to foreign tourist travelling in Malaysia, try to differentiate between "Malaysian" and "Malay". It can be quite confusing sometimes. (+ some fun fact)

Hey, as a Malay, I can’t help but to notice that some of you keep mixing the term “malaysian” and “malay”. Malaysian is a nationality and any race can be malaysian. A person of english descent or a person from africa, for example, can be malaysian if he or she obtains malaysian citizenship.

Where as “malay” is specifically a maritime southeast asian ethnicity. Most foreigners mix this up, why? Because tourists here mostly indulge in chinese/indian malaysian culture but not malay culture in the peninsula due to the fact that foreign tourists tend to go to places that are "recommended", which tend to be cities. Or even for cultural places, they would recommend some chinatown. Hence they always mix up Malaysian = Malay as probably, "Malay" sounds quite logical etymologically to be the adjective of "malaysia". But this isn't the case.

Where as there are many many many more places that are under the radar here.

.. if you look at more states in the peninsula , there are more diversity in the malay culture itself (each state's have many subdivision of Malay culture itself from food to customs) but unfortunately tourists keep missing this out. Then they say that peninsula is boring because they only go to chinese-centric cities like KL and Penang (I will explain why). If you go to a country, of course you would want to try authentic culture there… but most foreign tourist skip on malay culture and food and indulge more on chinese.

My advise, going to malaysia, try to explore austronesian culture more. (Austronesian = races like malay, bidayuh, Iban, minang – races that have been here since ancient time.). And try to go to kampung. What is kampung? Kampung is malay village. Place where Malay conservative and cultural activities take place. I know some kampung are open to foreign tourists as well but unfortunately they aren't really popular here. Some of the deep kampung are inhabited by indigenous people as well, people who live in tribes and in the forest and still practise animisme. There are load of this in Pahang especially.

Also, baba nyonya is chinese + malay. The Chinese part of baba nyonya isn’t exactly the same as the Chinese today. Baba nyonya people today can trace their ancestral as far to 15th century. The Chinese ancestor of baba nyonya also have assimilated into Malay culture (since malaysia didn’t exist in 15th century.) Some foreigners thought that baba nyonya are Chinese malaysian people. But it isn't. Baba nyonya are people who can trace their Chinese + Malay mix back to 15th century when the Chinese trader willingly came here and married malay woman, and assimilated into Malay culture.

When british colonized , in around 19th century, they brought Chinese and Indian labors (this is the second wave, but they don't really assimilate with malay unlike baba nyonya as the british placed each race in different environment for the purpose of segregation). The Chinese in this second wave are the same Chinese that you see in Penang and KL today (through like 3-4 generations). So that’s why cities in malaysia tend to be chinese-centric (except northern and East coast states in peninsula where Malay culture is still dominant). Because the british sent the Chinese and indians there to build the cities during the colonial period. Malays were mostly placed in rural places. Hence why you don't see fully of Malay culture in the cities. You have to go deeper in the peninsula.

(P/s: not to discourage you to go to KL and Penang but don't just say that "Malaysia only has KL and Penang".) .........................

Fun fact, in southern Thailand, there are many malays as well (in fact places name in South thailand tend to be actually words from Old Malay language, but the official writing of these names are based on the Tai people's pronunciation of Old Malay names). In Cambodia and Vietnam, there is malay ethnic as well called "Cham Malays" and they are regarded as native there in Vietnam (the only austronesian people in Vietnam as far as I concern). In South Myanmar, there are malays as well who live in kampung. There are many places there that have Malay names. The Malays in southeast asia mainland mostly speak in Malay dialect that are almost the same as the dialect spoken in northern Malaysian state like Kedah.

Because, ancient and one of the earliest Malay kingdoms used to be concentrated in today's Cambodia and Vietnam (Champa kingdom), then they streched to today's Thailand (in different name) , then further down to peninsula, as a result of being attacked by Tai Kadai (austroasiatic) people from up north, which were people who are descended from ancient South china. Losing the battle with Tai people, the Malays went further down.. to peninsula, to Sumatera in Indonesia.

The history, of course, is much more complicated than this. But I try to simplify as much as possible.

As a result they took refuge in the Malay peninsula and build kingdoms here like kedah kingdom.

(Any fellow native Malay here can correct me if I am wrong).

Thank you for reading...

(Edit : kampung is still a huge thing in Malaysia. In fact, most of Malaysia is rural/sub-rural so there are many kampung like thousand. Traditionally, everytime holiday, Malay people go back to kampung. We call it "balik kampung" , which means going back to the village, because we see it as our original house. Kampung is where all our relatives gather because they also regard kampung as "true home").

Submitted August 17, 2022 at 10:19PM by themalaysiangirl https://ift.tt/73xevao