m surprised to see that for as far as I can see, the entire area around the airport is covered in palm trees (Wikipedia will later reveal that Malaysia is the second largest world producer of palm oil. Mystery solved). Once we land, the next leg of the trip takes us to Lumut by way of a one-hour taxi ride and many many prayers. The prayers are an integral part of the ride: in Malaysia, fares are fixed for most routes,...