'Dangdut' and 'ped xing'<\/p>\n
Michael L. Tan
\nPhilippine Daily Inquirer
\nAsia News Network
\nManila<\/p>\n
An Indonesian anthropologist, Irwan Hidayana, likes to ask his
\nstudents what comes to their mind when they hear dunia Melayu or
\n\"Malay world.\" His students quickly volunteer \"Malaysia,\"
\n\"Indonesia\" ... then silence.<\/p>\n
Irwan has a special affection for the Philippines because he
\ngot his master's degree here, so he is alarmed that his students
\ndon't think of the Philippines as part of the Malay world.<\/p>\n
It's not just our closest neighbors who distance themselves
\nfrom us. A British friend once told me that when one of his Thai
\nfriends asked what he was going to do in the Philippines, he said
\nthe University of Philippines was coordinating a Southeast Asian
\nregional research project. The Thai man huffed, \"But why the
\nPhilippines? They're not Asian. They're part of America.\"<\/p>\n
Such remarks are offered partly in jest, but sometimes it's
\nsaid with a condescending, even contemptuous, tone. We're
\nperceived as being too quick to ape America in all aspects of
\nlife, from fast food to foreign policy.<\/p>\n
Religion does come into the picture. Irwan's students explain
\nthat maybe one reason the Philippines seems \"un-Malay\" is because
\nwe're Catholic. But it may not be so much our being Catholic than
\nour being anti-Islamic that estranges us from the rest of dunia
\nMelayu. The impression that we're anti-Islamic comes not just in
\nthe way we treat Muslims here, but also, lately, in the
\nPresident's alignment with George W. Bush in his \"war on terror,\"
\nwhich is interpreted by many Muslims as a war against Islam.<\/p>\n
Ultimately though it all boils down to our insular, parochial
\nmentality: We have little interest in the cultures of our
\nneighboring countries. Yet our languages are filled with loan
\nwords, evidence that in the precolonial period, there were
\ndynamic social exchanges with cultures near (Malay, Chinese) and
\ndistant (Indian, even Arabic). Today, it is mainly American
\nEnglish worming its way not just into our vocabulary but even
\ninto the way we speak.<\/p>\n
My Indonesian colleague was in town for a meeting with
\nprofessors from different Southeast Asian countries. Irwan
\nchatted with Pimpawun, another anthropologist from Thailand, on a
\nThai television series called Nang Nak, a hit in Indonesia. Nang
\nNak (Mrs. Nak) is about a woman who dies in childbirth and
\nreturns as a ghost to torment people.<\/p>\n
\"So Southeast Asian ...\" Irwan suggested, and indeed it is,
\nsuch stories of mournful vengeful women ghosts.<\/p>\n
In much of Southeast and East Asia there are vibrant exchanges
\ngoing on among Asians and this includes young people, who seem
\nfascinated by other Asian cultures' pop cultures.<\/p>\n
Visit a video shop in China and you'll find a selection of
\nJapanese and Korean pop music. Readers might react, oh, but
\nthat's because there's so much affinity among East Asian
\ncultures, but a few Chinese video shops carrying Indian movies.
\nIn Jakarta shops, I wasn't surprised to find Indian music and
\nmovies, but I was flabbergasted when I learned that Indonesian
\nkids rave over a Taiwanese rock group called F4, referred to as
\n\"ef se,\" \"se\" being the Chinese word for \"four.\"<\/p>\n
Then, too, there's the popular Bangkok-based China Dolls,
\nteenaged sisters who've made it with hits in Thailand and China,
\nbelting out songs and electrifying videos with lyrics like
\nSawasdee ka (a Thai greeting) mixed in with Wo ai ni (I love you
\nin Chinese).<\/p>\n
Sure, there's an element of the \"exotic\" involved here, a
\ncraving for something different. But the openness to things
\ndifferent eventually leads to \"fusion\" and \"cross-over\".<\/p>\n
Again, Filipino \"fusion\" tend to follow Western fads. Our
\nneighbors, in contrast, have been concocting their own fusions
\nthroughout history. Indonesians dance to dangdut music -- imagine
\nthe Indian tabla and other instruments going \"dang dang, dut dut\"
\n-- drawn from the Indian subcontinent but now distinctly
\n\"Indonesian.\"<\/p>\n
Surprise your Muslim vendor selling VCDs and ask her for
\ndangdut discs. The dangdut craze has spread into Malaysia and
\nnow, to some Muslims in Mindanao. The Mindanao rendition of
\ndangdut dancing is different from that of Indonesians and
\nMalaysians; ours is a bit more subdued, I suspect because
\nFilipino Muslims are actually more conservative than Indonesians.<\/p>\n
There's nothing wrong with enjoying Western culture, but we
\nmiss out on so much when we don't \"tune in\" to our neighbors.
\nIrwan came with kilos of tempeh, a sumptuous soybean product that
\nyou can cook a thousand different ways.<\/p>\n
And I know what Irwan needs from here, from mangoes to
\nFilipino pop songs and movies, which he'll be sharing with his
\nstudents.<\/p>\n
But as they watch the stuff from the Philippines, they might
\nend up even more convinced we're not quite Malay, or Asian.
\nEspecially too as Irwan shares this little anecdote from Manila:<\/p>\n
The other night he suddenly pointed to a sign asking, \"Mike,
\nwhat's 'ped sing'?\" Irwan was incredulous when I explained it
\nmeant \"Pedestrian Crossing.\"<\/p>\n
\"I thought it was Chinese\", Irwan mused. Oh but \"ped xing\"
\nagain shows how terribly American we Filipinos can be, putting up
\nsigns like that in the heart of the tourist belt, abbreviating
\nwords and presuming the whole world will know what we mean.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/dangdut-and-ped-xing-1447893297",
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