They'll Never Be Angry Enough.

(WARNING: Not a suitable read if you can't laugh silly at silly things written by someone as silly as a guy who calls himself Bergen, of all the names in the world.)

I've heard it a million times that you don't wanna fool around with the Malays because they are like, sarang tebuan. Maybe you've never seen a sarang tebuan in your life especially if you are a city kinda a guy, I mean born and raised in the city and never ventured outside this metropolitan place to find out what fun you can have if you stand at a safe distance, aim your throw, a stick, right at the sarang tebuan. After this you wanna run like you've never ran before. You wanna run straight to the river, nose dive deep into the murky water and grope your way to the bank, coming out of the water as slow as you can, holding your breath as long as you can, and training your ears for the buzzing sound. It's a lot of fun but it could get pretty dangerous that I got a friend Zul Tebuang on account of a few stings he got on the head trying to catch up with the rest of the gang ahead of him who got into the water first. Of course his mommy blamed me for the whole adventure that she came to the house looking for me creating such a fuss on a Maghrib when Bilal Rosek was calling out the Azan. Aunt kept saying, I'm sorry I'm sorry, but quite frankly I thought she didn't have to do that because it wasn't my idea to plekong sarang tebuang with the stick. My idea was to hit it with pebbles but those guys didn't want to listen. And so I took a stick and send it airborne right at the sarang tebuang and the rest, like they say, is history.

I am not sure where it came from, this sarang tebuan jangan diusik stuff. I know the Malays like to say this a lot, as a warning that one shouldn't over step one's boundary when skirting issues the Malays consider sensitive like, oh I don't know. Putting cream cheese in sambal nasi lemak, or something like that. But this phrase got me thinking, and lately I've been doing a lot of thinking that I'm getting pretty worried myself because I figure all this thinking is going to make me a serious guy who can't laugh silly at silly things no more. But I reckon one more thinking wouldn't hurt me none and so I figure I'd better write about it to get this off my chest. I can't afford have this issue bothering me since it reminds me of Zul Tebuang, his mother and the confusion of it all when everything happened simultaneously i.e Bilal Rosek calling out the Azan, goats in the pen, chicken and ducks putting on a show all of a sudden, Zul's mother screaming at the top of her lungs, and Aunt with her, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Maybe you've used this strategy as way to put fear into your opponent's heart before a fight go down. You know, stuff like, this is your father's head, this is my father's head, if you are a man, try stepping on my father's head. Or how about, do-that-one-more-time-and-I'll-smash-your head routine. 99% of the time, you have no idea how to smash that guy's head with your bare hands but you say it anyway to work him up a little bit. And 99% of the time the guy will just say, try if you dare. You can walk away from this, you know. But that wouldn't be nice. Why miss a chance to get into a fight when you've come this far to make it happen.

Maybe this is a little out of the topic, but I figure, the phrase sarang tebuan jangan diusik doesn't carry that sense of threat it used to carry one time because if I know educated, urban, middle class Malays, they are not the kind who take their anger to the street. Most of the time they write blogs after blogs. Maybe pepper them with expletives, or more threats, or big talks, or being rude for no reason. But that's about it. They are not the physical kind. Neither are they the legal kind who take things to the next level by going to court, or something like that. 99% of the time they have no idea how to get enough angry people like them in a big group to do something that can do justice to this sarang tebuan thing.

You gotta know how to be angry correctly. You don't want to say this sarang tebuan thing but not knowing how to put it into action. First you gotta ask, are you willing to get physical? If you are, you gotta ask the next question, do you know how to get physical? Are you trained for this? Have you trained hard enough to know the basics of getting physical? You see 99.9% of the urban Malays are not the kind of people interested in martial art. They may send their kids to Taekwondo class on Sunday but that's about it. And so I ask this again, do you think you know what to do in a fight just in case you need to settle an issue fist-to-fist because you can't talk coherently now that you are all worked up over a sensitive issue that all you wanna do is get physical.

You seldom get enough adult students from a middle-class neighbourhood for a martial art class to sustain at least until you've covered the basics. And so when I read about Malays from this section of the society say something like this sarang tebuan jangan diusik, I can't help but to say to myself, you don't know what you are talking about, mate!