Rasa Sayange
Oct 24th, 2007, in News, by PatungMalaysian theft of the “Rasa Sayange” song.
“Rasa Sayange” is a traditional or folk song believed to have come from the eastern Indonesian islands of Maluku, or the Moluccas, whose modern version was first recorded in the 1950’s. Following is a recording of it:
However in the latest instalment of the “Truly Asia” advertising campaign the song has been appropriated by the Malaysian Tourism Office in its efforts to portray the country as a multi-cultural, multi-religious paradise, and thereby woo gullible western tourists who don’t know any better. Here is the ad:
The new minister for Law and Human Rights, Andi Matalata, says his department is currently examining what legal measures it can take against Malaysia for stealing the song.
Meanwhile the Department of Tourism is said to be “traumatised” by the theft. The minister, Jero Wacik, says the song was first recorded by Lokananta in 1958, however he is sceptical that any legal measures will succeed against Malaysia and simply hopes for some sort of “moral” victory. hukumonline
There is also a Chinese version:
59 Comments on “Rasa Sayange”
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Aganz says:
Well.. Since Malaysian Malays originated from Indonesia and since Malaysia seems so fond of Indonesian culture, cuisine, and islands… They should simply reintegrate themselves with Indonesia to form an “Indonesia Raya” or Greater Indonesia…
I’m sure this Republic can accomodate the Kingdom/Diraja Malaysia as a new “Daerah Istimewa”, just like the Sultanate of Jogjakarta is.. After that, those “former Malaysians” can claim as much Indonesian culture, cuisine, or islands as they want… Just like the Javanese can claim that “Masakan Padang” is Indonesian, the Bugis claiming that Borobudur is Indonesian, or the Papuans claiming that the Island of Java is Indonesian… and no one is going to dispute that claim… 🙂
Malaysia always claimed that Malaysia and Indonesia are “Bangsa Serumpun” or “Saudara Serumpun”.. (anyone can help me translate that to English..?). Then why the heck are they so annoying..?? Brothers should respect and cooperate with each other.. especially since Indonesia is the older brother (our civilization is indeed older than Malaysian’s).
On the lighter side… I’m really fond of Malaysia’s Siti Nurhaliza… Wonder if it’s ok to claim her as Indonesian (she does spend a lot of time in Indonesia entertaining us with her concerts… well.. she used to anyway)
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Raden says:
What bothering us is the Malaysian like to attribute us as the ‘Indon’, well malaysian get used to know our maid workers there then portray us like a maid society, look-down on us & generalize all of us and become arrogant ‘young brothers’. Malaysian so arrogant till they never acknowledge if the Indonesian have the best archeolog, geologist, metalurgist, land / ocean surveyor specialist, the authentic Javanese scriptures owners, Malay rich historian & expertises, traditional herbal medicines, etc etc … we have lots of long list that proved we hv higher civilization than the Malaysian full stop.
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iamisaid says:
Raden, what you have said is too diplomatically mild.
Going by what is being reported in Malaysia (http://www.malaysia-today.net/index.shtml), and if time is given to read through pages and pages of comments at that blogsite, let me assure you that in many aspects, Indonesia surpasses Malaysia.
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Pakmantri says:
So, what’s new, just listen to their national anthem and then listen to a very old Indonesian song called “Terang Bulan” …………. 🙂
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Phil Hicker says:
Hmmphhh it is Indonesia’s own fault that all of our cultures are claimed by other countries. This is because Indonesia is stupid! It does not appreciate its own culture until it realizes that its culture is ‘stolen’ by other countries. Indonesia is always proud of being ‘arabised’ or ‘americanised’ and has never been proud of its own culture. Therefore it’s a logical consequence that it’s culture is claimed by other nations. One more thing, there is something called patent right, and if Indonesia is not stupid enough, from now on they might want to implement patent right may be?
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Tinkerbell says:
The easiest way to kick-ass the Malaysian snobs is by giving our best efforts to Indonesia. DO THE BEST FOR YOUR COUNTRY !!!!!
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Phil Hicker said
Indonesia is always proud of being ‘arabised’ or ‘americanised’ and has never been proud of its own culture.
Does this translates to Indonesians are not proud of their own culture? You haven’t lived here or hung out with the wrong crowd, perhaps. Maybe leave Jakarta and go to smaller towns and see how people are? There are few people that translates “Islam” with “Arab”. And for Americanization, who aren’t, with MTV and McDonalds on the streets. That is small numbers compared to the other side of the coin. Just heavily exposed by the media because it sells.
There are many, plenty I should say, that are still proud of their heritage and still speak their dialect, attend and have cultural ceremonies in their families (7 bulanan, new born, all the wedding gaga). Or go to Bali, aside from spending time at Double Six every night, go and do some cultural tour to see how proud the local people are when they do the art with the silver, statues, dancing etc. Go to Menado, Ambon, Sumatra, the Banda Islands, in the evenings they proudly sing their local songs after dinner until dawn. Even in the vocal groups in restaurants (some restaurants have like 4 people coming to your table to sing, I recall those restaurants), some of the requests are the traditional songs, mainly from Maluku, North Sumatra, Manado, aside from Latin songs! (not much request on Malaysian songs, surprisingly).
Although I lived mostly outside Medan (I grew up with North Sumatran culture), as most of my generations are, we still get together and attend ceremonial gatherings and know what to call ‘the younger brother of your father”, or “the aunt of your mother from her father’s side”, which is not simply just “uncle” and “auntie”. And if you don’t know how to call them properly, you will be called “tidak tahu adat” or “uncultured”, which is embarrassing. Or which side of the family does all the work when that side of family is having an occasion (Mora, Anak Boru, Kahanggi, etc). You, as a westerner can say, “It’s not important, why make a fuss”, but yes, it is important to know all this. And, learn them. And we are proud if we know this. And my other friends from other area are impressed that I know this.
Maybe being and Indonesian who has the opportunity to travel around due to my hobby gives me the chance to visit places and interract with the people. Well, just in my office, the menadonese here still speak their dialect with the other menadonese and pretty articulate when I ask them about their cultures and how they do things in events such as weddings or funerals. Same with the Javanese, Acehnese and South Sumatrans. And they know, and they practise it, too.
And we are proud we have our cultures and inter cultural-marriages these days makes it even good because we get exposed to other culture and understand them, and even have the blend of it.
My advise to you, and all of you here, try to hang out and talk to the average Indonesians, go travelling, and talk to the people. I don’t know about the background of Indonesians who blog in IM, I know some are married to foreigners and don’t live here, but I would bet that they are still proud of batik, kebaya and ukir-ukiran Indonesia.
I would bet Achmad Sudarsono holds on tight to the Javanese culture, just ask him 🙂
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Tuan says:
Jealousy can be a bitch sometimes….lol. If my brahs in Malaysia can do a better job than Indonesians, then more power to them. From my experience interacting with Malaysians and Indonesians students who come to America for studies, Malaysians seem to be more secure about their identity (ethnic and religious) than Indonesians, but its easy to be that way when your country is a raising economic power and your former prime minister (M. Mohammad) had the balls to stand up for his country and his people.
~Tuan – Malaysian .. i mean Indonesian-American Muslim
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Violet says:
Agree with Parvita
Malaysia is sucks and proud of them shelves as a thief!!?? What Ashamed!!Rasa sayange” is a title of Indonesian folk song sung by the people of Mollucas in the Eastern of part Indonesia. Although no official facts recorded, this song was believed created by Ambonese man, the late Paulus Pea.
# “Rasa Sayange” song was recorded by PT Lokananta, Solo, Indonesia on August 15, 1962 on gramophone disc. The master copy of this first record is still kept by PT Lokananta. This is known as the first recording of this song
# The gramophone disc was distributed as souvenirs to the participants of the 1962 Asian Games IV in Jakarta, and the “Rasa Sayange” song was one of the Indonesian folklores on the disc, together with other Indonesian ethnic groups’ folk song such as Sorak-sorak Bergembira, O Ina ni Keke and Sengko Sengko Dainang
# Since 1960’s “Rasa Sayange” song has been introduced to kindergarten children, making it one of the most popular folk song in Indonesia
# The use of ‘e’ at the end of ‘Sayange’ is the dialect tone of Ambonese Malay, which distinguish them with the other ethnic groups in Malay ArchipelagoSo No matter what Malaysian or other people says,
But it is a fact that one cannot claim copyright just because one knows or was taught about it. -
Aganz: Bangsa serumpun = Same Root.
Part of Indonesians, the western part of the Wallace line, are Malay. That includes Java, Sumatra, Borneo, to Bali.
Geographically speaking, west of the Wallace line are what we call the “Sunda Platform”, therefore the flora and the fauna is pretty similar. While east of the Wallace line, you see more flora and fauna closer to Australia. For instance, you won’t find wobeggong shark if you dive in the Bali, and you won’t see Sumatran Tiger in Irian Jaya.
The Wallace line is somewhere in Sulawesi (Celebes), down to probably between Sumba-Flores. This makes Sulawesi has the most diverse flora and fauna.
If you look at the people, the eastern Indonesian people looks more aboriginal (I always recognize them from their typical nose!). They are not Malays, of course. Very different from the western Indonesian people. Up at Sulawesi and part of Borneo, they mix with the Chinese. Therefore you see Menadonese, who has yellowish skin colour. Different from the Javanese and Sumatrans, who are brownish. Pretty amazing, not only the people, but also the animals and the plants are diverse in Indonesia. That’s why I don’t feel the urge to go diving to Thailand or Malaysia despite of their tourism propaganda (and I do believe that they do have great diving spots, too). I’ve got handful in my own country already and I don’t have to pay that ridiculous fiscal! If there is any place I would dive outside Indonesia, it will be in the Phillipines, and that is because of the WW II shipwrecks.
If we go back to the Majapahit time, Malaysia was part of Nusantara, together with Phillipines, Thailand. And do you know which part of Nusantara was not under Majapahit? West Java. They have their own strong kingdom there, called Padjadjaran.
So the claim about “Saudara Serumpun” is cliche, especially Molucca is not the same root with Malaysia. But Molucca is Indonesia.
Why don’t you guys complain about things that actually matter, such as government corruption, FPI running amok, etc.
We already have, Darling.
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50-50 says:
There’s surprising ignorance, in Indonesia, on the ethnicity of the Malays in Malaysia. Legally in Malaysia, as defined in the Malaysian Constitution (the highest law of the country), a Malay is not necessarily of any ethnic group but one who professes Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language and adopts the Malay customs (whatever that may mean). Many Malays in Malaysia today have forefathers who migrated from all parts of Indonesia including from Maluku (Moluccas). Even recent Indonesians who become Malaysian citizens will inevitably be classified as Malays by the time their sons/daughters go to school. Mawi, a popular young singer in Malaysia is a Malay but his late father was a first generation Javanese. The Menteri Besar (the equivalent of Governor in Indonesia) of a rich State in Malaysia is also of Javanese origin. So even if a folk song such as Rasa Sayange originates from Indonesia, particularly Maluku, it is not “stolen” by Malaysia but “brought” by the Indonesian people who migrated here and over time become Malays.
Why did Indonesians migrated in throngs to Malaysia since early 20th century? Because there were always better opportunities in Malaysia. Many participants of the highly successful government poverty eradication programme FELDA in the 1960s were people of Indonesian origin. Even today (while Malaysian citizenship was more sparingly granted these days) there are about 2 million Indonesian “legal” workers in Malaysia and another estimated 1 million “illegal” workers. 3 million workers or about 14% of Malaysia’s population of 22 million! Not counting workers from Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and China! At estimated average of RM200 per month sent home, the 3 million Indonesian workers are “exporting” to Indonesia RM600 million (USD171 million) a month or RM7.2 billion (USD 2.1 billion) a year. That’s a lot of injecton into the Indonesian economy. Additionally, Malaysian companies have been the largest investors in Indonesia since 2006.
The millions of Indonesian (and other) immigrant workers are also taxing the Malaysian public facilities. These workers and their childeren enjoy the relatively better public facilities (compared to most other developing nations) such as hospital and school which are either free or of nominal cost in Malaysia, but without generally contributing into the system through income taxes, assessments and such like.
Lastly, if we are so parochial about origin, what about Indonesian names like Wijaya, Budikesuma, Dharmajaya, Dewa, Dewi, Ratu, etc, etc – these are all from Sanskrit, the ancient language of the Hindus. Shouldn’t the Indians be concerned about their names being stolen?
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taxpayer says:
50-50:
Not to be nit-picky but your numbers are….well…WAY OFF!!
There are roughly 240,000 foreign workers in Malaysia of which 90% are maids.
ACCORDING TO MALAYSIA”S OWN WEBSITE SEE BELOW:
________________________________________________________________________Maids in Malaysia :
The minimum salaries of the maids are usually fixed by agreements between Malaysian Immigration and the countries of origin of the maids. For example, the minimum required for Indonesian maids is RM360 and for Filipinos is RM760.
________________________________________________________________________
Now, you can accurately readjust your numbers to accurately reflect the economic situation for those employees: RM200 a month being sent back to Indonesia? Well…ok…let’s say it is so. That would be roughly RM36,000,000 being sent back to Indo if 1/2 the maids were Indonesian.Why the Indonesian government negotiated their minimum salaries to less then 50% of Filipino maids is beyond me and perhaps another blog idea.
Now, if we throw in human trafficking the numbers would rise slightly. We also have not accounted for the employers docking their maid levy fee from the salary of the maids. Thus, foreign maids do not get paid during the first few months of employment to cover the levy.
Ok…now…continue the blog.
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@Concerned Teacher:
Please give the official government’s website you mentioned – if that exists it’s totally outdated. The numbers of workers I quoted were the latest from recent Malaysian newspapers (I can search which edition if you insist), but for the moment I can quote http://www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amn060731/southeast/malaysia060731.htm which gives the figures as of March last year (2006): 1,850,063 legal foreign workers in Malaysia, of which 1,215,036 were from Indonesia.
RM360 per month minimum salary for Indonesian maid you mentioned is also grossly out of date. It’s now minimum RM400/month (Rp 1 million), which is of course nearly 4 times the salary they get in say Jakarta as maids. How do I know? My wife’s family in Jakarta has two maids and we ourselves in Kuala Lumpur has two Indonesian maids – so we know. Filipino maid gets higher, RM700/mth minimum supposedly because they speak English.
Malaysian family who needs an Indonesian maid typically pays RM4,000 (Rp 10 million) to a maid’s agency, the bulk of this actually goes to the Indonesian agent which handles the maid. This amount, contrary to what you said, is the agency fee and is not, never deducted from the maid’s salary. Incidentally, Malaysian government only approves employment of maid to a family with household income of more than RM10,000 (Rp 25 million) per month and with either children or old age parents living in.
Again your figure that 90% of Indonesian workers in Malaysia are maids is inaccurate. Majority of immigrant workers in Malaysia are in construction, plantation, electronic and services sectors, typically earning between RM700 to RM1500 per month.
The estimated RM200 per month sent home per worker? This is the amount both my maids sent back home (Sumatera) and they often asked me to use my banking facilities to send on their behalf. We paid our maids RM500/mth each, they live, eat and go for holidays with us, so their salaries are almost wholly savings. I would imagine the male construction workers to send more home.
Thank you.
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Idam H. says:
A better way to solve this nonsense polemic is to find who is/are the author(s) of the song. If it is found, then Malay government should put a credit in their publications if they use the song. A song does not belong to a country. It is the copyright of the author(s).
If we cannot find the name of the authors, then it is useless to say this song belongs to Malaysia or Indonesia. It is world public property.
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TheWrathOfGrapes says:
Rasa Sayang is also very popular in Singapore, although Singaporeans do not claim that it originated there. In fact, it is one of the few Malay (okay, okay, make that Indonesian) songs that Singaporeans of all races can sing. It is almost a national song, in the sense that most can relate to it, not that it was made in “Singapore”.
If Malaysia can plagiarized its own National Anthem, “Negaraku”, what else is forbidden? Negaraku was copied from “Terang Bulan”, which in turn was copied from “Mamula Moon”.
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ellemon says:
malaysia is not trully asia…
they’re stealers, they steal our song, our 2 islands (sipadan and ligitan which indonesians shamefully lost in the icj), our batik fabric (which the malaysian naively said that it originated form their country), and even waynang. Our culture and land is literally being stolen day by day, until what..one day we will wake up to find that indonesia has no more culture cause it is stolen by the malays??? -
malaysia is not trully asia”¦
they’re stealers, they steal our song, our 2 islands (sipadan and ligitan which indonesians shamefully lost in the icj), our batik fabric (which the malaysian naively said that it originated form their country), and even waynang. Our culture and land is literally being stolen day by day, until what..one day we will wake up to find that indonesia has no more culture cause it is stolen by the malays???To be honest, Indonesia has no culture when compared to Malaysia. Indonesians are too busy worrying about appearing “Western” while Malaysia is a bit more bold in being more “Asian”. If Indonesia has a culture its merely borrowed from anyone that has landed on the islands (Indian, Arab, Chinese, Dutch, English, Bule, etc.)
And why is everyone complaining about a silly song. Not to sound insensitive but who cares..its just a song.
Btw, Indonesians and Malaysians are from the same ethnic stock. Y’all should be brothers and sisters. I find it really odd that some Indonesians turn this “conflict” with Malaysia like it were the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of SE Asia. Please! LOL! Get over it!
~Tuan Indonesian-American Muslims
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Andrew says:
ellemon said:
malaysia is not trully asia”¦
they’re stealers, they steal our song, our 2 islands (sipadan and ligitan which indonesians shamefully lost in the icj), our batik fabric (which the malaysian naively said that it originated form their country), and even waynang. Our culture and land is literally being stolen day by day, until what..one day we will wake up to find that indonesia has no more culture cause it is stolen by the malays???DUDE, let’s talk about the general disturbing trend here: don’t you realize that Indonesia is slowly making EVERYONE around it its enemy? You always feel like everyone is cheating & taking advantage of you. It used to be (actually, still is) Australia, then Singapore, now Malaysia. Why do you feel so insecure? Indonesia may be (physically) big but it acts like a toddler.
Sipadan & Ligitan – whose fault is that? why didn’t you take care of your islands? too many to take care of? well let them go to the hands that can take care of ’em better.
Are you too young to remember East Timor? didn’t we “steal” it as well, WITH FORCE?
What about Irian Barat…didn’t we steal it either? don’t tell me that Irian Barat was part of Indonesia, the people living there don’t even look similar to the rest of Indonesia.
And now you say they are “stealer” :)) ??? Look who’s talking.
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Mira says:
Hi Tuan..Im not sure if you are familiar with scholarly writing or not, I’m assuming you are far away from that..
Be careful of saying that Indonesia doesn’t owned a culture..I guess you never seriously learn about it….Indonesia has a lot more culture than just assimilation with those you named…learn before you speak..learn history ( I mean seriously, learn it )……
anyway, if you think that it’s solely about a song you are totally wrong…..it’s a matter of people claimed what they don’t owned….even ISLAM (if u considered u are Muslim) teach us not to do so….don’t say something you don’t know and act like you know it…..
for Malaysian friends….I understand you are now better in everything than us….isn’t that enough for you? We don’t start a war (if this is what people say) with u….and u don’t want to start a war with us…..we fight for our freedom..U were given freely….that makes us different..we will fight again..that’s no question about that….
peace upon u all….Salam….
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Dragonwall says:
Psychologically he wants people to show him respect with his nick.
BTW did American had their own culture? Name me one except the Indians who had travelled from south to the north.
So how could you comment by saying that Indonesian doesn’t have a culture?
So what is culture? You developed it right? then what? Eat it, shaft it? Of course you live with it! When your gp came to America they brought along their culture and live with that till this day. Over the years when you have been naturaolized you claimed yourself to be Americans. Differentiate the root and culture.
don’t say something you don’t know and act like you know it”¦..
Indonesian has may cultures originated from various roots of origin like Bataks and aborigines.
So since you have said that and your knowledge into Islam is that immense can you tell us how di the Quran originated and written by who? Has that got anything to do with the Bibles? (I mean I am not a christian) Why is the Khabath being surrounnded with black clothes? What is inside that?
Sometimes knowledge may not necessary be the truth.
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Enigmatic says:
Why are they suing Malaysia only NOW??
The song Rasa Sayange was used by the Ministry of Education in Singapore for the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Central Judging of Concert Bands in 2005. In fact it was used as the set piece i.e every secondary school and junior college band competing that year MUST play the song. (I was one of the performers)
Yet I don’t see anyone in the Indonesian Government protesting about it. No lawsuits, no protests, nothing.
Why?
Was it because of money? Because our Tourism Board knows Malaysia can earn more with a song in their advertisement? Or was it because our tourism ministry needs attention?
Perhaps our tourism board is just too incompetent and hence needs to resort to such measures to show themselves as trying to be competent. Otherwise, why would this be happening? I think it’s more due to the Indonesian Government’s incompetence and spineless leadership to protect intellectual property rights and the people’s cultural rights. This has allowed Malaysia to do such things time and time again.
If you do shopping in KLIA then you realized that Malaysian are lazy, they simply resell our traditional hand-crafted gift for tourist in those gift shops. Pls check all kind of Indonesian hand-crafted gifts in Sarinah Jakarta are put up for sale in those gift shops along the KLIA shopping corridors “¦ you will see those are identicals products, the blangkon, the batik, the Javanese masks, the Wayangs, the wooden craft, etc etc .
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Of all that was written here I can find one word to summarize the whole issue.
RETALIATION…….
Because the Malaysian had on many ocassion mistreat, illtreat TKI without any compensations to them…
Such a silly way to retaliate. It just show the Indonesian are out of wits as pitted against the Malaysians.
Be more creative!…….
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The Malaysians did it for a song and Indonesian retalitate it by using a song.
Saves the arms and ammunitions.
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pj_bali says:
For those of you concerned with the blatent theft of cultural icons please check out indcoups’ posting of November 9. How can Indonesians complain when they do the same damm thing.
http://indcoup.blogspot.com/
cheers
ps
the caption is especially ironic. i still can’t stop laughing… -
Indonesian people are pathetic– unfortunately I am an Indonesian. This whole debate is stupid, but actually makes sense looking at how far Indonesians have come from independence (not much) — the stupidity of the debate fits the typical profile of people who haven’t gone far from their primitive lot.
We like to play to victim really, just our way to avoid responsibility and run away easy. We need to jump over our non-existant moral high horse, or maybe we like get run over by it. Just get over it! We are not better than Malaysians, right now we are not much better than any country. Our pathetic snobery is not getting us anywhere. Anyway, you can’t copyright a song whose individual authorship is unknown, it’s fair game. Indonesians are born plagiarists period, it’s the way we live our lives. We like to cheat and are proud of it (there are just too many songs that I can list Indonesians have plagiarized from the whole world), but we like to gripe about it when our used to be lesser neighbour– who right now is making it big and getting more prosperous — is doing those things we probably taught them to do as part of their daily lives (we know a lot of malaysians went to school in Indonesia when they weren’t anything yet and we were their great big brother, this time was probably how a lot of malaysians learned to live as plagiarists you see–maybe :D).
Pot and Kettle, it’s the same black.
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Tirta says:
M’sia has been stealing indonesia’s achievements all these while. The reason why m’sians know many indonesian folk songs is because long time ago some indonesian tribe moved to negeri sembilan. Look at m’sia historical buildings. They have the minang shape for the roof. Did m’sia have any minang tribe last time??? It’s all from indonesia. Indonesia is creative. Doesn’t mean the language used is almost the same means m’sia can take everything.
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You said
The reason why m’sians know many indonesian folk songs is because long time ago some indonesian tribe moved to negeri sembilan Did m’sia have any minang tribe last time??? It’s all from indonesia. Indonesia is creative. Doesn’t mean the language used is almost the same means m’sia can take everything.
Or is perhaps the other way?
And what about the Dayaks in Kalimantan, are they from Malaysia or did they steal from Indonesia.
Or did the Dutch brought them first to Malacca?
So in Japan there are many structural building quite similar to Chinese and looks something Minangkabau and I also suppose they also stole them.
I think we should get China to get it back from Japan and make them pay for it.
And Batick printing was stolen from Javanese and Balinese and songket manufacturing were also stolen from Aceh, they also all stole them from Indonesia!
I wonder when these attitudes will change for Indonesians.
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Sol says:
I’m sorry to say this but some of the Indonesian users here can only go on prattling about how Malaysia ‘stole’ Indonesian culture and nothing else. They hardly ever produce any new sound points. They don’t even address the issue of why Indonesia only bothered about Rasa Sayange NOW.
Some Indonesian users here also go on complaining about how others haven’t really ‘seen’ or really ‘understood’ Indonesia and its culture, but they themselves have not made any effort to understand Malaysia. Instead they go for the convenient route of the victim mindset, trying to call Malaysia names. How mature.
Marv2000 has a good point:
“If Malaysian admit that we are originally of Jawa, Madura, Bawean, Ambon, Bugis, Aceh, Riau or any other ethnicities that I cannot recall (am a mix of Jawa +Bugis myself) then the Indonesian are accusing us of stealing from ourself. Does blow your mind.”
Also please don’t simply accuse us Malaysians of blatantly and completely ignoring the origin of some of things in Malaysia. My school is one of the several schools in Malaysia selected for the music curriculum and we learn traditional instruments that are available in Malaysia. I’ve been a part of the Gamelan troupe. Yet we KNOW that these things originated from Indonesia, they were brought over by Indonesian settlers that came over centuries ago. We actually LEARN them, they’re in our textbooks and they are acknowledged by the Malaysian Government.
iamisaid brought up the fact that there are Malaysian food with names like Lontong, Gado-Gado etc. May I add Mee Jawa too. We even have roads named after Indonesian ethnicities like the Bugis and Javanese, for example here in my city Kuching there’s even a village named Kampung Jawa as a recognition of the Javanese settlers in Kuching. Aren’t these proof enough that we acknowledge their Indonesian origins?
Of course, in pursuing their victim mindsets there are Indonesians who would happily bypass these facts.
Maybe next the Indonesians will want to claim Malaysian royalties of Indonesian-ethnic descent for themselves.
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The Malaysian stealing of the Indonesian songs is not the only one. If you do shopping in KLIA then you realized that Malaysian are lazy, they simply resell our traditional hand-crafted gift for tourist in those gift shops. Pls check all kind of Indonesian hand-crafted gifts in Sarinah Jakarta are put up for sale in those gift shops along the KLIA shopping corridors … you will see those are identicals products, the blangkon, the batik, the Javanese masks, the Wayangs, the wooden craft, etc etc . Only Malaysian air stewardess batik dress that is Malaysian original design.
So, the Malaysian are get used of it & too lazy to innovate … they used to anyway …