It wasn't much by the standards of neighbouring Indonesia. "Chicken shit" by comparison with the riots in Jakarta, one American reporter complained. But the exciting events in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday night were serious in Malaysian terms, with the first gunshots fired during the current unrest.
It happened just after 9 p.m. during a noisy but peaceful anti-government demonstration outside a mosque near the centre of an otherwise peaceful Malaysian capital. People standing near me about 15ft away did not react when the first bang was heard in the chanting crowd. It seemed like a car backfiring in the narrow, dark streets. But a bullet had been fired from a .38 handgun by an undercover policeman - later someone showed me the spent cartridge - who had been identified by the suspicious bulge in his jeans back pocket.
A middle-aged man had kicked him, whereupon the police spy pulled his gun and hit him on the head with the butt, causing blood to spatter over the assailant's T-shirt, staining the logo: "New York State 88".
Several live bullets fell to the ground from his pocket. A tall youth with baseball cap shouted "You see? Who causes the violence here? Not us. It's the police." A second police agent, seeing his comrade in trouble, pulled a gun from a holder just above his shoe and levelled it at the crowd, and then fired one shot at the ground. Five agents in all fled from the spot as the crowd closed in, and got away after a mad chase down a side street, with bottle-throwing demonstrators in hot pursuit.
They were followed in turn by a sweating escort of reporters and camera crews, many with credentials round their necks bearing the initials APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum). With world leaders arriving in Malaysia at the weekend for the annual APEC summit, it was inevitable that supporters of the imprisoned former deputy prime minister, Mr Anwar Ibrahim, would step up their sporadic protest campaign to attract the attention of the world's media.
What had become a ritual Saturday-night pro-Anwar demonstration outside the mosque in Kampung Baru, a Malay enclave where no Chinese or Indians live, was therefore bigger than usual this weekend, attracting well over 1,000 vociferous protesters. Islamic Malays provide the hard core of support for Mr Anwar, claiming that his imprisonment and trial on sex and corruption charges are part of a political power play.
They have widespread backing from members of the Malaysian middle classes who believe that the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, sacked Mr Anwar to cover up corruption and cronyism.
Many of the protesters wore masks to hide their faces from police informers. They held up banners proclaiming "Mahathir is a great liar", "APEC - Save us from Mahathir" and "Go to hell, Mahathir". And they chanted "Re-form-a-si!", the rallying cry for reform in both Malaysia and Indonesia, where the languages are similar.
Unlike Indonesia, however, the protests in Kuala Lumpur, going on for two months now, have not descended into destructive anarchy. Malaysia is relatively well off, and none of the protesters is hungry. They are unhappy rather than furious with the state of affairs. Many have a lot to lose if arrested. Students, threatened with expulsion, have not taken the lead, as in Indonesia.
"We have a higher level of democracy and education," said a Malay science teacher, who added scathingly that "people prefer to protest from the safety of their cars."
The risen people in Kuala Lumpur respect the law, too. Self-appointed stewards outside the domed Kampung Baru mosque kept the crowds back so traffic was able to inch by all Saturday evening, with the drivers of taxis, buses and cars adding to the cacophony by banging out the rhythm of "Reform-a-si" on their horns. Frightened and sometimes disapproving faces stared down from passing buses, but mostly the passengers in cars waved and yelled happily.
One veiled Muslim mother lifted her infant's little fist to shake it in support. But there were some in the crowd who wanted to provoke violence and get people to run "amok", a word which comes from the Malay language. At 10.30 p.m., as the demonstration ended, dozens of young masked men set off towards the Renaissance Hotel 10 minutes' walk away where Ms Madeline Albright was due to stay. At a road junction they ran at two traffic policemen. The officers fled on foot, and someone torched one of their motorcycles.
The approaching motorcade of the US Secretary of State was diverted, but she could observe from her room the approaching convoy of riot police from the Federal Reserve Unit.
The crowd fled when the police appeared, and by the time the slow-moving line of water cannon and trucks reached the junction outside the mosque, only large groups of APEC journalists stood around, waiting to see what would happen, and no doubt restraining the zeal of the baton-wielding riot police in their trucks. The water cannon swivelled menacingly, and a disembodied voice in English told us to disperse, which we did.
The police had their revenge on the press yesterday afternoon, however. When a water cannon came by to attack up to 200 people holding pro-Anwar signs outside the Petronas Towers, the world's highest building, the jet of water, mixed with stinging yellow dye, caught a reporter and a photographer. Serve them right for being the messenger.