Negara serumpun kadang tak rukun (allied nations aren't always in harmony).
As we are about to touch on a sensitive subject, I apologise first if my words may have hurt you in any way. We have had some “cultural wars” every so often from batik, angklung, wayang kulit, tari pendet, tor-tor dance and gordang sambilan with our Indonesian “neighbours”.
Occasionally, this rivalry can get heated, as when the Prime Minister announced to seek recognition of Bahasa Melayu as a second language by Asean. The proposal was quickly shot down by Indonesia’s Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nadiem Makarim.
These areas are somehow the preoccupation of our governments to ensure international recognition of our “national culture”. Take for example, former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s batik campaign to seek Unesco status and promotions for tourism advertisements like Malaysia’s Truly Asia campaign.
The latter led to Malaysia and Indonesia competing to unearth a series of what they claimed were the oldest recordings and films that featured the ‘Rasa Sayang’ tune such as Usmar Ismail’s ‘Darah dan Doa’ (1950) and a Malay comedy film called ‘Rasa Sayang Eh’ (1959).
More serious problems such as transboundary haze and abuse of domestic workers add fuel to the fire, especially during the peak of anti-Malaysia Protests in 2010 at the Malaysian embassy.
Food wars
This calls to mind the long distant Konfrontasi when Indonesia objected to the very formation of Malaysia with military action in the early 1960s.
But today, its food wars that are probably closest to our hearts especially when dishes were claimed as part of national heritage campaigns placing rendang, satay, nasi lemak burger, Semarang spring rolls and Hainanese chicken rice at the centre of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singaporean (but somehow never involving Brunei) social media and news outlets.
It especially hits hard when foreign media recognises one of our foods as exceptionally tasty without acknowledging that the food is not only exclusive to one nation.
Take for example when Malaysia was left out in the Netflix series ‘Street Food Asia’, most netizens lamented that if Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore were able to be featured, why weren’t they?
When cendol was listed as CNN Travel’s “50 of the World’s Best Desserts" and that it was “Singapore’s take on the classic treat remains especially tempting”, it angered both Indonesians and Malaysians leading to heated arguments about its origins.
Sparking the food rivalry again, some pointed out that Indonesian cendol was different to the Singaporean and Malaysian kind where the former only had green rice flour jelly, coconut milk and palm sugar, the latter added sweetened red beans and corn.
Of course, it is also a uniquely Southeast Asian regional dessert with variations and combinations called Lot Chong (Thailand), Lot Song (Laos), Mont Let Saung (Myanmar) and Bánh Lọt (Vietnam/Cambodia).
I wonder if they also engage in heated food wars like us.
Shwe Yin Aye, also like a snack eaten during the Thingyan festival (Burmese New Year) like Mont Let Saung, features a slice of white bread, yes, white bread in pandan rice flour jelly, sago pearls, sweetened coconut milk, coconut jelly and sweetened sticky rice.
Before you judge, you must try it.
Caught in the middle
Other times, foreigners find themselves in the middle of such disputes such as Rio Ferdinand, a former Manchester United player, who twitted about having local food during his visit to Singapore referring to nasi goreng. Ferdinand later clarified that what he meant by “local” was “Southeast Asian”.
However, sometimes we do unite to clap back against foreigners who were ignorant about our food such as a judge on Masterchef who eliminated a contestant for not making her rendang crispy.
People are of course quick to point out that shared heritage is a thing before national boundaries exist while others opine that there is a disconnect between how Indonesians and Malays define ethnicity.
What might be considered as regional Javanese, Ambonese, Sumatran, Betawi and so on cultural heritage gets mistranslated as simply “Malaysian or Melayu cultural heritage”.
Whenever a dish is claimed to be from somewhere or a national heritage, there is also a preoccupation with a dish’s origins, recognising that the food is eaten in many places but there is a need to point to where the dish originated from to “claim” it.
Research done between 2007- 2018 on news related to cultural wars between Malaysia and Indonesia reported that “Rasa Sayange” resulted in 83,600 links and “budaya Indonesia yang diklaim Malaysia” resulted in 147,000 links, however, the latter under the news category filter only produced 9,300 links.
Negotiating national identities
Food is one way we throughout the nation practice a sort of everyday nationalism, as a symbolic solidifying of group identities and negotiating national identities.
This creates a sense of belonging that is exclusive to nation-states rather than a region and when particular nations at times package a shared culture for profit (via tourism advertisements, global recognition etc.) it leaves a big distaste.
With global media and international organisations like Unesco having some sort of authoritative power in declaring national cultures that would be protected by the nation-state, the clash of nationalism takes on another personal level having to “defend” their national identities.
Maybe there will be one day I will celebrate that there are over 100 variations of nasi goreng throughout Southeast Asia and the wider Asian region.
As there are theories of nasi goreng having origins from Southern Chinese fried rice with the introduction of Chinese wok, Middle Eastern dish pilaf or from the creation and spread of kecap manis most probably via migration and trade.
It is a culturally and socially dynamic dish. As our nation-states have constructed our heritage and looking for ways to legitimise local ownership, may it in the process also cultivate our memory of inter-cultural exchanges and openness. - Mkini
Yvonne Tan is a freelance writer and researcher interested in sociopolitical issues in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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