Chopsticks and roses

Remember what I said just yesterday, as per the following:

A whopping 62% of Chinese respondents had not been aware that their own Chinese New Year has been a seasonal-social-cultural-administrative celebration and NOT a religious one?

Well, I can testify to the above embarrassment because when I was working for an organization that had a number of Chinese Muslims, and that when they celebrated Chinese New Year, my Malay boss and a personal good mate, remarked to me: “Look KT, are those ‘bin Abdullahs’ really Muslims or what!”

Wakakaka!

New subject today but related in a way (of perception):

In MM Online's Chinese Muslims to light lanterns at mosque (extracts) we were informed that Professor Taufiq Yap, president of the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (Macma) that represents Chinese Muslims in Malaysia, and who is also a chemistry professor at Universiti Putra Malaysia, embraced Islam on November 26, 1983, while in Form Four. Today he is 46 year old and have been a Muslim for 33 years.

He said, “I embraced Islam on my own accord. My mother supported my decision when I told her of my intention to become a Muslim."

“She told me I was already old enough to decide what faith I should choose to follow. But my stepfather, whom I did not tell, eventually found out from others. When he finally knew, he called me anak Bajau (Bajau child) since the Bajau people in Sabah are Muslims.”

Now, this has been the most astonishing part - Prof Taufiq informed us it was not easy trying to retain his communal links after his conversion as Malay Muslims said he should not use chopsticks or speak Mandarin and that he should eat with his hands.

But the Prof continued to carry on with his traditional (Chinese) lifestyle despite the criticisms from Malays.

Yes, 10 years ago, Yasmin Ooi, another Muslim convertee, told us of her unpleasant and fairly similar experience, that within the first months of her becoming Muslim, many Malay Muslims wondered who her husband, or husband-to-be was, because to those people, for her to be Muslim, was not so much to be faithful to God, but to marry someone who has Malay written in his birth certificate and Islam written in his MyKad.

She lamented: “Thus to be Muslim, in the simplistic views of some Muslims in Malaysia is to be Malay."

Note - which was why I had earlier, in another post, used the term "masuk Melayu" rather than "masuk Islam". I knew I was right then but I then didn't want to argue over semantics, wakakaka.

"And then they wonder why their fellow citizens of non-Malay ancestries in Malaysia are suspicious of Islam. They say Islam is for all humanity, as it rightly is, yet they see less a Muslim in a woman not donning a baju kurung.”

“They see less a Muslim in a Chan Mei Li, if she did not formally change her name to the likes of Jamila binti Abdullah Chan, yet a name like Ros Deraman is fine. Having an Arabic name with good meaning is good, but what is this preoccupation in the overall list of priorities, especially when the ‘original’ names have good meanings in their bearers’ mother tongue and that of their society?”

“Mei Li in a person’s name means the beautiful one. Chan is her family name. In the same way, Ros is a beautiful flower in the Malay language. Deraman is her father’s name in Javanese, a Malay tribe predominant in Jawa, Indonesia."

"If Ros Deraman does not need to be Warda binti Abdullah, why does Chan Mei Li need to be Jamila binti Abdullah? The message of Islam is much more than an obsession to changing names with good meanings in their original languages.”

Likewise, why must a Chinese Muslim eat with his hands (which incidentally my late dad used to do, and me too, maybe because of the tom yum in our arteries, wakakaka) instead of using chopsticks with which he has been used to?

And why can't a Chinese Muslim speak in Mandarin which the Ibrahim Ma's family in KL (I know some of them) did and still do?

Why twist the elbow of a Chinese Muslim into being a Malay, while that very Malay wants to be an Arab?

Wakakaka. If only that Malay knew who is the 'bin Abdullah'.