Last night I attended a state dinner for the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’Sri Najib Tun Abdul Razak. It was a wonderful evening, held at the prestigious Metropolitan Club in New York City. The historic halls of the Metropolitan Club, with hand-painted ceilings and marble foyers, are reasons alone to feel special when you walk amongst them. The magnificent setting, coupled with the exclusive company of the Prime Minister and the Malaysian community of New York, made for a night to remember.

I enjoyed great food and conversation with the Americans and Malaysians at my table. All areas of industry were represented in the gathered crowd — investment banking, publishing, airline — as well as the wonderful people from the Malaysian Tourist Board. The Prime Minister gave a speech enjoyed by all, noting the importance of the business relationship between Malaysia and the United States. He also spoke of his goals of keeping the Malaysian industry growing by continually raising its profile internationally, especially with one of its biggest trade partners, the United States.

A question-and-answer session took place after dinner. A deaf man moved the crowd, with the help of a translator, as he recounted the lack of schools and translators for the deaf people of Malaysia. He moved to the United States 10 years ago to better his education, both as a student and as an artist. The Prime Minister addressed his question of what the government is doing to help people and families with special needs. The Prime Minister also agreed that more needs to be done for these issues, as well as the arts, across the board.

I enjoyed watching the interactions between a head of state and the members of his community abroad. The interactions were on an open and equal level. As the Thanksgiving weekend approaches, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday!

– Alex Young, vice president and associate publisher

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am and is filed under New York, Government, Parties and Events, Food and Drinks, Opinion, Asia, Alex's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.