A Sense of Minangness: Pop Minang and the Rantau
THE merging of the rantau with new technologies have forged the sense of Minangness to her perantaus. Oslan Husein and Elly Kassim, Minangkabau singers in...
Malay Peninsula and Archipelago: Revisiting Geographical data
THE encyclopaedia gives us authoritative knowledge, a baseline data of knowing about things and objects. It can answer simple facts; and establish complex concepts. Much...
The Sounds of Keroncong: Tuning in to the Illusive Irama
THE sounds of the Keroncong alluded me when I arrived in Surakarta (Solo) on a Sunday morning. It was 2 October 2011. The three-day International...
The Space of Lautan Melayu: Kedah in the Transpeninsular Routes
FILIPINO historian Leonard Y. Andaya called it the “Sea of Malayu.” The first reference to this space, is from an Arabic document dated circa 1000....
Abdullah Munshi: Introducing the Malay World as Journalist, Sociologist and also Scientist
ABDULLAH Munshi is ignored by Malaysian journalism schools. It seems there is no proximity between the culture of journalism teaching to his writing orientations and...
Yusof Ishak’s Utusan Melayu: The Genesis of Malay Newspaper Journalism
THE Singapura that Yusof Ishak (1910-70) lived was a continuation of the turn of the last century. It was a period of European imperialism. It...
The Brunei Connection: Genealogies and Perantaus in Pulau Pinang
HAJI Mohammad Salleh would never have imagined it when he was stranded at Kuala Perai in 1786. He was on his way back to Brunei...
Riau-Lingga’s Rushdiah Club: Print Culture and Malay Enlightenment
THE Riau islands, especially Pulau Penyengat, the seat of the Johore-Riau kingdom until the 1800s, played a leading role as the vanguard of tradition and...
Batik: Mirroring spiritual and cosmological space
LANDING yourself in Padang, West Sumatra, and travelling up to Bukittinggi would not necessarily lead you to see batik. The Minangkabaus are more known for...
In Their Own Image: European Sojourners on Early Pulau Pinang and Malay History
IN the June 2018 issue of the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS) I reviewed a book titled Penang and...