[ by Angahacang ]

It is truly an honor to be invited as a regular correspondent in YoYooh ! My heartiest appreciation and admiration  to the YoYooh ! Team for their tireless efforts in building this unique communication instrument.To me, this is THE place for anybody to share some thoughts about our world.

I'm the kind of guy who appreciates that the glass is part full rather than complaining it's part empty. I respect that there must be some self-control and that total freedom of anything could lead to anarchy, but I can sometimes be sharply truthful too.

If  you can see a world in a little seed and heaven in a wild flower, you make infinity in your every deed and eternity in every hour.Of late , there had been some commotions , debates and bru-ha-hahs about the Malay supremacy and the Malay origin that became the center-stage of racial-based politics.

I had been asked on a few occasions by non-Malay friends of mine ( but with good intentions and for the sake of discussions ) about it and I had gladly explained to the best of my ability to portray the truth. However , I would like to share views / ideas from the community. Let me start with the ever popular topic below and work our way from the era of the Malay archipelago right to the present. So be sure to watch out for my postings ya !

Origin of Hang Tuah, and the Malay psycheHang Tuah and the four other warriors; Jebat, Lekir, Lekiu and Kasturi. As being told by some 'historians' and several researchers that the five maybe from China, sent to Malacca by Emperor Yung Lo of Ming Dynasty.

Not just the written and oral records, but also linguistically there is no reason to negate Hang Tuah as anything but local. Hang is a more common local name in that period in the Malay World than it is realized now. Even Hang Tuah's father is named as Hang Mahmud. Thus Hang is not automatically Chinese just because it sounds so - in fact Hang is not even a very common Chinese surname. The fanciful and supposedly Chinese "Hang Too Ah" barely has any meaning in the relevant Chinese dialect or record from Ming dynasty times.

In addition, Ming records hardly laud any supposed "Princess Hang Li Po sent to Melaka to marry the Sultan", such that history writers like J. Kennedy don't bother to mention this in their books. Either Hang Li Po's name was wrongly recorded or it was a different story that turned into her present legendary history. Emperor Yung-Lo, himself secretly a Muslim, had sent the Muslim Admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng-He in Pinyin), not "Hang Too Ah" as well.

For examples of other local 'Hang's; there is the history of Hang Nadim in Temasik/Singapura & Riau-Batam-Bintan (Indonesia), or Hang Jaka in nearby Muar-Batu Pahat and Hang Jaras later on in Selangor - none of whom are Chinese.

And just to throw it in, "hang" has been a common northern Malay dialect for "you" since time immemorial - note that Kedah-Langkasuka has an over 2000-year history. The Kedahans have their own oral tradition of how Hang Tuah got his name, but that's another long story!

At least two research sources that I read identify Hang Tuah as from the local Orang Laut community. These were the native people who worked together with Parameswara's entourage to set up Melaka. The Orang Laut are listed as an Orang Asli group who are related to the Malays in language and customs and had embraced Islam. By the end of the 19th century the Orang Laut had pretty much altogether assimilated with the Malays.

A more important thing is the Malay attitude toward race, then as it is now. I give a personal example. A close friend of mine whose blood is Chinese, and in fact his grandmother arrived late in South-East Asia - in 1926. She was a distant niece of Prince Chuen and an extended member of the Han and Manchu Dynastic families - you can't get any more Chinese than that. But even when he also still has a Chinese name and  speaks Chinese, celebrates Chinese New Year or whatever, he is regarded as Malay by the Malaysian government, by Malays and even Chinese themselves - because he is a Malaysian Muslim and  speaks colloquial Malay. Whatever right or wrong, small or great that he does - it is now seen as a Malay's doing it.

On this, I would give a saying "Melayu ada di jiwa, bukan di baka", roughly translating as "Malay is a state of mind, not a state of blood". In this sense it is irregardless and a moot point on Hang Tuah's origin. Meaning; even if he was a Chinese and had come off a ship from China and only then went on to serve the Melaka Sultanate as recorded, it don't matter no more, he has already been co-opted and embraced as a Malay. Wait for my next posting where we will discuss not the Malay Dilemma but the Malay Banana !  

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razif   |2008-10-01 00:49:44 The ancestor of Malays are believed to be seafarers who are well knowledged in Oceanography, they move around from island to island in great distances between New Zealand and Madagascar, and they served as navigation guide, crew and labour to Indian, Persian and Chinese traders for nearly 2000 years, and over the years they settled at various places and adopted various cultures and religions. Notable Malay seafarers of today are Moken and Orang laut. Some historians suggested they were descendants of Austronesian-speakers who migrated from the Philippines and originally from Taiwan. Malay culture reached its golden age during Srivijayan times and they practiced Buddhism, Hinduism, and their native Animism before converting to Islam in the 15th century. Quote 0   0

Anna   |2008-09-28 01:46:41 I heard about it before. Hang is a chinese word thus some people claimed that Hang Tuah is frm China....hahhaha I am mixed Chinese + Malay. Couldn't agree more that malay is not in blood but in our state of mind. My dad is a chinese man who lives his lifestyle like a malay now. Pls note that he is not even a malay. Quote 0   0

estel   |2008-09-26 19:06:31 errrr..estel mixx melayu ada arab n indo pun ada but estel still banngga jadi melayu di malaysia. i luv malaysia sebab macam2 ada here. makanan pun sedap aman n sentosa tempat perlancongan pun banyak Quote 0   0

ray   |2008-09-25 01:02:02 On this, I would give a saying "Melayu ada di jiwa, bukan di baka", roughly translating as "Malay is a state of mind, not a state of blood". suka ngn quote ini Quote 0   0

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