Adat: “My Malaysia” Photo Series (5) - PART ONE

“Biar mati anak, jangan mati adat.” (Peribahasa Melayu)

“Let the children die, rather than the custom die.” (Malay Proverb)

 

Kampung Sebak Bernam, Sungai Besar. Selangor, 3 August 2016

Now we are entering a very complicated and deep topic, of which it's not easy to speak and it is not my intention to write an essay on this here. I am simply a photographer.

We enter in the soul of Malaysia, opening a door called Adat, of which I have already spoken when commenting on a photograph of Dhaka (Keep in Memory). I already explained in that case how important Adat is.

It's a term that derives from Arabic, whose meaning is precisely costume, habit, and serves to describe the variety of practices, customs and laws of a community, mainly Islamic in its origin. By broad sense we mean everything that founds the tradition of a community and that guides its members in every aspect of their life.

"Adat istiadat Melayu", which some reported to be divided into four genera:

• Adat yang sebenar adat (the true adat): The natural law that derives from Allah and regulates everything in nature, from fire to water.
• Adat yang diadatkan (the adat that has been adapted): That is, the rule of law (hukum adat) inherited from the ancestors (nenek moyang) who regulated – orally – the social harmony of daily life, for example with sayings such as: “Girls who are still unmarried are prohibited from singing in the kitchen or they will marry an old man,” or “Do not add rice when the dish is already empty or luck will not come.”
• Adat istiadat (the official adat): The customs that govern official ceremonies, ranging from clothes to wear during the wedding or circumcision, to meetings with the Royals, and so on.
• Adat resam (customs): Regarding the gestures of the body and how you are at home, the way you smile if you feel ashamed or how you dress when you are at home in the evening.

 

The problem is that these unwritten social rules belong to the older generation of the Malaysians, while the new generations are forgetting them, for the path towards modernity, for the influence of the West, for the mixing of the various ethnic groups within the Malaysia itself, as we saw in the first story.

It's inevitable that this will happen and then the Orang Melayu, the last guardian of these ancient rules and traditions that are the skeleton of the Malaysian identity, looks at their disappearance with tears in the eyes.

 

This for me is a fundamental theme, to which I have dedicated myself entirely, in Indonesia as in Malaysia, with my camera, notebook and pen. Because I don't want to travel hours and hours by plane, or to walk kilometers, only to see what I can see under my house, or anywhere on the planet. I want the original soul, what makes a country and a people unique and different, to learn from them.

We grow, improve, learn, thanks to the differences, the news, the history of others. They are different ways of seeing ourselves; if in the mirror I always and only see myself, how can I evolve?

This is why, in this sense, photography becomes a very powerful medium: because it makes you see, you cannot ignore it – and if you see, you remember.

If you have seen since childhood the man who went around the kampung on a motorbike and cooked the sate on the back of the vehicle with a mini stove and then you haven't seen him for years and years, you forget him. Then it happens that I find one in Pulau Sayak, in Kedah, and I take a photo and whoever sees it come tears in his eyes, and he remembers when as a child it was usual to buy sate in this way, before going to school, forty, fifty years ago. Now he cannot see anyone who do this job anymore.

And yet, if you search with passion – like when, a child, I was looking for small crabs in the crevices of the cliff, hours and hours – you can still try to tell the story of old Malaysia, before it all disappears. Saving in the memory, as in a museum of the heart, a living museum, made of blood and sweat, skin and words.

 

But I don't have to be the one to do it, not just me.

This is the honor and burden of each of you, of each Malaysian, not so much for yourself that you have lived it and carry it in your heart, even if you start to forget it, but it is for your children, and the children of their children, who one day they will no longer be able to enjoy the gentle swing of the buai.

 

These photographs are for you.

First of all, she! Makcik kampung 100%, proud and cocky, capable of grasping catfish with her hands in the mud.

These are the traditions, the Adat, a catfish that you can no longer see, hidden by the murky and brackish water of modernity that makes everything homogeneous. You must have the courage to go into the mud and stick your hands into the water to try to grab the fish that escapes. Slimy, but that is your nourishment.

She is the real Malaysia.

And these photos to come are my gift for you.

 

For now, I leave you with some Lat tables that well describe this feeling, with his wonderful “Kampung Boy”.

1. So began my life under the protection of my dear mother.
2. Mom is the one who takes care of my essentials. Every day she carried me.
3. Served with porridge.

I knew when my mother looking for me, if not for food, sure to pampered my younger sister. Yes, that time, we have another new family member, Maimunah. I'm a big brother now.

I still remember what Opah ordered, “Listen here! Don't be arrogant over there. We should be humble... Remember God always.. One more – Don't forget the people who live in this village.”

Suggested song:  Sudirman “Kanali Malaysia, Cintai Malaysia” 

LAT: “Seri Lat: Kampung Boy” (KPG, 2002)

Ivor H. N. Evans: “Studies in Religion, Folk-lore & Custom in British North Borneo & the Malay Peninsula.” (Frank Cass Publishers, 1970)

Alwi Bin Sheikh al-Hady: “Malay Customs and Traditions.” (Eastern Universities Press Ltd., Singapore, 1962)

Abdul Latip Abu Bakar: “Adat Melayu Serumpun” (UM Press, 2001)

Kampung Canggung. Kelantan, 21 July 2018

Italian version