Malaysia, the crossroads of Southeast Asia, is near the equator. Half the country (where most of the population lives) is in the Malay Peninsula (between Singapore and Thailand), while the other half is in the northern part of the island of Borneo. About 80% of the population is ethnic Malay -- Muslims who speak Malay, a language that is basically the same as Indonesian, and is in the same language family as the languages of the Philippines, Polynesia, and Madagascar. About 10% of the population is ethnic Chinese. About 10% is ethnic Indian, mainly Tamil speakers whose ancestors were from southern (Dravidian) India. (About half of these ethnic Indians are Catholic, while the rest are Hindu). There are two other small populations: a group of mixed Chinese/Portuguese (Portugal once colonized part of Malaysia, although the last major colonial power there was Britain), and finally the "Orang Asli" (like the boy in the picture above), the original human inhabitants, who are probably related to the Munda (who lived in India before the Indo-Europeans and even before the Dravidians), and therefore to the aboriginals of New Guinea and perhaps Australia. These days, many Malaysians (like Sangeetha) in the modern cities learn English as their first language.