Rojak Culture

Whenever I meet someone new it’s not long before I tell them I’m married to a Malaysian. Their first question is always the same. If you’re Malaysian you might be able to guess what it is.

“What race ah?”

“Bangsa apa?”

“What race is your wife?”

For the first few years of hearing this question inevitably come up time and time again I wasn’t sure what to think. My impulse was to say, “My wife is Malaysian full stop!” As an American, it just felt wrong somehow that the most important thing about my wife was whether she was Malay, Chinese, or Indian.

It took me a long time to get used to this. Now I honestly see it as the fastest, although not always most accurate, way to understand who my wife is and therefore where we fit into the Malaysian experience. Essentially, it’s a great question if you want to get to know who we are.

For example…

If my wife was Malay then you could assume I converted to Islam to marry her.

If she was Chinese, you might guess that we are in business of some sort.

If she was Indian you could easily assume that I eat very well! In fact, I may enjoy curry a little too much.

I realized from this that Malaysians know instinctively the importance of cultural difference. Which is why they care to ask at all. At the same time many Malaysians are jelak of hearing race over-emphasized constantly and just want to be done with it. The result of this is that many are now moving towards a colour-blind mindset, which if taken too far will disregard the importance of race altogether. Whether we make the issue of race all-important or disregard it we will end up disrespecting people around us. So where is the balance?

I’ve been learning the answer from my two-year-old son, Judah.

As a two year old Judah obviously doesn’t have a handle on the race thing just yet, which is fine. However, he does interact on a regular basis with Malay, Chinese and Indian people. We want Judah to be polite so we are teaching him to greet people and call elders appropriately. The tricky part is that how you greet others depends on what race they are. For example, when do you salam* and when do you shake hands? It depends on race.

So we have to tell our son,

“You can’t call your Chinese uncle, Pak Cik.”

“Your abang won’t respond to anneh.”

“And your mei mei probably doesn’t even know what a thangachi is.”

But of course, this is Malaysia, so when in doubt just call everyone Boss!

My point is this. We want our son to see race, not to show disrespect, but greater respect. And of late I have come to realize that by growing up in a multicultural environment, most Malaysians already intuitively know this.

It may be natural to use race as a starting point to guess at who someone is. So if we go that far we should use it as a way of knowing how best to respect one another. We should emphasize race only as far as it serves to honour and respect one another.

Stephen

Co-developer of the Lepak Game

*Salam is the Malay handshake where for a young child, the child takes the hand of the older person and touches it to his forehead. Judah learned to salam at a young age and it’s always fun to watch people’s faces light up when he greets them in this way, regardless of their race.

We’ve all heard it. We may have even said it ourselves. “I don’t see race, I just see people. I’m colourblind.”

Someone might say this during a discussion about race or cultural differences in an attempt to smooth out any awkwardness. On the surface this statement isn’t all that bad. Most people probably mean to say that they don’t judge others merely based on their race or skin colour.

That’s good.

BUT, there’s a flip-side to this colourblind coin.

If we don’t allow ourselves to see one another’s race then we are essentially disregarding it, sending the subtle message that it doesn’t matter what race you come from. Without allowing ourselves to see each other’s race we can’t accept them fully and we are left unaware of how they have contributed to our own culture.

About six years ago I remember listening to the radio on the way to a friend’s wedding. The DJ said something that struck me so much that I can still remember it today.

He said, “Malaysians are high in tolerance, but low in acceptance.”

If you take the first part of that statement on it’s own it sounds really positive. Being high in tolerance should be a good thing, but when you realise that this tolerance is nothing like actual acceptance the problem can be seen more clearly.

We’re famous for our boleh tahan attitude. We can tahan practically everything from price hikes to the twice a day jam. But we would be much happier without those things in our lives. That is what tolerance is; it’s being able to tahan what you would rather live without.

Acceptance is seeing the worth of another person and wanting them close. Would you rather live among all the same race as yourself or in a multi-racial community?

Our Malaysian-ness is derived from the combination of all the races. We owe our identity to one another. The way to begin this move from tolerance to acceptance is to recognise each other’s differences.

Let’s appreciate the unique individual ingredients of Rojak that makes it so delicious as a whole.

Let’s

1. Recognise and value our differences.
2. Choose to grow our awareness – Don’t assume you understand already. Be curious. Ask questions. And by all means bodek them to tell you more! Don’t be afraid to have conversations about our differences.
3. Be intentional to pursue multi-racial friendships. Do not be complacent if the majority of your friends happens to be people of your own race. Make the extra effort to better get to know your neighbour or co-worker of a different race!

Let’s move from tolerance to acceptance and then we can really Celebrate our Malaysian-ness!