MELAYU WITH CHINESE AND INDIAN FEATURES: IT IS ESTIMATED THAT THIRTY PERCENT OF THE MELAYU HAVE CHINESE AND TWENTY PERCENT WITH INDIAN ANCESTRY.

…THE MORE I ASK THE MORE I FIND THAT ONE OF THEIR PARENTS OR GRANDPARENTS WAS A FORMER CHINESE OR INDIAN.
By Mansor Puteh



I SAY ‘WAS CHINESE’ OR ‘WAS INDIAN’ BECAUSE THEY DID NOT WANT TO BE DESCRIBED AS THOSE MELAYU WHO HAVE CHINESE OR INDIAN ANCESTRY.

I DID A ROUGH CHECK AND FOUND THIS IS SO.

MORE AND MORE MELAYU MEN AND WOMEN WHO ARE NOW LOOKING MORE AND MORE ORIENTAL WITH FAIR SKIN. THEY COULD PASS FOR THE CHINESE.

There are many Melayu women who have Chinese ancestry were ‘forced’ to wear the ‘tudung’ because they did not want people, especially strangers to think they are Chinese.

And in fact, all of my relatives have Chinese ancestry so much so that I have till today been confused for being a Chinese by strangers or a foreign tourist if I am seen with a digital camera or video camera at hotels or other tourists places.

And the Chinese stranger would speak with me in Chinese while the Melayu would speak with me in Melayu with a thick accent.

The police inspector at one police station where I had the occasion to do business with asked quite innocently why I had a Melayu name. I said I am Melayu.

He probably thought I was a recent revert to Islam, or I was having a fake MyKad.

Most of the times, when I met with some old friends and somehow the conversation steered to the issues of race, I then discovered and was told that they, too, have Chinese ancestry.

Their mother or grandmother was Chinese.

So no wonder, they look fair and have small eyes.

My eyes were very small when I was a small boy in Melaka so much so that my mother had to apply eyeliners or ‘celak’ to make them look wider.

That was the most interesting experience I had to endure each time she did that.

In fact, all my brothers and sisters had to wear the ‘celak’ then.

But these days Melayu who also have small eyes do not wear that anymore as there are now many of them who have small eyes or ‘Chinese eyes’.

Sometimes this appeared in informal conversations with friends and other strangers who admit they too have Chinese or Indian ancestry.

My other relatives whose parent married Melayu men or women do not have Chinese features. They have dark skin.

But I also have relatives who were Chinese and who were given to other members of my family but who did not care about it. But it shows in the faces of their children with many of them who do not have Chinese features.

But if one were to look at them closer, one can see their Chinese features.

And there are also many Melayu who have Indian features. Those who have them also have similar experiences as those who have Chinese features.

And they are mostly those who ancestors had reverted Islam. Many of them can be found in Pulau Pinang and Kedah have Indian features.

In fact, all the Melayu and Muslims in Malaysia can trace their ancestry to the Hindus when they were so, when the country and the whole region was in the Hindu or Buddhist sphere.

Their influence stretched for many centuries and all across Southeast Asia.

So one can imagine how there were so many Hindu and Buddhist temples all over the countries in the region.

But they were all demolished when Islam came to the country and region. The only temples left are remnants of the ancient Hindu and Buddhist past as can be seen in the Borobudur and Prambanan temples in Jawa and those in the Bujang Valley in Kedah.

This is the Melayu, a unique race or people who have those and the other ancestries. Yet they are Melayu to the core.

There are so few ‘real Melayu’ these days, and most of them are the Orang Asli or Natives of the country who live deep in the interiors of the country, who did not have the advantage of mixed marriage or the interaction with the others.

So they still maintain their original features.

The young Orang Asli, however, have started to change drastically the more educated they become and the more they start to leave their remote villages to lead a normal life in the city and its fringes.

Many have claimed that the Orang Asli or whom they are also referred to as the Orang Asal are the original inhabitants of the country.

They are right to a certain historical and anthropological extent, but not right in the political one.

They are Old Melayu, regardless of which tribe they belong to. The Melayu are also the original inhabitants of the country. The only difference between them and the Orang Asal is that their ancestors had long left the remote villages and had become modern, especially when they reverted to Islam which changed their character and behavior as well as lifestyle.

In fact, most of the passionate Melayu are those who have these ancestries including those with English or European ancestry.

And if one looks at the many Melayu women, especially, one can see how Chinese they are with small eyes and fair skin.

The Melayu boys and men are no different.

In fact, more and more Melayu babies look very Chinese when they were born.