Cultureless.

This is written for the Asian Women Blog Carnival.

I don’t really feel like I have a cultural identity. Never have.

Technically (according to my passport), I’m Bangladeshi. That country didn’t even exist when my parents and grandparents were born. Technically my dad’s Indian and my mum’s East Pakistani, but they were from the same area. My sister’s the only one amongst us who’s properly Bangladeshi, having been born there soon after independence – but she moved to Malaysia as a baby and had very little experience with Bangladesh. I was born and bred in Malaysia. Bangladesh is a foreign tourist country to me. It makes me homesick.

But I don’t have a home.

In Malaysia I’m an outsider. I’m not Malay, not Chinese, not Indian. I do not figure into any quota systems, any allocations. Just Lain-Lain- The Others. I grew up amongst people from all those cultures, and more, and experienced firsthand their religions, their food, their family life, their relationships. The tales of Sunday School, the incense smoke, the muezzin call and lines of beggars waiting for the sacrificial meat. Yet I’m still an outsider.

The only representations of my “mother” culture in Malaysia come from the press – demonizing my people as thieves, cheats, imbeciles. My people? I can hardly speak the language. I can’t even write it. The country was born from language, the need to express themselves in their own tongue. I have no command of it, and very little understanding.

One of my cousins married a French man she met while at work in London. Her now-husband’s best French friends, and some workmates, came to the Dhaka wedding. They were given matching scarves as part of the “foreign” contingent. I was given the same scarf.

I understand the complaints and quips people make around the kopitiam about current affairs. I love durian and long for local food. I understand Manglish like it was my mother tongue. I think mi goreng is nice but normal – not the fetish food of the Aussie students here. (Besides, mi rebus kicks its arse.) I gulp down teh tarik. I know what a bunian is, what Puteri Gunung Ledang’s story is, what ghosts are hungry for, why people are running up the stairs at Batu Caves with needles in their back.

But I’m not one of them. I’m not the girl with the needles on her back. I’m not the girl who grew up in a baju kurung hearing stories about mousedeer and tigers. I learnt this, did this, in school – but school, of all places, constantly highlighted the fact that I’m an outsider. Lain-lain. I don’t belong.

When I’m overseas, and especially when I’m out of Australia, I get stymied when people ask me where I’m from. If I say “Malaysia” they look at me with disappointment. They smile when I say my parents are Bangladeshi, but don’t ask me anything beyond that – I don’t watch Bollywood, I can’t speak Hindi, and besides, India’s a separate country. I’m not Malay, I’m not “Asian” the American way…who am I to talk?

I feel out of place in the Malaysian Students Association, or any gathering of people who supposedly share my “culture”. Do they know I spend time under the full moon with out and proud gay men and sexually-ambiguous women? Do they know that one of my heroes and possible mentors is a burlesque dancer that worked almost half her life as a stripper? Do they know that I once spoke up in a rally about Internet censorship? Do they know that I’m dating a straight Aussie male but I’ve kissed gay men and asexual women? Would they approve?

I feel out of place amongst gatherings of Australians, or anyone so obviously not of my “culture”. My heritage and childhood become exotic artifacts. I’m the only person who doesn’t lump all religion and spirituality into one category. I’m often the only dark-skinned girl and end up being the spokesperson for all things foreign. I don’t recognise the childhood games, the TV and movie quotes, the political rumblings. Would they care?

I pass for one by the other but really I’m neither.

Where am I? What am I?

*****

I just learnt today that one of the shticks my burlesque teacher has is religiously-themed strip shows. Apparently she’s done a Buddhist one (how the heck does that work?) because there were tons about priests and nuns. In her words – “I’m not sacrilegious to just one – I’m rude to all of them!” She did comparative religion in university, which sparked her creativity apparently.

She seemed to think that I may have been offended by one of her shows (or her constant Indian fetish!) – no, I’m more amused than anything. But at the same time, something doesn’t sit right with me. You may have studied comparative religion in school – I lived it.

I’ve seen how Buddhists, Taoists, and the general intermingled middle live. I’ve spent my childhood and teenage years being educated as a Muslim. I’ve offered thanks at Baptist churches, Shinto temples, and synagogues. I’ve argued with humanists and commiserated with agnostics. I’ve shared Deepavali curries, Chinese New Year ang paos, and Raya cookies. I’ve eaten the beef that was slaughtered for sacrifice that morning.

What didn’t sit right to me was their comparison to priest and nun shows. Catholicism and other forms of Christianity are more likely part of their upbringing in some way – Catholic school, church services, local moral values. They would be able to comment on that because they’ve lived it. But have they lived Buddhism? Or any of the other cultures they mess around with?

It reminds me of the Roma people who are annoyed at bellydancers who claim to be gypsies. Or Native Americans who resent the use of dreamcatchers and sweat lodges out of context. The meaning, the nuance, the history, the context is missing. The experience is missing. It’s been appropriated.

I never really understood appropriation. So what if they took an African pattern and put it on cloth? I wish salwhar khameez were more popular – they’re tons prettier and better than Western formal clothing! But who am I to talk about what’s appropriate to be taken and what’s not? I don’t have a culture. I don’t lay claim to one.

I didn’t know whether to be amused or bemused when I first started the Performance Innovation class and learnt that their definition of “innovation” in theatre basically revolved around taking things from other cultures and putting it into Western shows.

***

Malaysia would actually not be a bad place for burlesque. The stripping and nudity would be a problem – what would be normal stage dressing here would earn you a fine for “public indecency” in KL pronto. Clubs are never safe from raids. Stripping? What’s that?

But if you go by the definition of making the serious funny and the funny serious…just look at any mainstream newspaper or TV news slot. Just listen to the complaints at the kopitiam. The country is RICH with material! We just have to use it!

There are a number of cabaret-esque comedians and stage actors. I remember a few Singaporean names – Gurmit Singh, Hossan Leong, Kumar. I’m sure there are Malaysians too, I just can’t recall them off the top of my head. Stick a pasty on them and they’d be burlesque immediately.

Pole dancing is starting to become popular – I know of one person in KL that holds classes. The Pussycat Dolls did spark some sort of curiosity. Singapore just had Little Kelly Doll (Kelly Ann Doll) for 3 months. Could burlesque hit Malaysia next?

We could call it Malaysia Bolehks and incorporate P. Ramlee, dangdut, and joget. Or really cheesy Chinese restaurant karaoke. Maybe even some Bollywood. Start with a school pinafore – and get really cheeky? A rambutan pasty? A dance involving pulling teh tarik for miles? Who woulda thought?

I’d like to incorporate more of my cultural history into some burlesque routines. Make things more interesting and more personal. But what can I legitimately add and incorporate? What’s off limits because I do not know enough?

I don’t have a culture, remember.

Comments

1. You’ve lived it.

   Is there any other claim needed other than your own experiences? Do you really need someone “official” to acknowledge that you have a culture?

   — Naoko · Mar 13, 11:34 AM · #

2. Malaysia Bolehks

   lol, this is great!

   Do they know I spend time under the full moon with out and proud gay men and sexually-ambiguous women?

   I found this interesting and partly identified with it and partly not, because — hm, how to say. Part of it is being part of a subculture that isn’t as developed in M’sia as it is in Western countries. Like being a science fiction geek, or a slash fanfiction writer, or even just being really invested in gay rights — not that that’s a subculture, but if that’s something you’re likely to campaign for and want to talk about seriously, you’ll probably have better luck finding people to talk to outside your university’s Malaysian Students Association. But at the same time these subcultures can be very white (e.g. science fiction fandom, which has recently showed how appalling it can be on issues of race). I personally feel more comfortable and at home with the Malaysian Students Association, but of course that’s because I have that option — I fit into the right categories comfortably enough.

   But anyway, what I wanted to say was: I see what you mean and have had the same feeling, but at the same time it may be a mistake to believe that you won’t find kindred spirits among M’sians. My friends who are out and proud gay men are all M’sian — some of them are still running like hell to escape all the shit that’s tangled up with being gay in M’sia, but others look forward to going home. I mean — okay, probably if you told the people at the Malaysian Students Association that you were into burlesque dancing they would look at you funny. But you never know mah.

   It’s just that I know people who’ve closed themselves off from being Malaysian because they thought that that identity was mutually exclusive with the things they were or wanted to be — they felt they couldn’t be gay or trans and Malaysian, or maybe they even felt they couldn’t be progressive and Malaysian. And you can definitely see why they’d think so. But how are we to broaden the meaning of ‘Malaysian’ to include all these things and more, unless we lay claim to it all, and protest any attempt by anyone — including, especially, other Malaysians — to divest us of any of those identities?

   I don’t mean to say that this is easy or to dismiss your feelings of placenessness. I mean, it is all easier for me to say because I tick off the right boxes: I’m Chinese; I’m in a heterosexual relationship; if I go out at night I would rather have teh tarik and roti Hawaii at a mamak stall than go to a club of any description. I fit in. But man, I really want everybody else to fit in!

   Anyway, thanks for writing. :)

   — afrai · Apr 7, 08:50 PM · #

3. It is funny how we do not share the same ethnicity but as immigrants we share the same feelings, the same alienation. Wonderful blog.

   — Yoli · Apr 14, 02:11 AM · #