Memories of a non-Malay who looks like a Malay during the fasting month in Malaysia

Memories of a non-Malay who looks like a Malay during the fasting month in Malaysia


21 Mar 2025 • 9:00 AM MYT


TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: CNA

The news of a non-Malay man who looked like a Malay, getting slapped for being mistaken for a Muslim that was not fasting during Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, made me recall my own experience as a non-Malay who looks like a Malay during the fasting month.


I am what you would call a Chindian, or someone with both Chinese and Indian parentage, and when you are Chindian in Malaysia, there is a possibility that you might be mistaken for a Malay, not only because there is a chance that you might look like a Malay, but also because the fact that you don’t look exactly like a Chinese or an Indian, causes you to not give out a strong Chinese or an Indian vibe, and the fact that you don’t exude a strong Chinese or an Indian vibe, might itself cause you to be mistaken for a Malay.


Race can be just skin deep, and no one knows this better than a Chindian in Malaysia. To make someone think that you are one of them at first impression, your skin colour is the most important thing. From the first impression, often, the quality of the rest of your relationship will then be determined.


There are probably many reasons why we have a heightened issue with racism today – but one of them, I have an inkling, is because the first impression we have of another Malaysian is becoming the highlight of our relationship with them.


In the past, we might not like a person from another race at first impression, on account of not being able to understand them or finding them different in terms of preference, behaviour, taste and expressions at first contact, but the more we know them, the more we might appreciate them.


The same however, might not be true today. Today, I suspect, even with someone of your own race and background, you might only like them best at first impression. The more you know them, the less you will like them.


Anyway, I digress.


Coming back to the experience of looking like a Malay despite being a non-malay, I must say that the fasting months were a minor challenge for me, especially from my teenage years up to my mid or late 30s.


Before I was a teenager it was fine, because one of the best things about Malaysians is in regards to how we tend to treat our children. Regardless of race, religion or creed, Malaysians are wonderful to kids. No matter what nastiness we experience in being Malaysians, we will keep it to ourselves, and not let the kids know about it, until they hit their teenage years. I think this wonderful gesture that we show our children is something that we must appreciate about Malaysians.


When you reach your teenage years however, that is when you start to realise that your skin colour matters.


For me personally, this was actually not a particularly negative realisation. Like I said, my skin colour and appearance puts me in favour of the majority race in the country – for instance, in my younger days, it was the females from the other races that found me attractive, not the females of my own race.


Most of the racism I experienced at that time, as a matter of fact, came to me mostly from my own race. Ironically, the race that I least look like in Malaysia, is my own race. I have been mistaken often for a Malay, sometimes for a Chinese but nobody so far has ever mistaken me for an Indian. This fact has often put me in an odd situation where the person that is behaving or speaking about me in a racist manner tends to be someone from my own race, while those from other races sometimes will speak in a racist term about my own race to me, as if I am not a part of the race that they are speaking about.


I think that all the pure breeds in Malaysia genuinely do not think their race is not racist, and attribute racism chiefly to the other races, but they likely only think that because they are a pure breed. If they are a mixed breed like me, they probably will realise that their behaviour, outlook, speech pattern, word choices, vibration, body language, estimation, price, willingness to trust or help, has a tendency to change depending on what race they feel they are interacting with.


I have seen people’s faces change in a snap of a finger the second they realise that I am not from the race that they thought I was.


Race, by the way, is often the first thing that a Malaysian will need to determine from another person, before they can determine how they are supposed to interact and treat them. When people don't realise what my race is, which sometimes happens when you are from a mixed race, I can visibly see that they are having trouble interacting with me, simply because without knowing what your race is beforehand, Malaysians tend to not know how to interact with you.


Races in Malaysia do not interact on an equal basis. Pure breeds tend to not be aware of this, but mixed breeds, who live in the intersectionality of the Malaysian racial experience, are very aware of this fact.


I am not saying this only about the other races, by the way, – I feel this is true of all Malaysian races, including my own.


But anyway, coming back to my experience with being a non-Malay with looking like a Malay during the fasting month, I suppose I can understand how the incident of the older Malay man slapping the younger non-Malay man who looks like a Malay could have occurred.


Although the news reports are saying that the younger non-Malay man who looks like a Malay is 21 years old, I think he probably looks 16 or 17 in person.


Older Malaysian male of all races tend to take a lot of liberties with younger males on account of their age. I think this is still true today as it was when I was a younger male. When you are an older male in Malaysia, you just assume that it is a younger male's due to give you respect.


One of the reasons that the older Malay male thought he had a right to slap the younger non-Malay male for deeming him to be not fasting, other than religion, might actually be due to gender and age. If the younger non-Malay male looked older or if the older Malay male was not much older than the younger non-Malay male, this most likely would not have happened.


I doubt this would have happened between females or if one of them were a female either.


But either way, I do agree with the view of another Chindian who wrote in Focus Malaysia that eating out during Ramadan is an uncomfortable experience if you look like a Malay. Just like him, I also have had to show my IC, been given a disapproving look and been denied service on account of people thinking that I am a Malay Muslim who is not fasting during the fasting month. Sometimes, even in non-Muslim outlets I will have an uncomfortable experience, where people will presume I will want to tapau my food, although I gave them no such indication. From my teenage years up to my early 30s, the experience so disturbed me, that I often will choose not to eat out during the fasting month.


When I grew older however, the fact that other males tend to show you much more respect, added with the fact that you start to care less about what other people think of you, has made it easier for me to eat out, even if I do occasionally get a few disapproving looks from those around me.


Anyway, when I think about the incident of the young non-Malay male who was slapped by the older Malay male because he was mistaken for not fasting, using my experience as a frame of reference, I feel that what had happened to him was was a extreme version of what you would experience if you look you are a non-Malay who looks like a Malay who didn’t fast in fasting month.


Normally, what you would have received is just a disapproving or judgmental look. Not irregularly, you might be asked whether you would like to take away your food, even if you have not given any indication that you want to take away your food. On occasions, you would be told that food will not be sold to you. Very rarely, someone might even ask you to produce your IC to prove that you are not a Malay or a Muslim. Personally, I think I had to produce my IC IC only once or twice, in all the years where eating out during the fasting month was a problem to me.As for getting slapped for being mistaken for being a Muslim who was eating in the month of Ramadan however, I think it is a statistically outlier event, that has is unlikely to repeat to anyone.


That this statistically anomalous event, however, has made the headlines in the last couple days, not only shows us how strained the racial and religious relationship in the country is, it also shows us that the media is hardly as responsible an entity that the government is making it out to be.


When Tik Tok recently banned 23 media outlets in Malaysia over the coverage of alleged sexual assault at mosque, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil will remark that the problem occured because Tik Tok's "AI can miss the mark from time to time, because it does not understand that reports made by media outlets are different from the content produced by ordinary people,' as if to indicate that the media is somewhat a more responsible entity than the average person.


But as the their reporting of the alleged sexual assault at mosque as well as the case of a the Malay looking non-Malay male being slapped for being mistaken for not fasting indicates, the media not only has no problem, but is often actively looking to sensationalize a statistical anomaly and make a mountain out of a molehill of it, in order to get views, even it if it more than aware that the incident that is reporting is merely a statistical anomaly.


It might not be TikTok's AI that is at fault for seeing red over what the media - it might actually be Fahmi that is wrong for having too positive a view of the media.


From the ERA FM DJ controversy to the KK Mart controversies to the Harith Iskandar Ham Sap coffee fiasco, i think it is clear for all who has eyes to see, that if the media believes that showing a swallow as a sign of summer will get it views and gain traction in the public attention, it will do it, regardless of the factuality and the truth that it is representing, and regardless of the implication of its representation in society.

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kt comments:

Like my matey Nehru I too am of mixed breed though not to the delightful extent of a 50:50 rojak. But I do have a copious dosage of tom-yam coursing through my arteries 😂😂😂. Mind you, Thais themselves in looks are of all sorts, from the Hang-Tuah looking type in the South to the Chinese looking version in the North. When I was in UK studying, my Pinoy friends insisted I looked like a Pinoy too. Some of my cousins look not only like Malays but southern Indians as well. None of them had ever encountered any ugly confrontation during Ramadan, though I am referring to yesteryears - apparently the socio-political climate today is more acrimonious, thanks to a certain bloke and not climate change 😅😅😅.