Malaysian government reveals new high-powered gay-dar

Thank goodness Malaysians have such a vigilant government that protects them from the most grave perils of the world.

The Education Ministry had endorsed “guidelines” to help parents to identify gay and lesbian “symptoms” in their children so they can take early corrective measurements. The guidelines list four symptoms each of gays and lesbians: 

Symptoms of gays: 

Have a muscular body and like to show their body by wearing V-neck and sleeveless clothes; 

Prefer tight and light-coloured clothes; 

Attracted to men; 

and Like to bring big handbags, similar to those used by women, when hanging out.

Symptoms of lesbians: 

Attracted to women; 

Besides their female companions, they will distance themselves from other women; 

Like to hang out, have meals and sleep in the company of women; 

and Have no affection for men.

“Once the children have these symptoms, immediate attention should be given,” the guidelines warn. According to Sin Chew Daily, the guidelines published by Yayasan Guru Malaysia Bhd and Putrajaya Consultative Council of Parents and Teachers Associations, and endorsed by the Education Ministry, were launched during a seminar in Penang yesterday. The seminar on “Parenting in addressing the issue of LGBTs (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders)” was organised by Yayasan Guru Malaysia Bhd and officiated by Deputy Education Minister Mohd Puad Zarkashi. 

... Puad is quoted by Sinar Harian today as saying that the exposure of symptoms of gays and lesbians was the best approach to address the spread of such unhealthy phenomenon among students. “Youths are easily influenced by websites and blogs relating to LGBT groups. This can also spread among their friends. We are worried that this happens during schooling time,” Puad told some 1,500 teachers and parents. [Source] 

As you might expect, this has elicited some controversy, probably for the highly speculative findings that gays are attracted to men, and lesbians are attracted to women. Thank you Captain Obvious. Though undoubtedly the contention that lesbians are not affectionate towards men is quite revelatory as it flies sharply in the face of every adult movie I've ever watched.

Also I was interested to learn that lesbians don't like hanging out with women... apart from the ones they hang out with. And that being muscular and wearing tight clothing is a sure sign of being gay. Perhaps I should stop going to the gym now, as at some point I may reach the tipping point of physical development that results in me wearing light-coloured, tight clothing and carrying a big handbag.

"Malay supremacy" in action

Membership prices of a certain golf club in Kuala Lumpur:

3 RM (Malaysian Ringgit) is worth about US$1.

Affirmative action policies based on the idea of Ketuanan Melayu (“Malay Supremacy”) have been in effect since the New Economic Policy of 1971. The NEP was designed to lift the economic status of poor Malays, but the real beneficiary are wealthy Malays. The approach has clearly filtered down to the private sector as well.

(Cross posted at Brown Pundits)

Malaysia’s behaviour lessons for non-Muslims during Ramadan

(Cross-posted at Brown Pundits)

A couple of race- and religion-related controversies in Malaysia this week.

8TV decided to axe a series of public service announcements after claims that they were racist against Chinese-Malaysians. The ad campaign was aimed at teaching non-Muslims how to behave respectfully during Ramadan, and portrays a young Chinese woman speaking in a loud and crass fashion at the market and eating in public. See for yourself:

(8TV is having a lot of these clips deleted from Youtube; try here if you can't see it.)

I wouldn't call this racist, but it is laughably pathetic nonetheless, particularly the bit when a shocked Malay man shields his daughter's eyes from seeing the woman's armpits (blurred for good measure). There are plenty of influential Malay voices in the media, government and religious spheres who love to play the victim card ad infinitum - cultivating the perception that the non-Malay, non-Muslim minorities are somehow trampling all over Malay rights and religious sensitivities.

Also this week on the topic of respectful behaviour:

The Football Association of Malaysia has apologised to Chelsea after the London club complained of anti-Semitic abuse in their tour match against a Malaysian XI recently, directed at Israeli winger Yossi Benayoun. Yet it is an apology that seems disingenuous in the face of the Malaysian State's attitudes towards Israel.

I've watched highlights of this game, and while I couldn't hear anything racial, Benayoun is audibly booed every time he touches the ball, something the other Chelsea players are not subjected to. Benayoun himself is a likeable footballer who is completely uncontroversial aside from being Israeli.)
“The FA of Malaysia would like to strongly register that we do not condone any form of racism in football,” the statement read. “If such an incident did happen we would like to apologise to the player concerned and also to Chelsea FC. From our initial observations, if such an incident took place, it would have involved a small section of spectators at the match. This surely does not reflect the feelings of the majority of fans in this football-loving country.”

Of course, Malaysians should probably reflect on a history of anti-Semitism in the country. Last time Chelsea toured Malaysia in 2008 there was talk that then coach Avram Grant and defender Tal Ben Haim would not be granted visas to enter the country. Former PM Mahathir Mohamad once claimed that the Jews ruled the world by proxy. And it was only a couple of weeks ago that government-backed newspaper Utusan Malaysia made the ludicrous claim that the recent rallies for democracy in KL may have been the work of Jews.

Since the two countries have very little to do with each other in practical terms, and most Malaysians will never actually meet a Jew, this feeling originates solely from the fact that Malays are Muslim and therefore lots of them just assume that disliking Jews is part of their religious duty.

Bersih 2.0: the Malaysian government shows its true colours

Malaysia again has reminded us that one of Southeast Asia's most advanced nations is still mired in authoritarian government mentality.

This weekend, the Bersih (clean) movement gathered in central Kuala Lumpur to call for electoral reforms, with as many as 50,000 ordinary Malaysians taking part. The response from the police was swift, turning hoses and then tear gas on the protesters.

I implore you to watch the video below; it's 12 minutes long but captures the drama of the events unfolding, and captures the raw reality of how the Malaysian police operate, at the behest of the ruling party UMNO.



It has been widely reported that the man seen around the 9-minute mark, convulsing on the ground while handcuffed as police stand around indifferently, is Baharuddin Ahmad, who passed away shortly after. However Bersih's website seems to indicate that this is mistaken identity.

Here are some accounts of the events. First, the Wall Street Journal:

Based on the evidence of this weekend's rally in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysians aspire for a more competitive political system than what they have. Also based on this weekend's evidence, Prime Minister Najib Razak isn't prepared to give it to them.
An estimated 20,000 or more people peacefully gathered in Kuala Lumpur Saturday to call for free and fair elections. Their complaints included vote-rigging and gerrymandering of constituencies to the ruling party's benefit. Bersih 2.0, as the rally was called, was the biggest event of its kind in four years. The original Bersih (the word means "clean" in Malay) called for electoral reforms in 2007.
As with the original rally, this one was met not by understanding from the government but by police deploying tear gas and water cannons. More than 1,600 attendees were detained and released late Sunday. One demonstrator died from a heart attack.
The crackdown was little surprise given the government's actions before the rally. Over the past two weeks, the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) tried its best to intimidate the organizers. More than 200 activists and opposition members were detained, some on charges of "waging war" against Malaysia's constitutional monarch. The police arrested those wearing T-shirts affiliated with Bersih. The army publicly conducted crowd-control exercises.
The situation was on the boil until the king intervened, asking both sides to settle differences. Mr. Najib offered a stadium to host the rally but then backed off. Last Thursday, he appeared with a group of martial artists who vowed to "wage war" against Bersih, saying: "If there are evil enemies who want to attack the country from within, you, my brothers, will rise to fight them." His scare tactics backfired as thousands of protesters, further angered, arrived from across the country.
Saturday's rally has united and energized the political opposition. So the government is now downplaying the entire event and even blaming Bersih for creating chaos. The police claim only 6,000 protesters showed up. Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein complimented police efforts to keep control despite "being challenged and provoked." He said the protesters sought "to be arrested in order to portray the government as cruel."
If the government is going to respond like this—intimidation followed by denial—a Bersih 3.0 could eventually materialize, though organizers have ruled it out anytime soon. Underlying this weekend's events is growing public impatience with UMNO as Malaysians find rising inflation, coupled with slow reforms, eating into their standard of living. Saturday's turnout is a sign that Malaysians also understand the link between true democracy and good government.
On Sunday, Mr. Najib called on the "silent majority" of Malaysians, who he claims opposed Bersih, to speak up. If he continues to create an environment of fear and repression, he may find this silent majority speaking up soon, but against him.

Now, this from Bernama, the state-run newspaper which is little more than a mouthpiece for the government:

The rally organised by 62 non governmental organizations, including the Bar Council, who are claiming themselves to be a civilized society and demanding reforms for a clean and just election, was nothing more than a ploy by the opposition.
Because, based on the two slogans adopted by the opposition parties - 'reformasi' (reformation) and 'Allahhu Akbar' (Allah the Almighty) - lauded by the demonstrators during the rally, it was clearly evident that the demonstrators were their supporters and the presence of the opposition leaders is further testimony.
...
Are they oblivious of what happened today? -- traffic congestion due to police inspection (police roadblocks), business premises forced to close, disruption in daily activities in the city, loses amounting to millions, social functions like weddings disrupted.
The illegal rally also saw hundreds of demonstrators who failed to heed warnings from the police being detained, including opposition leaders.
What happened today prompted Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim to refer the illegal assembly as an attempt to tarnish the image of the government led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
Dr Rais was reported as saying that the opposition were alarmed by Najib's numerous successes achieved through the implementation of the 1Malaysia concept and economic transformation.
Their claims for reform and a clean and just election in reality does not make sense because the reality is that the opposition had won five states and 82 of the 222 Parliamentary seats whilst Barisan Nasional (BN) lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament during the March 2008 general election. (Full article)

The best part is where the article claims that yelling "reform" or "Allahu Akbar" is a sign of being an opposition supporter. Not to mention the inherent implication that being an opposition supporter is akin to being a traitor.

Now from someone on the ground. This comes from a friend of mine, JJ, who was in the midst of the demonstration when the police fired tear gas into a hospital compound after protesters had sought refuge in there. I should add that JJ is far from being a rabble-rousing activist; he is a pretty conservative dude who works as a market analyst. He's the kind of ordinary Malaysian who made up the Bersih crowd, regular folk who have had enough of being governed by crooks and gangsters.

1. I've never seen Malaysia more united in a singular cause. All the races came together to march even in the pouring rain. Really amazing stuff. I've never felt more patriotic and proud to be Malaysian.

2. The demonstration was peaceful, respectful, organized and clean. No smashed windows, burning cars, looting, vandalism etc etc which the government portentously warned may happen. If anyone was violent, it was the police - launching teargas canisters without warning, directly at opposition leaders instead of in the air.

3. The crowd was massive. Not the 6,000 the IGP so naively and defensively claimed. Come on, if they arrested around 1,500 people (another stat from the cops), does that mean they brought in a quarter of the rally's members? What rubbish. What I could see when we congregated at the crossroads of Jalan Yap Kwan Seng and Jalan Ampang (between Public Bank HQ and KLCC) was the entire length (as far as the eye could see anyway) of Jalan Ampang crammed with people. And this doesn't include the other group which gathered at Petaling Street after the police fired water cannons in the Pudu intersection - effectively cutting the crowd into 2. I was forced into the Pudu crowd and my brother into the Petaling Street one.

4. I'm not entirely sure what time the Tung Shin hospital incident occurred. But i remember it started about 45mins to an hour after the rain started. We got word that the FRU were advancing down Jln Pudu towards Jln Bukit Bintang. Because we didn't want to clash with the UMNO Youth Patriots there, we took a perpendicular road along Jln Pudu which led up to an abandoned piece of land. At the end of this area was a small steep incline leading up to Tung Shin Hospital which was separated from us by a wire fence. To avoid being cornered by the police, the demonstrators started climbing up the cliff and lifted up the bottom of the wire fence to let everyone into the hospital compound.
Most of us managed to get into the hospital and took shelter from the rain under the awnings round the back. Some of us went to the carpark overlooking Jalan Pudu to see what was going on. We saw FRU members marching up the street. They proceeded to fire at least 4 tear gas canisters into the hospital compound. One landed about 10 feet from me. To escape the gas, we all entered the back entrance of the hospital building. The crowd should be commended for being civilized, quiet and respectful throughout our temporary huddle in the lobby.
It was unfortunate that the hospital staff refused entry to some demonstrators pleading to be allowed in from the front entrance. However I heard that after I left some 10 minutes later, they relented. I was only in Tung Shin for half an hour before escaping through the back fence in case the FRU decided to storm the hospital.

I'll leave the last words for Malaysia's super-oily Prime Minister, Najib Razak:

Why women are the cause of all the world’s problems – Malay edition

(Cross - posted at Brown Pundits)

There is Islamic misogyny, and non-Islamic misogyny, but the Islamic variety seems far better at convincing otherwise intelligent women to buy into this nonsense.


A Happy Man, A Happy Home

“You just need to open the newspaper or watch the news on TV: there are so many sex-related social problems rape, incest, prostitution and sex trafficking.”

Men will not be committing these crimes if they are sexually satisfied at home, she [Fauziah Ariffin] stresses. “The key to make a man gentle and loving is a first-class loving wife an obedient wife. When the wife is obedient, the husband will be happy and gentle. They will not look elsewhere for the loving they need.”

And like simple economics, cutting off the “demand” for the illegal “sex” will cut the supply. “The authorities have come up with a lot of solutions and conducted various raids or operations to nip these social problems, but they still exist. The solution we are proposing is one that is guaranteed to work, as it is backed by the Quran,” she explains.

Committee member Siti Maznah Mohamed Taufik tries another argument to demonstrate how a sexually frustrated man can cause violence in society.

“Just yesterday, there was a story about a man who hit his wife with a lesung (pounding stone) because she refused to have lunch with him. Do you believe that? It does not make sense. Just because of lunch, a man would hit his wife until she is hospitalised? I’m sure it is because she did not give him any the night before. That’s why he was furious with her.”

I wonder if it occurs to them that perhaps the reason this wife didn’t want to have lunch or sex with her husband is because he is the type of asshole who likes to hit women with pounding stones.

There are plenty more facepalm moments in the full article. A common thread in these kinds of worldviews is their extremely low expectations of men, who apparently can’t stop themselves from raping en masse unless they get a regular diet of sex at home. So it’s heartening that a Facebook group  that has sprung up to denounce the "Obedient Wives Club" was started by a Malaysian male, 22 year-old Matthew Tard Ong.

I personally don’t think this is a mainstream view among Malay women – this group appears to have some extremist associations. But how widespread is this? And is it a Muslim thing, a Malay thing, a Malaysian thing, or a human thing?

Learn to cook Malaysian food... from Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay? Um...

I caught a bit of Australian Masterchef this week, in which two contestants won a trip to Malaysia to receive a cooking lesson and introduction to Malaysian food from British celebrity chef Rick Stein.

So what's wrong with that picture?

Rick Stein, of course. No disrespect to the guy, I don't mind his shows, and he has actually championed Malaysian cuisine in Britain in the last couple of years. But it's rather odd that Masterchef would send contestants to Malaysia - where there are presumably a large number of Malaysian chefs - and then present as the Malaysian culinary expert a fellow from England, who only really discovered the cuisine around 2009 as part of his Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey series.

So how did Rick do? Well, he made a serviceable curry laksa, but did several things that were not authentic. Which is not a crime, but if you are going to be shown "the flavours of Malaysia" by an "expert", surely you'd want to experience proper Malaysian food and recipes, right?

No, because Masterchef repeats a well-worn idea in mainstream television that Western audiences can only understand Asian food through a Western interpreter.

Malaysian cuisine seems all the rage in UK celebrity chef circles now, as evidenced by Gordon Ramsay also doing a show in Malaysia. He spends a week observing various aunties making food, and by the end of it is presented as having mastered the cuisine, as he comes second in a nasi lemak-making competition despite apparently not knowing how to use a rice cooker. All that in only one week, Gordon? My, aren't you smart.

Perhaps Gordon is taking his inspiration from Sam Worthington's character in Avatar. White dude parachutes into a foreign land, is bamboozled by their exotic ways, yet in no time manages to beat the natives at their own game. Flirting with their women all the way. You win again, Mighty White Man.
You can watch Ramsay in Malaysia below.


Gordon Ramsay in Malaysia from Joseph Teo on Vimeo.

Mistakes Indonesians make when trying to speak English

So, yesterday I am with my girlfriend and he want to buy a pair of earring, but I spend the money on some shirt for him instead.


Anyone who speaks a language that is not their first is going to make mistakes. It's a universal phenomenon. But if we look at particular cultural and linguistic groups, we can notice certain specific kinds of mistakes common to that group.

An obvious and well-known example is the Japanese difficulty in pronouncing the sound /l/, often rendering it as an /r/ instead. But these sorts of culturally-specific mistakes are not just in pronunciation. They may be in grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, or even in concepts that differ from culture to culture.

I'm using the Indonesian language here as an example. By extension, this also includes Malay, of which Indonesian is really a dialect. (Although given that Malaysians are normally exposed to English earlier on than Indonesians are, they might not make the same mistakes.)

People who speak English as a mother tongue often take for granted what a damn complicated language it is. By contrast, Indonesian is a very simple language in many ways, and it is in this contrast in approaches that some of the most common mistakes are made.


- INDONESIAN GENDER CONFUSION. (Nothing to do with transexuals here.)
Indonesian does not distinguish between “he”, “she” and “it”. When it comes to third-person singular pronouns, Indonesians just use the same word (dia) no matter whether it's a male, female or an animal without any specific gender. While that may sound confusing, it's not, because the context is key.
Here's an example:  If I start talking about “Mr Smith”, then I have established by my use of "Mr" that he is male. So subsequently when referring to Mr Smith, I can just refer to him as dia because whoever I'm talking to knows that it is a man. But if I then start talking about Mr Smith's daughter, or Mr Smith's dog, I also use dia.
But when Indonesians speak English, they commonly confuse "he", "she" and "it". Thus it is common to hear phrases like, "Yesterday I was talking to my father and she got a bit angry" or "Check out that girl, he has nice legs".

- TENSE CONFUSION.
Indonesian has no separate markers for tenses (as in the English “had”/”has”/”will have”/”is having”).  Everything is said in the present tense.
If that sounds strange, it's not. Again, it’s all context – once I establish that I’m talking about something that happened yesterday, it is just assumed that I’m speaking in past tense, and I use the same verbs as I would if I was talking about the future or the present.
Obviously, when speaking English, Indonesians can forget to apply tense to their verbs, saying things like “yesterday I go to the shop”.

- PLURALS.
In English, the suffix "-s" on the end of a word indicates plurality. However, Indonesian doesn't really have plural suffixes. Sometimes, plurality is indicated by simply doubling the word. So teman means "friend", and teman-teman means "friends", which does not imply a specific number. But other times, a single teman is enough, accompanied by a contextual word to indicate whether it is plural or not. So if I add banyak ("many"), I have banyak teman ("many friends"). The use of "many" implies plurality, so it is not necessary to further indicate that there is more than one friend in this situation. Thus the use of the suffix "-s" in the English phrase "many friends" is redundant, as saying "many friend" would convey exactly the same message. Likewise, if I have 80 teman, the plurality is implied by the number.

Thus, many Indonesians when the speak English say things like “I own 2 house” or “We have enough player to make three team”, because it makes perfect sense in their own language.

Thus, comparison to a simple and utilitarian language like Indonesian reveals what an unneccesarily complicated language English is; it's full of grammar that doesn't really have to be there.
Take, for example, the phrase, "Yesterday I went to the cinema with Gary and he brought some friends."
The Indonesian equivalent translates as "Yesterday I go to cinema with Gary and he bring some friend." Which may sound strange and fobby to native English speakers, but it conveys all the same information, only stripping away all the fiddly grammar which makes English a hard language to learn.

It is worth bearing in mind that Indonesian is a lingua franca. It may be the official language of business, school and government, but less than half the country speak it as a first language. Instead at home they are more likely to speak their local language (Balinese, Acehnese, etc). Indonesia descends from the dialect of Malay that was spoken around the archipelago as a trade language. Perhaps one reason it was successful in this context, and thus able to spread all over the region, is because its simplicity made it easy to learn.

It is notable as well that "Manglish" (Malaysian English, basically a pidgin form of English spoken widely in Malaysia) is also far simpler than English in its sentence structure and grammar, and has taken on many of the characteristics of Malay/Indonesian. Here's an example:
A: "On the fan, can or cannot?"
B: "No, dowan [don't want]. Off it lah, it will blow my papers around."
A: "Ok lah. Aircon got, what?"
B: "Ya, got."


- PRONUNCATION
"Hep you pinis? I hep pinis. So now you won to go to de bits to kets de pis, or you won to wats the pilm instead?"

Certain sounds don't exist naturally in Indonesian, such as /sh/, which is usually mispronounced as /s/. /th/ is pronounced either as /d/ or /t/ depending on the word. /ch/ exists in Indonesian, but never at the end of the word; Indonesians struggle to pronounce this in that context, and it usually comes out as /ts/. Regarding vowels, /a/ as in the English "cat" doesn't exist in Indonesian and is pronounced /e/ as it "pet" instead.
Not all Indonesians can pronounce /f/ and /v/, pronouncing them as /p/ and /b/ instead. This is common but hardly universal, whereas it is ubiquitous next door in The Philippines.

So the phrase above would properly read, "Have you finished? I have finished. So now you want to go to the beach to catch the fish, or you want to watch the film instead?"

See also:

How language tells the history of Malaysia and Indonesia

Is English threatening the future of the Indonesian language?

Communication challenges in Malaysia

Koreans, you too can curse like an American

English words of Indian origin

"Pulp Fiction" in Italian, German, French, Turkish and Spanish

Puttu

Puttu is a classic South Indian dish served primarily for breakfast. Simple and easy to prepare, it consists of some kind of flour (usually rice) moistened and combined with grated coconut, then cooked in a cylindrical steamer. The result is a crumbly, slightly spongy cake the size and shape of a soft drink can.

It is eaten in a number of ways. It can appear in a savoury context - in Kerala, for example, a typical accompaniment is kadala (chickpea) curry. Perhaps more often it features sweet accompaniments, especially banana, another South Indian staple.

The puttu pictured below was sampled in Malaysia, for breakfast at Susi's Banana Leaf Corner in Petaling Jaya. This particular one was made with atta (Indian whole-wheat flour), hence the brown colour.

On the side are a banana, a small cup of milk, and a mound of gula melaka (palm sugar). I'm guessing in India, jaggery (unrefined sugar, from palm, cane or both) might be used instead.

After pouring on the milk and peeling the banana, the all-important step is to get your hands dirty and mash it all up. You could use cutlery I guess, but what would be the point?

It's a simple but tasty combination, and the sort of honest home-style dish that invokes a sense of nostalgia amongst many Indians and Sri Lankans. Puttu on its own doesn't have a great deal of taste (and thus needs its accompaniments) but much of its appeal lies in its delightfully chewy texture.

Aside from the cuisines of Sri Lanka (where it is known as pittu) and South India, puttu has also ingratiated itself into the Malay and Indonesian culinary traditions. The Malay putu piring is disc-shaped rather than cylindrical, and contains a filling of palm sugar. (EatingAsia has a nice post on these.) The Indonesian kue putu also has the palm sugar filling, but retains the cylindrical shape. These are frequently green in colour, from the extract of the pandan leaf.

The shape of puttu suggests that originally it probably would have been steamed inside a hollow stem of bamboo; many peoples through tropical Asia still steam rice and other foods this way. Tamils and Malayalis have been trading in the Indonesian archipelago for over 2000 years, so it's hard to say whether this recipe is an ancient addition to the cuisine of that region, or arrived more recently with large-scale Tamil settlement of Malaysia under the British.

Spicy Susi's Banana Leaf Corner, No.1A, Bangunan SKPPK, Jalan SS 9A/17, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

The assumption of sugar, or not

I once heard Sheena Iyengar relate an anecdote about her difficulties ordering green tea with sugar in Japan. The waiter and manager refused to bring it to her, because drinking green tea with sugar is just not done in Japan, and they felt it their duty to protect her from making such a baffling and unseemly consumer choice.

It's a choice however that most in the West take for granted. Growing up in Australia in the days before expresso machines were everywhere, serving and ordering tea or coffee was pretty simple. You ask someone if they want milk or sugar (or serve the drink black with the milk and sugar on the side). Those were the only variations. Today it has become a somewhat more complex affair (you might find someone asking for a decaf soy milk flat white, for example), but one standard assumption still remains. Sugar is served on the side, not in the drink. Or if it is, your host will have first asked you whether you want sugar and how much.

But it's important to remember that this assumption is not shared all over the world.


I was in Malaysia recently, and as I am prone to do, I had eaten too many delicious Malaysian sweets that day. So I hankered for something cleansing and slightly bitter to counter my sugared-out feeling. Sitting down at a cafe, I ordered teh O, which is what they call black tea in Malaysia. To my surprise, it was full of sugar - the standard way of serving it. I was informed that for sugar-free tea I had to order teh O kosong (kosong meaning "zero" or "empty"). In the traditional Malaysian coffee shop, rarely is there sugar on the table - it is already in your drink unless you state otherwise.
The same places also served Chinese tea, but by contrast, it is always served without sugar. Which is quite right, too; I've never known anyone to drink Chinese tea with sugar and this seems like a very wrong thing to do, somehow. Although truth be told I'm sure it would actually be quite nice.
Chinese tea and black tea are not all that different, really. Which is why it was odd that the default assumption was that one should never be served sweet and the other should always be served sweet.

So what happens if you just order "tea" in Malaysia (teh)?

Most likely you'll get black tea with milk and sugar. Although when I say "milk and sugar" I mean sweetened condensed milk, or a combination of evaporated milk and sugar. Which to be honest, is a whole lot nicer than milk with tea and sugar the English way. (The one pictured here was from PappaRich in Bangsar.)

Then there's teh tarik and teh halia and teh ais and so on, but that's a whole 'nother story.

When I was younger I travelled with my parents to various places in Indonesia, and visited family friends at their houses. Almost without fail, the hosts would serve us tall glasses of hot tea of the fragrant local variety. At the bottom of the glass was a substantial quantity of sugar - perhaps 3 teaspoons worth, or more, I couldn't really tell. A teaspoon was either left in the glass or available nearby.
I would stir the tea and drink it down as was polite - it's pleasant but very sweet, as you'd imagine; and soon enough we would depart to visit another household, who would serve the exact same drink. Now if you visit 4 or 5 people in a day, and then do it all again the next day, pretty soon you're consuming a whole lot more sugar than you need to. By the time we left Indonesia, my teenage acne was a little out of control, and while the humid weather may have had something to do with it, I blamed the sweet tea.
I complained to my mother about how the amount of sugar Indonesians put in their tea was ruining my complexion, and by extension, my adolescent self-esteem.
Her response: "So why did you stir the sugar into it then?"
Good question. I just assumed that was what you did. The sugar was in the glass for a reason, right? And if sugar is just sitting at the bottom of a tea-filled glass, it's just asking to be stirred, no?
But the proper way was obviously to stir "to taste". If you want it really sweet, stir all the sugar in; if you just want it a little sweet, stir just a little.

Likewise, my first time ordering coffee at a Malaysian-Chinese coffee shop resulted in a thick bitter brew with no apparent milk or sugar... until I got to the bottom of the cup, and discovered a thick layer of sweetened condensed milk waiting for me. Where I come from, it would be almost unthinkable for a cafe to serve coffee or tea with 2 sugars already added, and it puzzled me that this was such a common practice in Malaysia.

Yet, it's just about knowing the rules, and everyone in Malaysia knows them. I'm sure a lot of Malaysians would tell me, "If you didn't want sugar in it, why didn't you order it without sugar?" Which, objectively, is not an illogical question.


See also:

The guide to ordering food in Malaysia
"Egg tea" in Indonesia
Is chai latte only a drink for wankers?
Green tea is intent on world domination
Filipino iced tea and other hard drugs

Thoughts from my latest Malaysia trip

I'm back from Malaysia now, late. The plane was delayed at LCCT - they had to remove baggage of people who didnt turn up to the flight. I was wondering, "who the f*ck does that?" but then I remembered that I did it once - i forgot to change my watch during a 3-hour stopover in HK once and missed my flight. So I'm not one to judge.
I return feeling and apparently looking substantially chubbier. My mum even commented on it, and that was in poor lighting, so clearly it's obvious. Then again, Mum is one of those Asian people who think telling people they are fat is a compliment (it means you are prosperous). So I don't know what to make of it.

Gonna have to hit the gym like a mofo this week, which will make a change from hitting the roti chanai like I've done over the last couple of weeks. Seriously, I don't think a day went by without me eating at least one. And usually it was more like 4. For breakfast. Which doesn't sound too bad unless you remember how much oil goes into those crispy flaky little bundles of joy.

I found a kindred spirit to share my gluttony in my friend Sangeeta. She's from Singapore and obsessed with teh tarik, Malaysia's national drink (it's basically tea with condensed milk). You can get it everywhere in Singapore, but apparently it sucks in comparison. Sangee was in Malaysia less than three days and consumed around 10 teh tariks in that time. 4 of those were in one night, each from a different venue; it was the Malaysian equivalent of a pub crawl.


On the topic of food, one thing keeps happening to me again which is weird and slightly frustrating, but sort of funny nonetheless. My Malay language skills are far from perfect, but I know enough to say the basics and my accent is not too bad. I was in a mamak for lunch, and asked the Tamil guy waiting tables for another rot chanai. "Roti chanai, satu lagi" or something like that. He looks at me like I just spoke Swahili to him. I repeat, and get the same look. He calls over the Malay woman who works there; she approaches to ask what I want. "Roti chanai, satu lagi" says I. She then turns back to the Tamil guy and says: ""Roti chanai, satu lagi". And then he nods, and goes and gets my roti chanai.

Was my accent that bad, really? It's possible. I do roll my "r"s out of habit, which is an Indonesian thing which Malays don't do. But it doesn't make much difference. I think it's just that some Malaysian people can't quite compute the phenomenon of a foreigner speaking Malay to them.

*

My friend Ang has an interesting party trick. He can mould chewing gum into the shape of a penis, using only his mouth. No hands. After boasting of this trick while we sat at a cafe in KLCC, he proceeded to chew up several tabs of green tea flavoured gum, and after about 10 minutes, spat out this masterpiece:

No doubt Ang's girlfriend is proud to have a man with such an agile tongue. Though I'm not sure what she thinks of a guy who decided that this was a good skill to hone in the first place. Or if she is worried about how the inside his mouth is so attuned to tracing the outline of a penis. In any case, we all thought it was a good thing to try and do, so nearby diners at the cafe would have noticed the odd sight of five people just sitting and looking at each other while chewing.

For the record, it's pretty hard (nudge nudge). Mine looked like a penis that had been flattened with a mallet and then ravaged by a starving canine, and the balls ripped off. In other words, it didn't look anything like a penis at all. Score one to you, Ang.

*

KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre) Park is an extremely well-maintained garden of ponds, palms and banyan trees, beneath the twin towers of the Petronas building that dominate the KL skyline. Walking through this park on New Years Day, when lots of people are out and about strolling and relaxing, I discovered a new game with which to amuse myself.

I happened to be walking several steps behind my partner and her friend, far enough behind that onlookers might not automatically assume we were part of the same group. Now, Aveena and Jen are fairly attractive young women, and from my vantage point I noticed the way passing guys looked at them. Were I walking alongside them, my presence would have made their glances more subtle perhaps. But from a few steps back, I was able to watch the way men check out women in all its blatant glory. The men in the park were mostly Malay and South Asian that day; the Malay men looked a bit, but the groups of South Asian men (Indian, Nepali, Bangladeshi) stare and turn their heads as if they've never seen a woman before. It's damn funny. Of course, it's probably not so funny to a woman being constantly stared at intrusively by such men.

KLCC Park is also subject to some odd policing guidelines - apparently it is illegal to hold hands in the gardens, let alone do anything more than that. As we walked through the gardens, we heard a policeman blow his whistle and wag a finger reproachfully at a couple, who were sitting a little too close on a bench, with the man leaning back into his girlfriend. My Malay friend Lydia tells me that the police are really only zealous about enforcing this with Malays, since as Muslims their government expects them to uphold stricter codes of moral behaviour. Yet there was a well-known case of a Chinese couple arrested and detained for "behaving improperly" in the park back in 2004.

Malaysian police are good at catching young lovers in the act. Since it is a country where people typically live with their conservative parents until they are married, opportunities to canoodle are limited and frequently take place in parked cars and hotel rooms. Thus the police love to catch couples in secluded spots steaming up their car windows and threaten to arrest them, even though the primary objective seems to be the procurement of a bribe to look the other way. Add to this another arm of official enforcement, the Moral Police, who excel at turning up at the door of your hotel room and arresting unwed couples for fornication.

In a country with some serious crime problems in which people rarely feel safe to walk the streets at night alone, I wonder what could be accomplished if the Malaysian police actually devoted their time to fighting real crime.

How I spent NYE 2010-11

@ The Binjai, Kuala Lumpur, overlooking the Petronas Towers.

Random cuteness

The resourceful street cats of Kuala Lumpur.

Thanks to the lovely Sangeeta Ramanan for having her camera handy.

Should countries give official recognition to minority religious holidays? The Malaysian example

So I'm in Malaysia right now, it's Christmas Day, a public holiday, and virtually all the shops are still open. No problem there, it's just a contrast to the way in which the commercial sphere almost completely shuts down in Australia every Christmas. More interesting to me is the fact that Malaysia even makes a somewhat big deal out of Christmas at all, enough to make it a public holiday at least. Only 9% of Malaysians are Christian, with the majority (60%) being Muslim. It strikes me that I do not know of any Western countries that have enshrined the holy days of minority religions as public holidays. Even France, with a Muslim population approaching 10% (probably the largest non-Christian group in any Western country) has Christian holidays but not Muslim ones.

Now I'm not saying that they should. But once a religious or cultural minority reaches a certain proportional level of the population, it is only logical that there will be a strong push for their holidays will be acknowledged, with recognition as a public holiday. What is that threshold? Probably more than 10%, for sure. Consider that Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, is an official public holiday in Caribbean countries like Trinidad & Tobago and Suriname, where the ethnic Indian communities are around 40% of the population.

Is it feasible, or desirable, to envision a future where say, Chinese New Year became an official holiday in Australia, or Diwali an official holiday in New Zealand? What about the UK taking a day off to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr?

It's probably important to acknowledge that Christmas in many societies has lost much of its religious significance, and is celebrated more as a secular day of togetherness and gift-giving, rather than one of the holiest days of the Christian faith.

Now to Malaysia. It is hardly the most shining example of a harmonious multicultural utopia, but it is an interesting example given its culturally and spiritually diverse population. Its public holidays reflect that, and it may be an example of what will happen as Western societies shift a little further from their European Christian roots.

MALAYSIAN PUBLIC HOLIDAYS (CULTURAL/RELIGIOUS SPECIFIC)
Chinese New Year - 2 days
Prophet Muhammad's Birthday (Muslim)
Deepawali/Diwali (Indian)
Vesak Day (Buddhist)
Eid al-Adha (Muslim) - 2 days

Maal Hijrah (Muslim new year)

In addition, there are some cultural public holidays particular to some states only, including the birthdays of local Sultans. For example, the Hindu festival of Thaipusam is only celebrated in 7 states, presumably those with significant Indian communities. Good Friday is only a public holiday in the states of Sarawak and Sabah in Borneo, where the indigenous groups are strongly Christian. There are also numerous secular public holidays which are not specific to any religious or cultural group, such as Labour Day, New Years Day and Malaysia Day.

RELIGIOUS BREAKDOWN
Muslim - 60%
Buddhist - 19%
Christian - 9%
Hindu - 6%
Other Chinese religion - 2%

ETHNIC BREAKDOWN
Malay and other Bumiputera - 65%
Chinese - 26%
Indian - 7%

So that's one example of how a country caters to its various cultural groups. The number of culturally based public holidays is roughly proportional to the demographics of the population. Of course, such a model isn't going to be appropriate in every country. Aside from it's particular demographics, several factors should be added for context. Firstly, Malaysian society is not really locked in to the traditional Western notions of a 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday working culture, with many shops typically open til 9 or 10 at night for much of the week. Secondly, Malaysia has a LOT of public holidays, which is probably related to the first point. And finally, tying in both factors, Malaysian public holidays rarely shut down the entire commercial sector as happens in some countries.

But nonetheless, it is one possible glimpse into the direction Western societies might go in the future.

Some light refreshment

Spotted at Nature's Vegetarian Restaurant in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

How to pull tea like a champion

Given that I struggle to do properly tarek the tea from 6 inches away without spilling it everywhere, this guy is totally my new hero.



He needs to do a collabo with these roti guys.

The ugly politics of race in Malaysia

Malaysia has just this week celebrated its formation with Hari Merdeka (Independence Day), with its "1 Malaysia, Generating Transformation" theme, which is meant to emphasise national unity. Which is great in concept, of course, but the last few weeks have done much to expose this as mere wishful thinking. "1 Malaysia" is also the name of a campaign instigated by Prime Minister Najib Razak to promote ethnic harmony and unity; but it would be easier to take seriously if members of Najib's ruling coalition (Barisan Nasional) did not have a continual need to make racist statements about the ethnic Chinese and Indians.

Recently there have been comments like this one from Nasir Safar, a special officer to the PM, that "Indians came to Malaysia as beggars and Chinese especially the women came to sell their bodies", and "Indians in Malaysia have crossed the line ... Don't force the government. We can anytime revoke the citizenship of the Indians in Malaysia."

Or from Ibrahim Ali (pictured right), an Independent MP in the ruling coalition and head of controversial Malay-rights organisation Perkasa, who recently stated “It is necessary for the government to delay any allocation and approval of projects for the Chinese community,” because the Chinese in Selangor had mostly voted for the opposition.

Perkasa's economic director, Dr Zubir Harun, warned that the Chinese community will use the next general election to take over the country. While Perkasa's Petaling chairperson, Zainal Abidin Ahmad, lodged a complaint with police against a Protestant church in the Muslim-majority suburb of Shah Alam for planning to stage a Christian play during Ramadan, and accused them of attempting to preach Christianity to Muslims. “We want the church and pastor to be investigated for sedition and for insulting the Sultan," he said.

Perkasa is not part of the government per se (indeed, they have accused Najib of favouring non-Malays too much), but they are part of a spectrum of Malay interest groups, including the major party UMNO, pushing a particular racial barrow right now. Another is Utusan Malaysia, the leading Malay-language newspaper, which has been accused of stirring up ethnic tensions.

So why is this rhetoric against non-Malays at such a high level right now?

It is important to realise that race, religion and political affiliation are difficult to untangle from each other in Malaysia. If you are Malay, you are Muslim; there is no other option available. Thus anything deemed anti-Muslim is also anti-Malay, and vice-versa. Malays are primarily represented by UMNO (United Malay National Congress), the party of PM Najib.

So much of socio-political discourse in Malaysia revolves around one key issue; Ketuanan Melayu, or Malay supremacy, the idea that Malaysia primarily belongs to the Malay majority. Malays are granted special rights (educational scholarships, employment in the civil service, housing assistance) not available to the Chinese and Indian minorities, who have generally been living in Malaysia for several generations. These minorities are expected to be grateful for the kindness of the Malay people for allowing them to live on Malay land. Unsurprisingly, most non-Malays would happily do away with these affirmative action policies, which they claim are discriminatory, do not address actual poverty, and lead to inefficiency by promoting race over ability.

In the last few years, UMNO, the major party in the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, has faced an unprecedented challenge from Anwar Ibrahim's Pakatan Rakyat coalition, which promises a move away from ethnic-based economic policies. Pakatan Rakyat's appeal is broad, due to its unlikely coalition partners; the conservative Islamic party PAS, the predominantly Chinese centre-left party DAP, and the centrist PKR. With the government's attempts to discredit Anwar Ibrahim (through corruption and sodomy charges) proving unsuccessful in terms of votes, they seem to have decided that divisive racial politics are the only thing that will save them.

Because non-Malay voters have deserted BN in droves, BN seems to have decided it doesn't really need them. Instead, they are putting their eggs in the basket of Malay supremacy; trying to shore up the Malay vote by stirring up prejudice against non-Malays on one hand, and championing the special rights of Malays on the other. No doubt it hopes that this extreme Malay nationalist sentiment will lead to the "post-racial" Pakatan Rakyat being seen as a threat to Malay interests.

It is against this backdrop that Malaysian discourse about race and racism needs to be understood.

The authorities do take a firm stand on racism - enacting the draconian ISA (Internal Security Act) to detain without charge anyone seen as inciting racial tension - except for one problem. Inflammatory statements by Malays (or at least Malays who support the notion of ketuanan Melayu) are routinely overlooked, while innocuous incidents by anyone on the other side are seized upon as inflammatory and dealt with harshly. Equally, the authorities are fond of taking a "shoot the messenger" approach; ignoring inflammatory statements made by Malay leaders, but regarding those who report or comment on them as being seditious (such as the cases of blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin and reporter Tan Hoon Cheng).

A few recent examples:

In Kedah, a school principal was accused of racist treatment of Chinese students. The school canteen had closed for the fasting month, and the minority of Chinese students had to find their own food. But after seeing some of them eating breakfast in a common area, the principal accused them at school assembly of being disrespectful to the Malays who were fasting, and that they should go back to China. Another teacher allegedly subsequently told them to take an AirAsia flight "because the fares are cheap now".

This came not a week after Siti Inshah Mansor, the Malay principal of a middle school in Johor, allegedly said in a speech at her school's Merdeka celebrations: "Chinese students are not needed here and can return to China or Foon Yew schools. For the Indian students, the prayer string tied around their neck and wrist makes them look like dogs because only dogs are tied like that." She also reminded the non-Malay students of their place in the country, by giving the example of owning a car and then letting 'Munusamy' and 'Chong' in as passengers.
"Munusamy and Chong are only passengers," she is alleged to have said, "They cannot claim any right to the car. This is the same as Malaysia in which the non-Malay students are passengers."

Various groups have come out calling for the sacking of Siti Inshah. Interestingly, a Facebook page has sprung up, with several thousand members, supporting the principal, who it labels as a victim of politics. Ibrahim Ali of Perkasa predictably came out in support of her as well.

Controversial Chinese-Malaysian rap artist Namewee released a song on Youtube (since removed) entitled Nah, which attacked Inshah's remarks with some vulgarity and alluded to non-Malays being responsible for Malaysia's wealth. Namewee has since had his home raided and faces possible sedition charges. Siti Inshah has apparently faced no criminal charges.

Recently another furore erupted when opposition MP Teo Nie Ching (pictured left) visited a surau (prayer room) on official business, and was invited in. However because she was not wearing proper headcovering, some Muslim leaders were in uproar, seeing this as disrespectful of her religion. Teo has since apologised, although Islamic Party PAS backed her and encouraged her to visit more mosques. UMNO Vice-President Hishamuddin Hussein slammed PAS for encouraging a "dirty" person such as (Chinese and non-Muslim) Teo to enter a mosque. Hishamuddin has form for this kind of thing, having previously supported the Malays who dragged a cow's head through the streets of Shah Alam in protest at the construction of a Hindu temple (which was seen as disrespectful to Malays since it was a primarily Malay area).



Add to this some other recent rulings by BN that non-Muslims are forbidden from using certain words that are deemed the sole property of Muslims ("Allah" being the most obvious example), and accusations that Muslim sensitivities are not being respected, and you have to wonder. While it is true that the Malays as a whole still lag behind the ethnic Chinese in terms of wealth, their grip on social and political power seems unassailable. So why then do so many Malays feel that they are constantly being somehow downtrodden, victimized and their sensitivities disrespected?

Simple: because their leaders are always telling them that they are. And because it leads to a good political outcome for UMNO. Whether this sort of dirty racial politics leads to a good outcome for Malaysia as a whole is a different question entirely.

How language tells the history of Malaysia and Indonesia

You can tell a lot about the history of a people by the studying its language. For example, from where its speakers' ancestors originated, and which other cultures it came into contact with.

English, for example,reflects the various conquerors of the British Isles; the Germanic base language of the Angles and Saxons (which superceded the native Celtic languages), with some Latin from the Romans and a few Norse words from the Viking invaders, and then the Norman conquerors who brought a huge litany of French terms into English. Finally, the age of colonialism saw the English become conquerors themselves, and their contact with the cultures of India, the Middle East, Malaysia and the New World saw many new concepts and words enter the English lexicon.

Another study in how language reflects history is in the Indonesian archipelago. Because of its location and in-demand natural resources (predominantly spices), the region has been visited by various other nationalities over its history, seeking a slice of these treasures. These traders and conquerors have left their mark on the culture and language of the people there.

Malay and Indonesian are together spoken by around 200 million people in South East Asia. While usually listed as separate languages, they are mutually intelligible and only marginally more different than say, US English and British English. To the majority of its speakers, it is a second language, a lingua franca that binds the many ethnic groups of Indonesia together. Indonesian is based on the variant of Malay that was used as a trade language throughout the archipelago, and was adopted as the national language following independence. To the language's Austronesian base is added words from a variety of other languages, primarily Arabic, Dutch, English, Javanese, Portuguese, Chinese and several from the Indian subcontinent.

Malay/Indonesian is a member of the Austronesian language family, which also includes the languages of the Pacific Islands, Madagascar, the Philippines and the indigenous languages of Taiwan. While Taiwan is generally held to be the homeland of the Austronesian speakers, an ultimate origin in Southern China is usually postulated. A comparison of Austronesian languages backs up archaeological evidence about the agricultural life of these people; across their range, the words for items like rice, yam, coconut, chicken, egg and pig tend to be similar, indicating that these were important features of early Austronesian life.

INDIAN WORDS
Traditionally the people of Indonesia and the Malay peninsula were animist, but in many areas this changed due to influence from the Indian subcontinent. Indian traders brought Hinduism and Buddhism, along with their trade goods. Significantly, even though there are virtually no Buddhists left in Indonesia aside from the ethnic Chinese, the largest Buddhist monument in the world is located in Java, a holdover from the pre-Islamic era.
Malays have had another layer of Indian influence due to the more recent migrations of Indians (mostly Tamil) to the peninsula. In Indonesia, the Indian influence is harder to pinpoint; yet the huge number of loanwords from Sanskrit for many basic objects and concepts indicates that the influence was fundamental. It was probably the first significant contact Indonesians had with a major civilization from the outside world.
Below are just a small sample of some of the Malay/Indonesian words of Sanskrit origin:

topi = hat
agama = religion
warna = colour
raja = king
guru = teacher
jaya = victorious
kaca = glass
madu = honey
maha = great
suami = husband (Sanskrit svamee = lord)
nama = name
putra/putri = prince/princess
singa = lion
dwi = two
kudah = horse
roti = bread

Some words also come from Tamil, such as kapal (boat) and apam (a kind of rice flour cake); given that Tamils were heavily involved in trade in the region, many of the above Sanskrit words may have been adopted into Indonesian via Tamil (since Tamil had already adopted many words from Sanskrit).

Malay does not naturally contain the sounds sh or v; so in the case of most Indian loan words they have been converted to s or w. So the Hindu God Shiva becomes Siwa in Indonesian. Interestingly, in the case of Arabic words containing the sh sound, Indonesian/Malay has tried to be more faithful to the original pronunciation, and represents it as sy (see below).

A number of common Indonesian names are a legacy of this early Indian influence. Examples are Dewi (Sanskrit devi = goddess/angel), Budi (buddhi = wise) and names from mythology such as Indra and Garuda.

(As an interesting aside: because Sanskrit is an Indo-European language and therefore related to English, some of these words show a recognisable relationship to their English meanings. For instance, devi is related to the English words "divine" and "diva", while raja is derived from the same root as words like regal, and the Latin rex. The similarity between nama and the English "name" is obvious, as is the link between dwi and "two" or related words like "duo".)


CHINESE WORDS
The other early traders active in South East Asia were the Chinese. The words they left behind suggest that their cultural impact was nowhere near as great as the Arabs or Indians, but they had an enormous influence on one aspect of Malay life: the food. The loan-words that Malay adopted were predominantly from the Hokkien dialect, such as:

mee/mi = noodles
tahu = bean curd (from dou fu)
kecap = soya sauce
tauge = bean sprouts
cap cai = stir fry
siomay = dumpling
teh = tea

ARABIC AND PERSIAN WORDS
The rise of Islamic civilisation brought with it traders from the Middle East and Persia. Gradually, most of Indonesia adopted Islam, and many words from those cultures entered the Indonesian language. Their origin is often easily identifiable. For example:

dunia = world
akhir = end
pasar = market (from bazaar)
abdi = servant
maaf = sorry, apologise
daftar = list
musim = season (the English word monsoon is also derived from this word)
wajib = obligation, duty
adil = just, righteous
syukur = pray
selamat = safe, peaceful (from salaam)


The days Monday to Friday are derived from Arabic. And of course there are numerous religious terms that are identifiably Arabic as well (haram, halal, jilbab, Allah, masjid, etc).

The sounds represented by the letters z or f, or the letter combinations kh or sy, did not naturally exist in Malay and are almost always Arabic in origin. Many Indonesians (like Filipinos) have difficulty pronouncing the sound f, so it often is converted to p; thus the Arabic word fikr (to think) becomes pikir in Indonesian.

PORTUGUESE WORDS
Before the Dutch, English and Spanish became the dominant powers in island SE Asia, the Portuguese were heavily involved in the spice trade in the region, and their presence is still felt in places like Melaka in Malaysia, and East Timor. They leave a legacy of loan-words in Malay and Indonesian, such as:

keju = cheese (from queijo)
mentega = butter/margarine (from manteiga)
bola = ball
pesta = party (from festa)
gratis = free
terigu = wheat (from trigo)
bendera = flag (from bandeira)
meja = table (from mesa)
garpu = fork (from garfo)
kereta = car (from carretta, related to the English term chariot)
nanas = pineapple (from ananas)
sekolah = school (from escola)
Interestingly, Indonesian kept the Arabic-derived terms for the days Monday to Friday, but took the Portugese word for Sunday, Domingo (ie. the Lord's Day), which becomes Minggu in Indonesian (which also means "week). The word Sabtu, or Saturday, is derived ultimately from the term sabbath, but it seems unclear whether it is derived from Arabic, or the Portuguese Sabado.

DUTCH AND ENGLISH WORDS
To find out where Malay and Indonesian start to differ from each other, we must understand their colonial histories. While Malaysia became English territory, Indonesia became known as the Netherlands East Indies. Prior to colonialisation, neither region had been culturally unified, merely a collection of kingdoms, sultanates and tribal territories. The following words exist in Indonesian courtesy of their former Dutch masters:

kulkas = refrigerator (from koelkast, meaning "cool case")
telat = late (from te laat)
buncis = green beans (from boentjes)
kol = cauliflower
kantor = office

For some concepts, Malays kept their original Malay terms, while Indonesians adopted new ones from the Dutch. For example, "office" in Malay is pejabat, but Indonesians use kantor (from the Dutch kantoor). The Malays call their uncles and aunts Pakcik and Makcik, but Indonesians use the Dutch terms Oom and Tante.

Many modern Western concepts were introduced into Indonesia by the Dutch, and the words reflect that; yet in Malaysia, the same concepts reflect the English who introduced them. Here are some examples:

MEANING                          MALAY               INDONESIAN                
August                                 Ogos                    Agustus
migration                              migresyen           migrasi (from Dutch migratie)
action                                   eksyen                 aksi
police                                   polis                    polisi (from Dutch politie)
apple                                   epal                     apel
bag                                      beg                      tas
ice                                        ais                        es


Indonesians also used the old Dutch system of spelling; however after independence there was a rejection of all things colonial, and a desire to bring the written language closer to Malay, which used a more English-influenced way of spelling. So names like Djakarta and Soekarno became Jakarta and Sukarno, and boentjis (green beans) and sajoer (vegetable) became buncis and sayur.
 
JAPANESE WORDS
The Japanese occupation of Indonesia was brief, but left behind two notable words: ebi (dried shrimp), and toko (shop). Toko replaced the word kedai, which is still used in Malay.

INDONESIAN REGIONAL WORDS
Because the Javanese are the most numerous ethnic group in Indonesia, they have had a dominant influence over the development of the Indonesian language. Words from Javanese have become part of Indonesian, but not Malay. One example is the word nggak, meaning "no", or bisa, meaning "can" or "able to" (bisa in Malay means "venom" instead).
Another example are the various terms for "I" or "me". Both Malay and Indonesian use saya, but Indonesians also throw in the Javanese aku, and the Jakarta-slang gue (which is ultimately Chinese in origin).
Other influences on Indonesian have come from Sundanese, as well as from the variants of Malay spoken around the archipelago.

MODERN INFLUENCES
Studying both Malay and Indonesia today, we see a few new influences. While Malay has long been influenced by English, Indonesia has only recently been taking on more and more English words, which reflects the dominance of English as a global lingua franca. When previously Western concepts would enter Indonesia via the Dutch language, English has filled the post-colonial void.

Meanwhile in Malaysia, it is likely that the country's Chinese and Indian populations will have an effect on the Malay language. Young Malays frequently speak what is termed Bahasa Rojak, meaning a mixed-up language, which combines various words of English, Chinese and Tamil with Malay. Some words like mamak (Tamil for "maternal uncle") have become fixtures in Malay, and it would not be surprising for certain common terms to move from Bahasa Rojak into standard Malay vocabulary. A good example is the Chinese term ta pao (meaning "to take away food"), which has become as ubiquitous as the proper Malay term bungkus.

The increasing encroachment of English in both countries is a concern for some. In Indonesia, some fear English is threatening to become the new language of the wealthy classes. In Malaysia, the Malay language is tied into the ethnic Malays' struggle to hold on to their social and political dominance, and there exists great debate over the role of the language in schools, films and television, in a country where the ethnic minorities mostly speak English. It does seem almost certain that the continued influence of English will form the next chapter in the history of both Malay and Indonesian.


See also:

English words of Indian origin

How Muslim names evolve across the world

Pilaf, paella and pulao - how a rice dish conquered the world

So who really invented noodles? China or Italy?

It's official: Jesus was black. Or was it Korean?

3 things Indonesia can teach Malaysia

Indonesian contributions to world culture

Is chai latte only a drink for wankers?

H is for horse, N is for...

For real. H is for horse, S is for swan, N is for negro.

These children's erasers were spotted by my friend Jo in a stationary shop in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. They seem to hark back to a bygone era - when no one thought it unacceptable to depict a black baby caricature as just one of a series of animals.

Except of course, these weren't manufactured in a bygone era, these are new. Not sure if they were actually made in Malaysia, but you'd think it'd have to be somewhere in Asia, since there are very few people of African origin there, and the last few decades of progressive thinking in the West about black people has mostly gone unnoticed.

Personally I would have gone for "newt", "numbat" or "narwhal".

Maybe they are made by the same company that made this.

Weird religion in Malaysia

Two stories about Islam in Malaysia caught my eye this week; one an example of how religion can remain stuck in the past, another an example of how religion can also "get with the times" perhaps a little too much.

Muslims told not to wear 'devilish' Manchester United jersey
KUALA LUMPUR - Muslims have been told by religious leaders in Malaysia to stop wearing Manchester United football shirts because the image of the famed red devil in its crest is forbidden in Islam.
The Johor Religious Council adviser and the Mufti of Perak both state that images of crosses, liquor brands and devils on football shirts are forbidden by Islam and should not be worn by Muslims.
Other football shirts deemed unacceptable by the religious leaders include those of Brazil, Portugal, Serbia, Barcelona and Norway because their crests all carry images of a cross.
"There is no excuse for wearing such garments because it means, as a Muslim, you are idolising the symbol of another religion," Datuk Nooh Gadot, the Mufti of Johor, said.
"On this matter there is absolutely no compromise in the name of entertainment, fashion or even sports."
The Mufti of Perak, Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria, said that Muslims wearing such football shirts "leads to a path of sin" because displaying the symbol of another faith means the wearer is prioritising that faith over Islam.
"Yes of course in Islam we don't allow people to wear this sort of thing," he said. "Devils are our enemies, why would you put their picture on you and wear it? You are only promoting the devil."

Now chilling out in a mamak and watching an EPL game is one of the quintessential Malaysian pastimes, and probably 9 out of 10 Malaysians who like football are fans of Manchester United. So did these religious leaders only just realise that a huge proportion of their countrymen follow a team called the "Red Devils"? Hopefully Malaysian Muslim footy fans have not been lured too far down the "path of sin" by those sneaky cross-bearing Brazilians, either.
 
Mind you, as a passionate Arsenal fan myself, I've always suspected Man U were thoroughly evil, and now it's clear.
 
 
In other religious news from Malaysia, the latest talent quest to take TV by storm is not Malaysian Idol, or Malaysian Masterchef or anything like that. It's Imam Muda (Young Imam).



I've actually seen this idea before, on the Australian Muslim show Salam Cafe, who had a segment called "Australian Imam". Except the Salam Cafe people were taking the piss, Imam Muda is completely serious.

What do you think? Does a TV talent-quest format cheapen religion, or is it merely taking it into the 21st century?

3 things Indonesia can teach Malaysia

Malaysia and Indonesia are two countries with great similarities in language and culture, yet with great differences as well. Malaysia to the north is relatively peaceful, and one of the wealthiest and most modern states in Southeast Asia; Indonesia to the south is massively overpopulated, beset by civil strife, corruption and grinding poverty. And anyone who think the KL traffic jams are bad has obviously never experienced Jakarta's.

Yet Indonesia still has managed to get some important things right in a way that Malaysia seems unable to. I think most Malaysians would be loathe to admit it, but their struggling island cousins are streets ahead in certain departments. For example:



Democracy

It's a pretty savage indictment on Southeast Asia in general that Indonesia is now a beacon of multi-party democracy in the region. Sure, it was effectively ruled by dictators for half a century, and is still corrupt as all hell. But since the fall of Suharto, Indonesia has had 4 democratically-elected presidents in 12 years. Which means that for all the faults inherent in Indonesian politics, the populace can and does vote out any leader who they deem not up to scratch. In how many countries in the region can that be said to be true?

Certainly not Malaysia, where Barisan Nasional, in one form or another, has enjoyed 47 years of unbroken rule, driven by racially polarising policies. The one recent politician to emerge realistic challenger to BN's dominance conveniently found himself in jail on sodomy and corruption charges; which of course the ruling party had absolutely no hand in, or so they say.



Friendly customer service

I know loads of Malaysians and so can testify that they are generally a lovely bunch of people. Except you would never guess it by observing what passes for customer service in their country.

I'm by no means a demanding customer, and have no desire to be waited on hand and foot, but there are certain things I appreciate when I go into a shop or restaurant. A smile, a greeting, a sense that they actually appreciate that I am spending my hard-earned in their establishment; these are easy things. But things that tend to be the exception in Malaysia.

I'm perhaps being a little harsh on regional Malaysia, which is generally not too bad in these respects. I have found pleasant service to be commonplace in Penang, Terengganu, Kucing and elsewhere, but most people who serve you in Kuala Lumpur seem to have zero interest in doing so. There is certainly friendly and polite customer service to be found in KL, but it stands out because of its comparative rarity.

Indonesia is a very different story - most people are quick to smile, speak politely and respectfully, and give the impression that taking your order or assisting you is not an onerous burden.

It is strange that despite being sandwiched between Indonesia and Thailand (whose people are also renowned for their politeness), so many Malaysian staff have settled on grumpy indifference as their default setting.


Moderate Islam

Yes, I know that Indonesia has been the site of numerous terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists, as well as Christian-Muslim violence in Maluku and Sulawesi. And Malaysia hasn't.

But forget for a moment what happens at the extreme end of the spectrum. Indonesia seems to have figured out a much better way of integrating Islam with the modern world, and with the demands of a multi-ethnic and multi-faith society. It's unfortunate that Indonesia, despite being the world's largest Muslim nation, will forever considered a backwater by Middle-East-dominated mainstream Islam, because Indonesian Islam is a far better brand of religion than how it is practiced in, say, modern Saudi Arabia. And it's a shame that so many Muslims in both Malaysia and Indonesia look to the Arab World as role models when perhaps it should be the other way around.

Indonesia may have its share of vigilante zealots like the Islamic Defenders' Front, but lacks an official body of "morality police" in the way that Malaysia does. Malaysia is still locking up and caning Muslims who dare drink alcohol and frequent clubs; Jakarta on the other hand is at least 90% Muslim yet has a thriving bar, club and band scene. Indonesians would care little whether Christians used the word "Allah" in reference to the Christian God; in Malaysia the prospect of it led to uproar and attacks on churches (it was seen as a means of proselytising to Muslims).

One of Malaysia's key problems is the way that it has linked Malay identity so firmly with Islam; there is no concept of being Malay yet not Islamic. Thus, religious disputes automatically become ethnic disputes as well, and vice versa. In Indonesia, Muslims can convert to other religions without legal consequence, but in Malaysia this is both illegal and unthinkable; a betrayal not only of Islam but of the Malay race as well.