Orang Melayu: "My Malaysia" Photo Series (1)

Kuala Muda, Penang, 4 May  2019

I always start with people.

For me, places are, first of all, the people I meet. I learned more from the encounters I had than from the books I read.

Therefore, the first photograph in this series concerns the Malaysian people.

Who is Malaysian? Orang Melayu.

Good question. Well, we immediately raise any doubts: it's impossible to answer this question clearly.

From the first time I visited Malaysia, I realized that it would not be easy to get to grips with it. The second time, for a month, wandering around the various regions to do workshops, I had a bit clearer idea. But it's since I brought my suitcases and went out into the streets of Penang, my city, that I have had confirmation: no rigid category is possible to define the Malaysian people.

Pakcik with tanjak (typical headdress), Johor

Makcik, Johor

Of course, there are definitions that you can find in books.

Before I even traveled to Malaysia, I had the pleasure of interviewing the Singaporean writer, Hidayah Amin, who wrote a very fun and useful book on Malaysian culture, Malay Weddings Don't Cost $50 and Other Facts about Malay Culture. Here, I read the classic definition it gives:

“'Malay' is defined by 'anyone who speaks the Malay language, dresses as a Malay and practices the Islamic faith'.”

Well, that's all. Language, clothes, and faith.

Prayer in the mosque. Kampung Kuala Pari, Ipoh. Perak, 23 March 2019

In the introduction of a more serious essay of 1981 we read:

“Malay culture incudes a fear of nature spirits, an instinctive perception of the ‘unbecoming’ rather than of the sinful and the criminal, the séance of the shaman, the Hindu ritual of a royal installation, the celebration of the Muhammadan New Year, the sermon in the mosque, the pilgrimage to Mecca, Sufi mysticism, the Hamlet of the Malay opera, the curry, football, the cinema and the mistranslations of the vernacular press.”

Then, however, after a few lines he begins to list influences that Malaysia has received since its origins: the neighboring Indonesia, the Persia and the Arab, the Chinese, the India, and the European with three different colonizations: Portuguese, Dutch and English.

The term Malay itself is a derivative, used during European colonialism, as assimilation in English from the Dutch term “Malayo” which derives from the Malaysian word “Melayu.” “Orang Melayu or the Malays are sawo matang (people with brownish red complexion),” as Hidayah Amin writes.

Kampung Umbai. Melaka, 28 September 2019

Kampung Umbai. Melaka, 28 September 2019

Penang is the perfect place to understand all this: an island founded by the Englishman Francis Light in 1786, the nerve center of all port traffic in Asia from remote times, with one of the first Indian colonies that built the first mosque in the center of George Town, with a Chinese population that exceeds the number of the Malaysian population, a few hours away from the Thai border.

Just talking about this small island (it also has a part connected to the peninsula), you could spend hours and hours. And, having lived there, I miss it a lot.

Therefore, there have been few times that, meeting people, I made the most usual mistake in Malaysia, or to ask:

“But are you Indian? No, I'm 100% Malaysian. Are you Chinese? No, I'm 100% Malaysian. Are you Siam? Arabic? Indonesian?”

“No, I'm 100% Malaysian!”

Here, I give you the idea.

However, for me, I am sure of one thing. The visceral and authentic spirit of the Malaysian people, what we say with the least possible contamination, is embodied by the elders of the kampungs, of the villages, who then moved to the cities.

As I wrote in the introduction, there is the formal way of being called with the term Tuan for men and Puan for women, and then the more rustic one: pakcik for the elderly men and makcik for adult women—be careful and never call a still young woman makcik, or you risk your teeth!

For this reason, the choice of the first photograph fell on this one, because it was truly an incredible fluke.

I met these pakcik couple at a table drinking coffee in Kuala Muda, after I had been photographing some Rohingya families who work at the nearby market.

I sat down with them to chat and drink coffee together, then I started photographing them until they turned left and right at the same time: fantastic!

A photo that seems to pose, with perfect symmetry accentuated by the man who eats behind them.

For me, there is a lot of the soul of the Malaysian people in this image: it's simple, but it tells a reality that is of the deep Malaysia, of the kampung, and then falls within the definition given in the books: Malaysian language, kopiah (the headdress Islamic for men) in the head and certainly with sarong (the large piece of cotton draped around the waist that covers down to the legs) at home or to go to the mosque to pray, which are used by men in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Or, like the man who smokes sitting on the floor of his room with the sarong, or the women on the carpet who were talking while taking care of young children with baju kurung, the traditional female dress. These are not random photographs, but fragments of the soul of the Malaysian people.

Kampung Biak, Pasir Salak. 
Teluk Intan. Perak, 17 June 2018

Kuala Lumpur, 1 July 2018

In Bachok, Kelantan, I was happy to be able to portray this family on the patio at home; a typical wooden house – which we will discuss later – with three female generations, and three different ways of relating to a male camera: the educated and timid little girls with tudung (the Islamic veil) sitting modestly, the mother who covered her hair instantly with a towel just for the photo, and her grandmother who no longer cares to certain formalities and imperturbably smiles.

Kampung Canggung, Bachok. Kelantan,  21 July 2018

These are only a few ways of narrating the Malaysian people in the original sense, and a photographic encyclopedia would not be sufficient; even if this terminology is misleading, because if translated it would be “Orang Asli” and it's completely different, as we have seen in another article.

Kampung Cahaya Baru, Masai. Johor, 25 May, 2019

Kampung Telekong, Kuala Krai. Kelantan, 22 July 2018

This is why I like to close this first story with a photo that I took at the vintage market “Pasar Karat” in Ipoh, where among the memorabilia and second-hand rarities, there was this bizarre but very appropriate proximity of an old photograph in black and white of an unknown Chinese girl next to Rafeah Buang's tape “Don Juan II”, a classic of Malaysian music.

A nice way, in my opinion, to tell the Babel of races and crosses of this land with a strong and changing identity.

Pasar Karat, Ipoh. Perak, 24 February 2019

“Hilang bahasa, lenyap bangsa.” (Peribahasa Melayu)

“Lose your language, lose your race.” (Malay Proverb) 

Hidayah Amin: “Malay Weddings don't cost $ 50, and other facts about Malay Culture” (Helang Books, 2014)

“The Malays – A cultural History” by Richard Winstedt (GB Edition, 1988)

Recommended song: Siti Nordiana “Ghazal Bulan Diriba”

Italian version