Kuala Lumpur: Oil is Good! Petrosains Science Museum

Alice working on a pulley system, a la geological process used in oil processing

Moment of cultural conflict played out on a 4-year-old stage

Cultural conflict solved: Muslim-Western tensions have eased, for now

Wearing different types of foot treads, you try not to fall off as the platform turns a sharp angle.
Happy Boom driving a race car, videogame. Petronas racecar, as in the Malaysia state oil company

Alice, at a harrowing point in the race course

April, 2011

In the heart of Kuala Lumpur, just a short stroll from our condo, we went to the Petrosains Science Museum which is a transparent stab at oil propoganda. Living in an oil-rich and propoganda-rich country, I need to distinguish what type of oil propoganda, among the many to choose from. The type of oil propoganda I mean is the kind that "educates" you in the nuts and bolts of what they are trying to sell you. As far as I can tell, they are trying to have us welcome the oil business and geological science into our lives. And, they want to start educating young children on the science necessary for them to grow up to be both supporters of an oil-dependent nation and become little scientists facilitating the oil business.

Let's be clear, there are no exhibits on climate change. None on alternative energy like solar power. But, there is one with a singing T-Rex, describing how oil came from his fossils. My kids love that one. Truth is, many of the science-oriented exhibits are fun to manipulate.

My kids' favorite may be the helicopter simulator that you climb into, it rocks you around pretending you hit a storm, then it lands you on top of an oil rig. On the oil rig, you can reach your hand in and touch sludge that you find remaining on an oil drill bit.

Alright, it's not all propoganda. You can do fun kid things like sliding down tubes, driving video game oil-sponsored race cars, and ride an incredibly slow rollercoaster-like ride at the start and end of the museum, making you watch a series of videos propogating the notion of a nation of united ethnic groups in support of the oil-fueled nation (rather than the reality of a divided, discriminatory system only allowing Muslim Malays access to oil wealth). The slow rollercoaster also forces you to wait in a painfully slow line in which locals here seem completely comfortable and patient standing. Us New Yorker parents, however, would rather clean oil sludge off drill bits than stand in that line.