Shall We Continue With The Malay Thing?

Writing as a Malay about something as familiar as 'The Malay Thing' should be a ride downhill on a full-suspension bike. That's what I thought. Now I am beginning to have second doubts about writing too close a subject to my heart that I'm inclined to leave it unsaid, unwritten, mind my own business and just let the subject flow easy on down the way you'd shake onde-onde in the coconut flakes. Or the way you roll the kerepok lekor into a three-foot long sausage before sliding it down easy into the boiling water. But the subject won't leave me alone because out of the blue it hit me like a train. I've decided that something as close to my heart as this should be dealt with in a way that can get a lot of people with high blood pressure really mad that they had better call up a couple of funeral houses to obtain the best quotation for the final journey to a place address unknown, no such number, no such zone. Elvis should know better since he's a permanent resident there now.

This whole thing about Malay is a simple concept. Nothing complicated. Not in the least scientific, nor philosophical. You are either a Malay, or a non-Malay. It is not the kinda stuff you can conveniently describe as being 'the-state-of-mind' because it isn't something you can simply imagine, or conjure up images in your head. Being one is a full-time job, and it is as real as it can get. As real as having a piece of meat lodged in between the teeth that it could take hours to get it out with your tongue which could get the tongue triple the size by the time you're done. And you'd better be prepared to do a bit of hard work to maintain your Malayness. Of course you can never lose your Malayness no matter how orange you dye your hair, or how hard you scrub your eyeballs blue, however much you eat all kinds of cheese in the world, or drink all the wines, or however you twist your tongue to speak either in Irish, American, British or South African accent. If you born Malay you might as well live with it because in a way you are caught between the moon and downtown Dungun. There is every likelihood that you'd die a Malay and the chances of you going down otherwise is as remote as kerepok lekor as the most likely substitute for the meat in a hot dog.

And so I write...