Mystery of the Malaysian Airlines logo: Wau Bulan or not?

If you’ve been anywhere near KLIA in the past 25 years, you’ll definitely have seen the Malaysian Airlines (MAS) logo before:

No doubt the logo is one of the most iconic in Malaysian history, but have y’all ever wondered what it is? Many people, including yourself, probably think that it is based on the wau bulan, and many sources – including MAS themselves at one point – say the same thing:

But is this true? Well, one of the most legit sources we found, a book published by the Kelantan State Museum Corporation, wasn’t clear about the matter saying a wau (not wau bulan specifically) was made the MAS logo:

And after doing a bit of research, we found that…

The MAS logo looks more like Wau Kucing than Wau Bulan

So if you take a closer look at the design of a wau bulan, it’ll typically sport two ‘moons’ – a full moon at the pinggang (waist) and a crescent moon at the ekor (tail):

But check this out:

There are many types of waus in Malaysia, each with its own history, design and origin. Out of all of them, three are recognized by Majlis Pelayang Malaysia as traditional Malaysian waus: wau bulan, wau jala budi, and the wau most relevant to our discussion, wau kucing. The wau kucing is named as such cuz its ekor looks like the back of a cat’s head, and considering how the wau that is the MAS logo has a broader dada (chest) and smaller ekor, its design is likely based on the wau kucing.

Plus, according to an excerpt from a brochure from Bahagian Pemuliharaan Kraftangan Malaysia:

“Wau Kucing is one of the three official national waus. The wau is synonymous with MAS because its existence is acknowledged by the company, and was made their corporate logo.” – Excerpt from Informasi Kraf Malaysia

And just to make sure that this theory is correct, we contacted MAS to get their confirmation, but…

MAS themselves aren’t sure what the wau in their logo is

Since calling MAS proved difficult, we emailed them to ask what the wau in their logo is, and they responded with a link to one of their Facebook posts which we mentioned in the intro above.

The post says that the wau in the MAS logo is indeed a wau bulan, but MAS themselves contradict this in the comments. A netizen asked whether the information is true, and after consulting ‘the department concerned’, MAS replied saying the logo is based on wau kucing:

The post itself, however, is unchanged till today.

But at the end of the day, whether the MAS logo is based on the wau bulan or wau kucing, we have to say that it is very cool that a company that’s so tied to our nation is using an element of traditional Malaysian culture for their logo, and perhaps that’s all that matters.