That's what being in Malaysia has been like so far. In Chiang Mai, I would sit on the floor at my Kachin friends' house, and Naw Kham would tell me traditional stories from the Jinghpaw, their tribe. Here in KL, I sit in the kitchen of the CRC offices and Zaw Zaw, a guy about my age who teaches the Chin children math in the afternoons, tells me stories about the times they'd all been arrested by the 'rayalah'. Somehow they are humorous stories. Like the time Roy, a skinny guy with dimples who laughs at nearly everything, escaped one of the raids after the rayalah officers had rounded up a group of people. Standing in the middle of the group, he slowly inched his way toward to the edge, where he ducked into the crowd of spectators and disappeared. Of course, retelling the story is not as funny as imagining Roy's face as he escapes with a sort of exaggerated nonchalance like a character in a black comedy. Roy has already been arrested twice in raids on the CRC office.

Things here seem much more open than in Thailand, though not necessarily any better. In Thailand, one of the women's associations had to move their office suddenly after a raid by immigration. The girls had to hide out in the bathroom for several hours, terrified they would be caught. Here, the rayalah, which is some sort of citizens' militia that apparently deals with traffic violations and illegal immigrants, knows where the CRC offices are. When they stage a raid, the door is unlocked and they are invited in. After people have been arrested, their release is negotiated. But there are still no guarantees, and their release doesn't come cheap. Of course not all of them are so lucky, if you could call it luck, there are still hundreds of Chin who've been waiting in detention centers for months or years.

On Saturday, Simon took to me to KL CC, or KL City Center, near the Petronas Towers. There are immaculate park grounds and fountains where people go to walk or just sit and chat. With the sparkling sky line above it felt like I was back in Sydney. Shortly after arriving he received a call about a Chin man who had been hit and killed by a car. He was with friends, apparently, because they called Simon first thing asking what to do. He instructed them to call emergency, but there was every chance he'd have to go out at midnight and take care of it himself somehow. Later we met Roy and went to a bar with a rather fantastic lady-boy show. Evenings in Thailand were often spent at the guys' house with a couple of bottles of beer, some Burmese salad and crisps, and a background of Kachin karaoke VCDs. Other nights we'd watch 'Discovery' style nature videos dubbed in Thai - which none of us understand. Here, we can watch CNN and HBO in English on the TV in the office.

Everyone here keeps asking me what I think of Malaysia. I think my perspective after less than a week is still limited to how it compares with Chiang Mai. As often happens when traveling to new places, it still feels a bit like topsy-turvy land. Everyone's driving cars, the coffee is cheap, and I'm being taken sight-seeing by refugees. On the surface at least, it appears that life in KL isn't too bad. There is a large community of Chins that has grown up around the CRC offices. They don't engage in political activity, and they operate with the support of the UNHCR, so they don't have to hide what they are doing. But, I guess it's what goes on beneath the surface that really matters. As Simon told me the first night I was here, "Our life here is meaningless".