Kuching

Kuching began as a small settlement on the Sarawak River, trading antimony — the ore that may have given the river and the state their name — with Brunei, under whose sultanate the area lay. In 1839 the English adventurer James Brooke arrived on his schooner, helped the Brunei court put down a rebellion, and in 1841 was made Rajah of Sarawak. He moved the seat of government to Kuching and began a century of rule by his family, the only white dynasty of its kind.

Under James, Charles and Vyner Brooke the town acquired the shape it still has. Charles built the Astana in 1870, Fort Margherita in 1879, the courthouse, the Square Tower and a row of stone shophouses along the Main Bazaar, and he encouraged Chinese merchants and Hakka farmers to settle, while Malay kampungs kept the north bank. The Brookes expanded Sarawak by stages at Brunei's expense, suppressed headhunting, and ruled with a mixture of paternalism and indirect authority through local leaders.

Japanese forces occupied Kuching from December 1941 and interned civilians and prisoners of war at Batu Lintang camp, on the edge of the town, until liberation in 1945. Vyner Brooke ceded Sarawak to Britain in 1946, a decision opposed by an anti-cession movement, and the state joined Malaysia in 1963. Kuching became a city on 1 August 1988 and, unusually for Malaysia, is run by two separate city authorities, one north of the river and one south of it. Oil, gas, timber and palm oil funded its growth, and the riverfront was rebuilt as a promenade in the years after.

The city is a meeting point for the state's peoples. Chinese Sarawakians — Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka and Foochow — make up a large share of the population, alongside Malays, Bidayuh from the hills to the south, Iban from the rivers, and Melanau and Orang Ulu communities. Churches, mosques and Chinese temples stand within a few streets of one another, and the calendar carries Gawai Dayak, Hari Raya, Chinese New Year and Christmas, each marked with open houses to which neighbours of any faith are invited.

Craft and music are the visible parts of that mixture. Pua kumbu, the Iban ceremonial cloth, and Orang Ulu beadwork and carving fill the shops of the Main Bazaar; the sape, the boat-shaped lute of the interior, has become the state's musical emblem and is heard at the Rainforest World Music Festival each year at Damai. Kuching keeps a local identity distinct from Peninsular Malaysia, with its own immigration control, holidays and dialect of Malay, and Sarawakians tend to speak of the peninsula as somewhere else.

The cats are the city's running joke and brand: kucing is Malay for cat, and whatever the true origin of the name, large cat statues stand at road junctions and a municipal museum is devoted to them. Manners are unhurried and friendly, conversation happens over coffee, and the evening riverfront walk is the closest thing the city has to a civic ritual.

About 610,000 people were counted in Kuching's two city council areas in 2023, which makes it Sarawak's largest city but a modest one by Malaysian standards, and it is low-rise and spread out. Government is a major employer, as the state capital, alongside services, education, tourism and retail, with oil and gas, timber and palm oil money circulating through the economy from elsewhere in the state.

Most residents live in suburbs away from the old town, in terraced houses and low flats, and commute by car; traffic at the bridges and main junctions is the daily frustration. The kampungs on the north bank keep their wooden houses and village character within sight of the office towers, connected by sampans whose boatmen have worked the crossing for generations. Rents and house prices in the centre have risen with tourism, and old shophouses are steadily becoming cafés.

The day begins early with breakfast at a coffee shop, offices open by eight, and the heat and afternoon storms slow things until the evening, when the waterfront fills with families and hawker stalls. Floods after prolonged monsoon rain, water supply and the state's share of federal revenue are the recurring public concerns, along with the condition of the roads that link the city to the rest of Borneo.

Kuching's most famous dish is Sarawak laksa: rice vermicelli in a broth built from sambal, tamarind, garlic, galangal, lemongrass and coconut milk, topped with shredded chicken, prawns, omelette strips and coriander, and eaten for breakfast rather than later in the day. Its everyday companion is kolo mee, springy egg noodles tossed in shallot oil and lard with minced pork and char siu, ordered dry with a bowl of soup on the side. Both are found in the coffee shops of Chinatown and in every suburb.

Local vegetables and river food give the city its character. Midin, a crisp jungle fern, is stir-fried with garlic or belacan; terung Dayak, a sour round aubergine, goes into soups; umai, the Melanau salad of raw fish with lime, chilli and shallot, appears on many menus; and manok pansoh, chicken cooked in a bamboo tube with tapioca leaves, comes from the longhouse kitchen. Seafood is eaten at stalls and rooftop food courts, with butter prawns, steamed fish and crab in Sarawak pepper sauce — the state's pepper being one of its best-known exports.

Sweet things and drinks round it out. Kek lapis Sarawak, the layered cake baked in bright patterns for festivals, is sold by the slice all over town; Foochow kompia buns and Chinese pastries fill the bakeries; and cendol, teh c peng special with its bands of tea, milk and palm sugar, and kopi from local roasters are the standard refreshments. Tuak, the rice wine of the Dayak communities, is poured at Gawai and offered to guests in the longhouses upriver.