One of the more interesting things I’ve seen on my travels is the world’s largest Cat Museum. That’s right: a museum solely dedicated to cats. Whether or not you think that would be somewhat creepy, you’re right. The museum is located in Kuching, the capital of the Sarawak region of Malaysia.
You might wonder what would cause a city to build a cat museum. The name of the city is thought to come from the Malay word ‘kucing’ meaning cat. This fact also explains why there are random statues of cats located throughout the city.
On to the museum!
Things started out fairly normal, or as normal as one could hope for at a cat museum. Some more statues of cats, including some of cats as servants. There were even some porcelain dolls of cats.
However, the further through the museum I went, the stranger things got. There were several cat paintings that I thought were pretty amusing to say the least.
It was next that things got flat-out weird. There was an area filled with what looked like cats that had been stuffed. However, the faces looked out-of-place. I happened to see someone who worked for the museum and asked her the reason for the deformed appearances. She told me that most of those cats had been run over in the street, and then their owners had brought them in to donate to the museum. They attempted to make them look as “normal” as possible, but you can tell the skin is stretched across the face on some. See what you think.
After being sufficiently freaked out by the stuffed cats, I continued wandering to see what other things I could find. Of course, there was a Hello Kitty display.
I appreciated the Garfield display as I used to be a big Garfield fan as a kid.
Just in case you aren’t giggling enough already, here are a few more cat statues from the museum.
I sincerely hope you find this as amusing as I did. If you happen to be in Kuching on the Bornean side of Malaysia, you should definitely pay a visit to the Cat Museum and I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Disclosure: This trip was sponsored by Tourism Malaysia. However, as always, all opinions are my own.
16 Comments
Ohhhh my goodness. At first I thought this was so cute and was wondering how I had never heard of this city before (I’ve been called a cat lady more than a few times), but then I got to the creepy stuffed kitties and felt really weird about it! Would still definitely visit this museum, though. Just skip that part! Thanks for sharing.
Nick, Where’s grumpy cat?
Grumpy cat is out making millions of dollars on Youtube. He can’t be bothered to hang out at museums.
HAHA – yes!!! I bet Grumpy Cat spills water everywhere, all the time, too.
I am speechless from laughing so much but you have given me a thought of somewhere to send my poor old cat when she leaves us. I wonder if they accept imported cats for their displays 🙂
Michelle, it seems like they have PLENTY of cats already haha.
Oh my gosh!!!! That is the best museum ever, I am so sad I didn’t know about that when I was in the area a few years ago.
Katrina, I guess you’ll just have to go back!
I’m a cat lady to the extent that I always have a cat (my current kitty is 22 years old so mine last a long time!) but those stuffed run over kitties!? OMG! I’d probably check this out for the pure kitsch value but like Karlie said, I’d skip that part!
Interesting museum! I haven’t been to Malaysia. I think this would be an interesting part of my list of places to check out when I got a chance to visit Malaysia. As for the Hello Kitty part, I heard that she has her own Museum which is the Sanrio Hello Kitty Town in Nusajaya, Malaysia. I think that’s another interesting place to see.
Man, I’ve heard all about adventure and mountains and national parks and river cruises in Borneo… however this is the first I’ve seen of the Cat Museum. Interesting, though I’m glad you visited so I don’t have to!
I can’t believe this museum is in the region I live in and I have never been. Kucing is not on my travel to do list! Long live the cats!
It sounds delightfully twisted! Would love to pay them a visit. Then again, I will voluntarily go to any museum devoted to whatever topic imaginable.
Very interesting… all that is needed now is a cat cafe at the end of the cat museum 😀
I never heard of this museum! That part of Malaysia has many other things to offer but this is absolutely new for me.
Quite interesting. The stuffed cats are freaky, I would say. And appearance of Garfield made me smile. 🙂
Goodness gracious Nick! Stuffed cats that were run over? Sounds like an international museum to me lol….something you’d not see in the States or in the West and that you’d see in much of the world. I saw some of the most muscular, cock-diesel, flat out huge cats I’ve seen on earth in good old Kuala Lumpur. They feed their cats well there. Thanks so much for sharing the entertaining read!
Ryan