What Do You Mean Durian Is Not Our National Fruit?!

A search on Google revealed that instead of Durian, Papaya is our national fruit.

(Credit: Freepik)

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No doubt, we all know the national flower of Malaysia is the Hibiscus and the national animal is the Malayan Tiger.

But today, we’ve discovered something that blew our minds. Have you ever wondered what our national fruit is?

When this random discussion popped up earlier, many of us at the office thought it’s either durian or mangosteen, but a TikTok video and recent searches on Google revealed that it’s actually Papaya!

Google, you have got to be kidding us.

Our tech guy said, “But why?!” which pretty much sums up all of our reaction.

“This is a national level travesty, I swear!”, said our editor.

So to prove the fact, we decided to look into it.

The national fruit of Malaysia is PAPAYA?

According to Google, Papaya is the national fruit of our nation and it is available all year round.

But the picture beside it is Durian! You’re confused eh Google?

Google appears to have picked up Papaya as the national fruit because of Wikipedia’s list of national fruits page. They listed some of the official and unofficial fruits in certain countries, including Malaysia.

For your information, according to the list, the national fruit of Thailand is mangosteen, Philippphines is Mango, Cambodia is Lady’s Finger Banana (Pisang emas) , Vietnam is Dragon Fruit while Indonesia and Singapore is Durian (not fair, we know!).

Besides that, the citation from Wikipedia for our papaya fruit is apparently just a website called ninefruits, which listed the national fruits of Southeast Asian countries. So who do we believe?

Another source states that Malaysia is the largest exporter of papayas in the world but it couldn’t be more wrong. As a small country, we’re the 20th producer of papayas in the world with 65,967 tonnes production volume per year, compared to India (the largest producer) with 5,699,000 tonnes. The biggest exporter of papayas in the world is Mexico (4th largest producer) with 200,000 tonnes per year.

And to rub salt to a wound, you’d think our national fruit would have originated here, but nope, papaya actually came from Mexico and Central America.

Historically, the papaya first appeared in the Dominican Republic and Panama in the early 16th century. During the Spanish invasion in Southeast Asia in 1550, the Spaniards brought the seeds to the Philliphines. After that, the papaya seeds from Philiphines were distributed to the Malay Peninsula (Malacca) and the East Indies

So if it didn’t come from Malaysia, why is it our national fruit again?

Nobody knows why

Unfortunately, our search on the internet yielded no official results.

What game are you playing here Google?

This could also mean that Malaysia actually doesn’t have an official national fruit. It could just be a very popular fruit cultivated in Malaysia and because it’s so popular, it’s the unofficial fruit of Malaysia.

We wonder who voted it to be the most popular? Or maybe someone is trying to make papaya the national fruit by editing the Wikipedia entry?

Of course, we don’t deny that the papaya has a plethora of health benefits which includes a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, a digestion aid, lowering blood pressure and improving would healing.

Although we say that durian is the King of Fruits here in Malaysia, but papaya is the rockstar of the fruit kingdom.

Well, at least instead of one, we have tons of other tropical fruits here in Malaysia that we can be grateful for. Mangosteen, Jackfruit, Rambutan, Langsat and many more – we’re blessed with delicious tasting fruits!

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