Two months of plain idling. Finally. I'm working again! Finally, doing something i like. Doing something i enjoy and look forward to each and every other day.
It should have been a great week.
I have the habit of reading the daily papers from the back page. Something which i did since i was in secondary school. Those were the days when teenaged sports enthusiasts like us read the papers mainly because it featured the sports section. The days when Jordan scored baskets with his tongue a la a panting hound. The days when Agassi and Michael Chang were still featured on Nintendo. Flipping the papers from the back since then had become such a routine that it never ceased. Even when i absolutely abhor sports today. Who cares if someone had or was affectionately called golden balls?
I caught sight of a picture featured on one of the back pages yesterday. Not in the sports section. Obituary. I'd prayed then he wasn't whom i'd though he was. Page after page, i precariously flipped from the back. Not reading. I knew what i had hoped not to see. Page one of the Home section.
While most engineering students would stick to "safer"modules in their course of study, i preferred doing subjects i liked. I liked materials science. So, i enrolled in a specialisation programme in that. I like arts and social sciences as well. I did Film and History. I did Cultures in the Contemporary World. It was the latter which is taught by Prof. Ananda.
Prof Ananda was a very charismatic lecturer. His lectures were always filled with wit and humor. He loved food. Did you know that a simple dish like Tahu Goreng says a lot about culture? What about Mee Siam? Or even McDonald's? He would often say he's a good cook. And everyone said so.
Race. An everyday word. But did you know of its discourse? Did you know that the term "race" served to divide the human population? Or did you know this term served just as one big excuse for colonial Europe to discriminate other ethnic groups? I knew. Cause Prof Ananda enlightened us.
In memory of a very good man, my term paper i did in Cultures:
Culture is not a static phenomenon. Most people would mistakenly identify it otherwise. When asked for their perspectives of cultures in Singapore, most would gladly reply that Singapore is a multicultural, multiracial society. Though I shall not elaborate or dwell on the discourse relating to the controversial use of the term “multiracial” or that of “race” in particular, the broader concept of a culture and its relationship and effects on or by Man will be explored. Culture is not another word representing ethnicity, as most people would have perceived. In Singapore, most would link their various forms of ethnicity with that of culture and say that there is Chinese culture, Malay culture, Indian culture and probably an “Others” culture. The very point which they have missed out or overlooked is that ethnicity and culture is not a substitute of one another. No doubt their relationships are intimate, but they should not be confused with one another.
In this very paper, I shall illustrate the relationships between culture and kinship, ethnicity and interethnic marriages. Even more so do I want to illustrate the culture is an umbrella covering these aspects and that culture is not static and finite, but ever changing with its environment and surroundings. To accomplish this, I would use my family tree as an illustration and discussion tool.
To begin with, I will briefly set the layout of my kinship. As seen from the kinship diagram, I am represented by the shaded ego. Regrettably, line tracing could not be done to the fullest as surviving members have little or no knowledge of affinal relatives. As such names and descendents of certain family members could not be injected into the kinship diagram.
In depth discussions can now be made after the brief outline of my kinship. Probably the most appalling, if not significant portion of the kinship diagram is that of my father and mother. Looking closer, you would have realized that my mother owns the same surname as my father, while her siblings have names which are in Malay. Tracing my mother’s lineage, one can’t help but notice that her parents as well as her grandparents have Malay names. This is in fact because of my mother’s a Malay by ethnic group and that of the interracial marriage between her and my father.
Contradictory to the Muslim customs whereby a man has to convert to the Islamic faith upon marrying a Malay woman, my parents did otherwise. It is known to all Muslims in the Islamic world that it is only right for a non-Muslim man to “masuk melayu” if he were to marry a Muslim girl. Here is an instance where we see the relationship between religion and culture. While there is no hard and fast rule or legislature that a non-Muslim man had to switch his religion compulsorily, culture expects him to do so. The very point of “masuk melayu”, or entering the Malay community and “becoming” Malay, serves as a binding force that integrates the protagonist into the Malay community. It must be noted here that I have used the Malay and Muslim terms almost interchangeably due to the cultural perspective that most Malays are Muslims. Thus, to diverge from this cultural “rule” of “masuk melayu” is tantamount to betraying the whole of the Malay community. As a result of her marriage with my father, my mother was disacknowledged by her immediate family and hence casted out of the Malay community. Ironically as it might seem, what served to be the purpose of “masuk melayu” turned out to be otherwise. As a result of being outcasted by the Muslim community and her immediate family, knowledge of my mother’s lineage is limited to memories of her childhood and teenage years. It is also because of this that line tracing could not be done to the fullest and had to be constrained to just her own siblings as well as her parents and grandparents. In other words, consanguineal links are more prominent compared to affinal links over at my mother’s branch of lineage. Kinship terminologies are introduced and explained by Linda Stone [1].
As evident in my kinship diagram, descent in Chinese family is patrilineal which is based on links through the males only. The womenfolk marry into the males’ family and take their surnames or family names. As such, their sons or daughters will in turn inherit the surnames that of their parents. While sons retain their family names when they in turn marry wives, daughters would have to “drop” theirs and marry into other families. As such, in olden, premodern or postmodern times, Chinese prefer to have sons rather than daughters in view of carrying on with their family line or descent. Embedded within the issue of patrilineal descent of the Chinese community is that of demise of a family member. In the event of the passing away of a parent, his funeral rites are to be carried out by his sons. In a situation where he or she only has daughters, last rites could not be performed conventionally. This is thus seen as a reiteration of the demise of the family line. Looking from a wider perspective, as a prevention of such situations from occurring, premodern Chinese couples without a male heir would adopt one. Adoption served as a means to carry on with one’s patrilineal descent. When China was still implementing the one-child policy in order to curb its rising population, patrilineal descent patterns were somehow threatened. Daughters were given away by their parents, though illegally done so.
Interethnic marriage which is also accompanied by a religious change may involve a total change in the descent system or pattern or in a kinship system. Religious conflicts arising from interethnic marriages had been brought forward by several authors [2, 3]. Take for example that of a Chinese-Malay interethnic marriage. Osman Chua had discussed on the issues pertaining to the Chinese Muslims; issues like interactions between Chinese Muslims and other ethnic groups and practices of Chinese Muslim customs by Chinese Muslim converts [4]. The effects of interethnic marriages on kinship systems had been discussed previously by Hassan and Benjamin [5]. As seen from the arguments above, descent is patrilineal in a Chinese community. However, an interethnic marriage with a Malay would change this. Upon marrying a Muslim lady, the male protagonist would have to change his Chinese name to that of a Malay one, representing his dedication and willingness to commute with the Muslim society. With his change of name, and thus family name, he has broken the lineage pattern from that of his parents and ancestors because his family no longer owns his family name. In a Malay community descent is cognatic or bilateral, which are based on links through both men and women. In an exaggerated but not incredible case, if a Chinese family had only one descendent to carry on their family line and this male descendent marries a Muslim girl, it would signify the end of that particular Chinese family line. That would also signify a change in cultures in both families. Changing lifestyles and dietary habits are some of these cultural changes. As we must have known that Muslims do not take pork nor drink alcohol; this male Muslim convert can no longer do so if that was what he did before. He, being entered into the Malay community, would have to follow their way of life, from their “Asalamulaikum” greetings to more religious observance like saying his prayers daily. This is a huge cultural change. It signifies a change in what people would see as a Chinese culture to a Malay one. By culture here, I mean the general way of life which these two different forms of ethnic groups have.
Cultures can be seen from various levels, not limiting itself to merely ethnicity. An example would be that of a Chinese Muslim. If it is Hari Raya Puasa, would he celebrate? The answer is no doubt yes, since he is a Muslim and is expected to celebrate with his Muslim counterparts. And now if it is Chinese New Year, would he celebrate? Admittedly, I too had qualms initially. But the answer is too, yes. While he has entered Malayhood, he too is still a Chinese by ethnicity. It is filial piety and respect that he celebrates the Chinese New Year with his parents, elders and siblings. As a matter of fact, Chinese New Year is not a religious festival and is celebrated by Chinese collectively regardless whether one is a Buddhist, Christian or Muslim. As we can see now, this Chinese-Muslim would have a different set of lifestyle; neither that of a Chinese nor Malay. We see a hybridization of both cultures. Hence, culture can be perceived from different angles, not just that from an ethnicity perspective.
There are many other issues with regard to an interethnic marriage which I have not discussed. We would have expected food to be different for one. Osman [4] briefly discussed the food and drinks patterns of Chinese Muslims. There would be hybridity and “borrowing” of foods from different ethnic groups. Chua and Ananda [6] explored the hybridity of food in their research. “Islamization” of Chinese food was introduced with one of the reasons being that of Chinese converts who must abide by the religious injunctions against pork, but yet desire to consume Chinese food. Education would be affected as well. Which mother’s tongue would a child from an interethnic marriage pick up in school?
The points which I have attempted to bring out throughout the discussions are that of the relationships between culture and interethnic marriages, between that of interethnic marriages and religion changes, and that of culture and religion changes. The difference between culture and ethnic has too, been reiterated several times in the arguments. Kinship systems were briefly introduced and its relationship with cultures explored. To conclude this paper, other different aspects pertaining to an interethnic marriage have been introduced to the reader. They serve to enhance the reader’s perspective of the various relationships between culture and interethnic marriages, even more so to illustrate that culture is ever-changing and not static.
Bibliography
1. Stone, Linda. 1997. “Gender, Reproduction, and Kinship.” In Kinship and Gender: An Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
2. Osman Chua. 2001. Chinese Muslims in Malaysia. KL, Malaysia: International Islamic University Malaysia Press.
3. Black, Algernon D. 1973. “Expectations and Realities of Interracial Marriage.” In Interracial Marriages: Expectations and Realities. NY, USA: Grossman Publishers.
4. McNeilly, Russell A. 1973. “Aspects of Interracial Marriage in a Multiracial Society-Trinidad, W.I.” In Interracial Marriages: Expectations and Realities. NY, USA: Grossman Publishers.
5. Riaz Hassan and Geoffrey Benjamin. 1972. Ethnic Outmarriage Rates in Singapore: the Influence of Traditional Social-Cultural Organization. Singapore: Department of Sociology, University of Singapore.
6. Chua Beng Huat and Ananda Rajah. 2001. “Ethnicity, Hybridity and Food in Singapore.” In David Wu and Tan Chee Beng, eds., Changing Chinese Foodways in Asia. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
