One maghrib during iftar, a guy from Pakistan sat next to me. While i was jamming a date into my mouth, he started a conversation with me.
Him: Assalamualaikum
Me: Waalaikumsalam
Him: How r u?
Me: I am fine, thank u. N u?
Him: Good. brother, where r u from?
*wow, that was rather quick. usually people would have a longer conversation with me before they noticed my strange accent and became inquisitive of my origin.
Me: malaysia
Him: oh really, I thought u r from bangladesh!
*******
i didnt take any offense from him. plus, im quarter indian (i think, from my mother's narration).
i just thought it was quite interesting because it shows that worldwide, people r not quite sure how a malaysian looks like. i've been mistaken as an indonesian, brown chinese and bruce lee look alike. once, an african origin guy approached me and became strangely chatty to me. im not sure how close my face resembles to those from africa. another time, during new year, two drunk ladies shouted shamelessly at me " Happy New Year, chico stick!"- which sounds spanish to me, hinting to latin american origin. n in multiple occasions, when i said im from malaysia, people shrugged with disbelief.
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| World wide faces |
i suppose, when we talk about malaysian and indonesian than the confusion is understandable. after all, we were the same nation before the european came and colonised Kepulauan Melayu. however, Malaysia is culturally more diverse than Indonesia and during the course of a few hundred years living in a multiracial environment, we would expect a significant amount of crossbreeding.
this reminds me about a conversation I had in KYUEM about our ancestry. we had a discussion about our status as pure malay. surprisingly, everyone confessed that no one was actually a pure malay. even the malayest looking person (perhaps someone like me) has a grandparent or a great grandparent that is not malay.
perhaps we need to seriously thinking of using the label 'bangsa Malaysia' in the near future.
but being somewhat multicultural, i enjoy the privilege of getting close to people who thinks im related to them. that guy i was talking about at the beginning of this post thinks i am as his brother now. a bit creepy since i cant remember his name. oh well...
Yakko from Animaniacs- Nations of the World
Source:
http://apitms.blogspot.com/2012/08/multicultural-me.html