Opini

The island of Sumatra is one of 13, 000 islands that make up the country of Indonesia. In the Northern Central part of Sumatra live the Batak peoples, who collectively comprise around four million people, making them one of the largest ethnic groups in that country which hosts over three hundred distinct ethnolinguistic minorities. The ...

By Gan Hui Cheng If there is one adjective that describes the state of dance in Singapore, it would be “multicultural”. This was determined from the start by the diversity of the people who came from Britain, China, India and the Malay archipelago to settle here in 1819. An Indian doctor, Chotta Singh, gave Indian music and dance classes ...

By Farish A. Noor Sitting under the porch of the home of Nik Rashidi, a woodcarver in the small settlement of Pantai Cahaya Bulan,in the northern Malaysian state of Kelantan, I find myself discussing the future of traditional woodcarving and local arts. Nik Rashidi and his elder brother, Nik Rashiddin - now sadly departed - are ...

By Horst Liebner* Since the earliest times of human settlement of Indonesia, her seas have been the natural lanes of migration, communication and commerce. Not surprisingly, today‘s inhabitants of the Archipelago inherit the perhaps most sophisticated maritime tradition of our World; and, it was this bequest of seafaring and trade that ...

By Hector SantosOnce in a while, an unusual artifact different from anything else previously found in the area turns up and baffles experts. It usually ends up in a dusty museum shelf, waiting for the day when somebody will study it, understand its significance, and reveal its secrets to the world. Copperplate A small, innocent-looking ...

By Au Waipang A month or two ago, a reader of Yawning Bread sent me an email which mentioned a blog that she shared with her husband. I took a quick look at the blog and saw an interesting diary note about the husband going to Singapore‘s Immigration department, demanding to change his race as recorded in his official registration ...

By DreamhunterYour article “Who is Malay?”  has incorporated some interesting and historically sound information, such as the ancient migration of Malay peoples from Taiwan southwards to the Philippines (not its name then) to Borneo (an Anglicised version of Beruni) onward to Java, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. On the other hand, ...

By Sharyn Graham I first went to Sulawesi in August 1998 on a reconnaissance trip to determine if this would be an interesting place to study gender relations. I had read a little about gender in Sulawesi, encouraged by my supervisors Dr Greg Acciaioli and Dr Lyn Parker, but I was not quite prepared for the richness of Bugis gender ...

By Merlyna Lim As an Indonesian, of course I know about dangdut, Indonesia’s own popular take on world music. But, just like many young educated Indonesians, I am not a dangdut fan. Born and raised in Dayeuhkolot, a suburb of Bandung, I did grow up with this music. Almost every day dangdut poured out of the house of Haji Dodo, my ...

By Stephanus Djuweng Among a score of Melayu (Muslim Malay) sultanates found throughout West Kalimantan, both along its coasts and on the upper course of its rivers, there once existed a Dayak kingdom known as Kerajaan Ulu Are or Kerajaan Ulu Aik ("Kingdom of the Headwaters"), which seems to be absent from the written historical record. ...

By Rajan Rishyakaran I found your site via Res Publica, and through that found that article. I think you are generalizing quite a bit when you said, "Malaysia‘s emotional needs are different. First of all, the Malays form only a slight majority (if one excludes the native peoples of Borneo) in their own country. There is a need for ...

By James J. Fox Located on the north coast of eastern Sumbawa, Bima has played an instrumental part in the cultural history of eastern Indonesia. Linguistically Bima belongs in eastern Indonesia; its population speaks a central Malayo-Polynesian language whose closest affinities are to some of the languages of Flores and Sumba, over ...