Yogyakarta-MelayuOnline.com- There is upsurge of attention to MelayuOnline.com paid by academics at both national and international level. On Friday, October 5th, 2007, Prof. Dr. Ding Choo Ming (Principal Research Fellow, Institute of Malay World & Civilization, National University of Malaysia) visited Balai Kajian dan Pengembangan Budaya Melayu-BKPBM (Center for Research and Development of Malay Culture). On the occasion, he presented his research findings on millions of pantun and saw at first hand the activities of MelayuOnline.com.

At 03.30 p.m, Prof Ding and his group arrived at BKPBM in Gambiran Street 85A, Yogyakarta. Prof. Ding was welcomed warmly by Mahyudin Al Mudra, head of Center for Research and Development of Malay Culture. Besides observing the activities of nearly 20 crew of MelayuOnline.com, he toured the center, seeing the replication and duplication of Malay antiquity owned by the BKPBM. The process of replication was commenced in previous 4 year. He also had a look at books of the BKPBM published in cooperation with Adicita Karya Nusa publisher, Yogyakarta.

The tour on the activities of center and MelayuOnline.com was followed by presentation. The first presentation was delivered by Prof. Dr. Heddy Shri Ahimsa-Putra (Lecturer at Faculty of Anthropology, Gadjah Mada University). He talked about Malay culture and knowledge corpus. Following that, Mahyudin gave brief presentation in vision and mission of BKPBM and MelayuOnline.com

In his visit to BKPBM, Prof. Ding presented his extensive work in which he tries to collect the scattered Malay pantun of Nusantara. He has dedicated most of his time, about 23 years, to collective search of Malay culture, especially writing and oral tradition of Malay. It is no wonder then if he is titled as Orang Cina Bukan Cina-OCBC (Chinese but not Chinese). “The decreasing interest of young generation in Malay culture preservation is the result of minimum support of Malay governments toward the Malay culture” said Prof. Ding. It is also due to difficulties to find, to observe and to study Malay cultural expressions (physical and non-physical). One of the examples is the rareness of book talking about Malay culture.       

In his research for collecting millions of pantun, Prof. Ding has already made several visits to different villages, settlements, cities, and islands in Nusantara. Why the pantun?. He said that the pantun is original product of Malay culture. The pantun, as he explained, constitutes the very identity of Malay that is capable of bridging differences of all Malays in the world. Revitalizing the culture means maintaining the future, and freeing from duplicating Western foreign cultures.

25 minutes later, after the calling of adzan maghrib, the dialogue was interrupted with breaking fast and maghrib prayer together. In the occasion, Prof. Ding showed his appreciation to the attempts of BKPBM to collect, preserve, and promote various Malay cultural heritage. “Honestly, I am impressed personally with endeavors of BKPBM and MelayuOnline.com crew” explained Prof. Ding. Further, he said, “The cultural activity of BKPBM and MelayuOnline.com still continues in spite of the absence of financial support from government and private sectors”.

“The systematic structure of the www.melayuonline.com, hard work, commitment and consistency of the crew ensure that the future of Malay data harbor is here. The website will be a leading provider of comprehensive data on Malay culture”, as he said. “The most comprehensive data on Malay heritage will be here, not in foreign countries such as Dutch which owns merely Malay manuscripts brought after the decline of Malay Sultanates”

As MelayuOnline.com and Malaycivilization.com have vision in common, both agreed to maintain intellectual cooperation in various forms. Prof Ding will try to create relationship between MelayuOnline.com with Institute of Malay World and Civilization, National University of Malaysia, especially in terms of sharing the data on Malay. In addition, he will promote the website to all Malay researchers in Malaysia and the world. Regarding the building capacity for human resources, he will inform and invite the MelayuOnline.com crew to attend academic seminars on culture and the other way around.

At the end of the dialogue, Mahyudin presented some gifts from BKPBM and some books on pantun to Prof. Ding as an appreciation to his attempt to preserve and promote the Malay culture. 

(HQ/ter/75/10-07)

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