Jenjarom, a village located in Selangor

Selangor

Selangor also known by its Arabic honorific, Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity") is one of the 13 states of Malaysia. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the east, Negeri Sembilan to the south and the Strait of Malacca to the west...

, Malaysia about 55 km west of Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...

 in the Kuala Langat

Kuala Langat

Kuala Langat is a district of Selangor, Malaysia. It is situated in the southwestern part of Selangor. It covers an area of 885 square kilometres, and had a population of 222,261 at the 2010 Cenmsus . It is bordered by the districts of Klang to the north and Sepang to the east. Its southern border...

 district.

Jenjarom has a significant Chinese (Hokkien

Hoklo people

The Hoklo people are Han Chinese people whose traditional Ancestral homes are in southern Fujian of South China...

) population, and the village is the site of the Dong Zen Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple and Institute in Sungai Jarom. Though this is predominantly for the Chinese Buddhist population, the non-Chinese community benefits from the tourism it attracts: there were about a quarter of a million visitors in 2004.

Jenjarom was one of the so-called New Village

New Village

New Villages , also known as Chinese New Villages , are settlements created during the waning days of British rule over Malaysia in the mid-1950s.-History:...

s, set up in the 1950s during the Malayan Emergency

Malayan Emergency

The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....

 to segregate the rural Chinese villagers from the Communist insurgents within Malaysia under the Briggs Plan

Briggs Plan

Briggs' Plan was a military plan devised by British General Sir Harold Briggs shortly after his appointment in 1950 as Director of Operations in the anti-communist war in Malaya. The plan aimed to defeat the Malayan communists, who were operating out of rural areas as a guerrilla army, primarily by...

. This aimed to cut off supplies to the insurgents. Like other typical new villages, most of the residents are warm and friendly.

Some of these villages have since deteriorated, and Jenjarom has gained a reputation in the 90s for various social ills, including gangsterism, gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking. During 80s, unemployment was high among young people, and with limited opportunities for education many youth have turned to crime as a means of survival.

The emphasis on the importance of education is seen as the key to improving the village, and local schools are contributing to this.