race

everytime raya beckons, it always becomes a racially-charged affair for me. haha.

not talking about the CMIO division - rather the subdivisions of the malay communities in singapore - you know the javanese, boyanese, bugis, minangkabaus, arabs, pure malays (or so they claim) etc etc. i'm half boyanese and half bugis - like a total minority in the sea of javanese in singapore.

why it becomes a racially-charged affair? because day 1 of hari raya is always spent visiting my father's relatives - mostly my grandfather's siblings and their assorted daughters and sons. it's a huge number. i think many other people just slack away at their grandparents' place on the 1st day of raya, whilst i'm already doing my rounds with my family, together with my immediate uncles and aunties and my cousins in tow. a whole convoy of us will just drive around, and the route has never changed for day 1.

so i go around visiting all these siblings of my grandfather(who's the oldest among his siblings, and my father is the eldest, and so am i yadda yadda yadda), and so its like i get drenched in all these boyaneseness haha. the tete-a-tetes are no more carried out in boyanese already, but you can just feel it. also it's typical for everyone to get questioned like-

When are you getting married? like for goodness sake i know 23 is the perfect age (or is it any age?)for malays to get married but i'm not so normative.

Got girlfriend already? haha. it sounds worse when they use the term 'cewek' my goodness. at least now i can so-called speak the truth haha.

Oh so today you drove the car around? haha even selling my backside can only get me the carburettor only.

Wah so big already! haha if they could really remember me i haven't really grown any taller in the past 7 years at least.

well thank goodness at least many know me by name, which is reassuring to me haha. it sucks to be known just as someone's son or something like that. but this time round i get suggestions like 'go find a boyanese wife, boyanese people power you know!' - i'm like what? it's like im being maligned so much in school for being a boyanese (no i don't do black magic sorry) and i think for these oldies, race matters to them very much - as it was when they were in their youths. youths nowadays can't even be bothered i guess since we are all crammed into that category called malay - of which even its definition is sensitive and highly political. in any case apparently i don't look boyanese at all - probably too fair, or my eyes are too big. but physically i don't even take after my dad(except for my ugly teeth and that i'm supposedly fair). thank goodness for that actually, if not i'll probably start balding like right now, have stubby fingers, slightly rotund and chinky eyes. haha.

so i look more like my mom - who is a full-blooded bugis. you don't hear much of the bugis people in singapore but you know what? at least the government sees something in these groups of people - enough to name a freaking mrt station after them! an mrt station! think about it - not teochew, hokkien, java, gujerati or what have you - but bugis! oh and the shopping centre too. there's also the information sign in the middle of bugis junction about the bugis people (or buginese).

did you know the bugis have been trading with the natives of australia a whole millenium before any europeans even heard of australia, let alone set foot on it? they are gutsy and adventurous by nature (both as traders and sadly, pirates and no, johnny depp isn't a closet buginese). apparently if you hadn't sojourned in your youth you wouldn't be called a man in those days.

just now i went back to my village where my grandmother stays, and where many of my mom's relatives also stay. a whole lot of bugis people there. it's interesting, going back to the kampong. it's like day 1 i'm spending raya in an urban, boyanese setting - and day 3 its a bugis and rural setting. and of course the usual questions get spewed at me but the thing is i think these buginese people are proud of their heritage - yet i think they just take it in their stride and not go off talking big about.

think about it - even the annoying javanese, with their clear majority in numbers in singapore - does the government even bother with naming street names, shopping centres and an mrt station after them?(i've heard of java road and kampung java road but these are minor roads). let's not even talk about the boyanese here haha. maybe it's because these people are from the rural areas, so supposedly they lead laidback lives - but you can see they are humble people with good values about them. i feel privileged that at least my mom is of this heritage and race, so i can hop on the bandwagon and claim 50% of it? haha. but i do feel it's something to be proud of.

don't get me wrong. haha i think it's really outdated of me to even talk about race like this - but it gives me a sort of 'unique' identity that i'm happy to carry around. my IC says i'm boyanese, yet im half boyanese and bugis. i feel honoured and blessed (to say proud wouldn't be precise) to have such a heritage, not conforming to the common discourse of being the javanese (which seriously, i've no idea what their heritage and history entails).

i like the fact that my family and my extended family (on my dad's side) tries to keep the familial and cultural bonds strong by visiting each other as much as they try to relive the famous pondok spirit of yesteryear. i like the humbleness of the bugis people, yet i believe them to be the most feisty and gutsy of people.

although, since my dad is the only male among his siblings, therefore the only real boyanese grandchild my grandfather has is me (i only have another sister). haha. so i'm the one to keep the flag flying high i suppose?

if they had a flag don't be surprised if you see horses on the flag. haha.