Malaysian Embassy

Jeremy and I had the opportunity to visit the Malaysian Embassy here in D.C. on Friday night.  We had been invited to a dinner-speaker event by a woman named Pek Koon Heng.  "Professor Heng" is director of the ASEAN Center (an organization that is dedicated to the study of Asian and Southeast Asian countries), an American University professor (Jeremy had her for a regular semester class as well as his class abroad in Kuala Lumpur), and, by sheer coincidence, she was also his cultural training teacher at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute where Jeremy learned Malay before beginning his Master's (at AU).

They hold meetings and host speakers each month at various venues.  In an official capacity, we were able to meet what we would refer to as a "deputy ambassador" for Malaysia, as well as the keynote speaker, who is over such-and-such an office under such-and-such a department dealing with SE Asia for the State Department.   We knew a few others who were invited as guests, as well.  We also met many people who were head-of-this or head-of-that or suggested that we attend such-and-such a lecture with so-and-so or wanted Jeremy to come speak to such-and-such a group (when we return from overseas).

The Malaysian Embassy is on a court off of "Embassy Row."  On this court were about eight other embassies, including: Egpyt, Austria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Slovakia, Brunei, Austria, and the United Arab Emirates.  The national language is Latin-based and therefore, written, it looks like ours.  However, the religious language is Arabic.  One reason why it is written twice:

Being on a court, even though we snapped this picture from across the street, this is all we could fit in.  The left side of the building, which is cut off, looks a lot like the right side, except not as tall:

 The glass doors on the right are where you enter:

 When you enter, you are facing this view.  The bust is of the first Prime Minister:

 This is the room that we listened to the speaker, and this is what we wore: