As an afterthought...I sounded like a bimbo on my last post. Oh well....bygones. The Vera Wang obsession is still in full swing though. Heh.

Anyway, I am a Malay girl. Born and bred Malay. Singaporean Malay, thank you very much. Roti prata not roti canai. And we ketawa, we don't gelak. Walaupun the language was a pain, the people were a pleasure. Not as a whole, though. (Don't get me started on the Malay society collectively...). The Malays I knew and grew up with. The issues. The dramas. Bangsawan. Sandiwara. Heh. Despite it all, I never knew how much I appreciated being a Malay till I'm here in Dubai. Till I'm put up on a different pedestal, one I never thought I'd climb on.

In Singapore, I get a (cheap) thrill when people say, "Oh. You are Malay? You don't sound/look/act like it." Oftentimes, I get taxi drivers changing their station to Yes933. People speaking to me in Mandarin macam aku faham sangat. People tell me I look Chinese/Eurasian/Arab even Hindustani (that woman MUST be demam Bollywood..).I actually appreciated those comments. NOT because I'm kemaruk sangat to look Ching. But because I'm so kemaruk to NOT LOOK MALAY. Let's face it, Malays in Singapore? The unspoken and unofficial yet pervasive racism stands out boldly and looms like an unmovable obstacle on our journey to success. In all forms. I'd rather not be Malay.

Now, in Dubai, I'm faced with a different sort of mislabelling. In Dubai, I'm categorized officially as Singaporean. The word Malay has been omitted from my Dubai IDs. It's not a RACE to them here,it's merely a language. And Singaporean is now my race and thus, when there's a race, there's a language. I've got Mikey, my dear Aussie kental, who asked this Korean girl what are strawberries in Korean then turned to me and asked me what are strawberries called in Singaporean. I couldn't answer him coz I fell off my seat laughing. Macam mana nak answer soalan gitu? I've embarked many a time on this LONG explanation how Singapore has no particular identity coz we're made up of 4 races, namely Ching, Melayu, Mama dengan Mat-Salleh sesat and yadda yadda and my race is Malay so my language is Malay so strawberries in Malay is.....(please help Raihan fill in the blank here coz I still haven't answered Mikey!)

That's not my issue though. My issue is that people here have some sort of warped idea how a Singaporean is supposed to look like and Azim and I do not figure in that preconcieved image that they have. Even the Emirates people, the other staff and cabin crew alike. Emirates tau...the company with over 100 nationalities. I don't know how SIngaporeans are SUPPOSED to look like to them but Azim and I are simply not Singaporeans.

We are (get ready..) Fillipinos. Don't get me wrong. It's not an insult to us because the Fillipino cabin crew betul punya lawa (tak macam yang skanky-type kat Lucky Plaza eh..) so we should feel flattered but WE'RE OVER IT. We get into trouble because of it. Fillipinos are generally very friendly people. So much so that if they see another Fillipino, they are all obliged to smile and say hi, even if that other Fillipino is a COMPLETE STRANGER. So when we (Azim and I) walk past ANY Fillipinos, they look/stare/glance at us expectingly and WE are in our own world and there they are,waiting for our Filipino greeting. Some guys stare at Azim and when they realize he's not gonna be doing greetings in Tagalog, they actually start looking hostile. The girls start to look at me bitchily. And Azim and I, to save our Malay asses, start speaking to each other in Malay. Saved by the belachan.

Slowly, we are getting used to it. It's gotten to the point of hilarious. Azim got called Fernando once and another time got asked whether he was a Fillipino actor (Hahahah....). I got chased by a Fillipino salesgirl because she called out to me in Tagalog and I didn't know she was talking to me and she thought I was a pekak punya Filipino so she chased me, grabbed me and Tagalog-ed me. I whirred around and told her simply "I'm not Filipino!" One thing that saves me is that when I open my mouth and speak English, they know I'm not their kind. Their accent spans similar across all their tongues. I speak Raihanmouth with Raihanaccent. One of a kind.

So besides being labelled Filipino, which is the main salah thing, I get Japanese passengers speaking to me in Japanese, macam aku faham AT ALL and then they get indignant when I tell them I don't understand Japanese. "Ano.....you not from Japan?! You from Japan! How come you no understand Japanese?!" squeaked one little Japanese lady.

"Madam,I am from Singapore. I'm Singaporean Malay."

"Aaahh....so neh......! Sorry...I just want to know you land the plane what time?"
Not only my mata yang besar berlolok is now sepet macam Jepun, skarang aku boleh land planes pulaaakk......

Another, one mainland China passenger, starts speaking dia punya PEKAT Mandarin. I tell him I don't understand his Mandarin.
"You not from Shanghai? But Emirates fly to Shanghai so I know they take Shanghai people!You Shanghai or Guangzhou?"

"Sir,I am from Singapore. I'm Singaporean Malay."

"Oh."

I wanted to tell him I do know some Hokkien and Mandarin swear words,though. I wisely decided against it.

Another flight, one crew member, on a totally new team, looked at me, put her hands together and said "Sawadeekap!"
I looked at her and said, ""Uh,I am from Singapore. I'm Singaporean Malay."

"Oh.Sorry. Thought you were Thai," said she.

"Well, I eat Thai food," said me.

"Oh."

Takde kena mengena tapi takpe.

Then there's me as Indonesian, Saudi Arabian, Korean and Kiwi (not the fruit!). And there's Azim as Indonesian too, Lebanon, Nepalese and gay. Not a single "You're Singaporean, right?". Not even Malaysian (which is a lot closer). The whole wide world but that little red dot.

Thus with my repetitive "I-am-Singaporean-Malay" tagline, I realize I am doing it with pride. I speak more Malay now and I realize my blogposts are peppered with more Malay words than usual. And when I hear a Malay song or a Malay word, I get excited. Over here, I am valued for what I am as a person. Not as a race. And the more it doesn't matter that I am Malay, the more Malay I am, the more Malay I want to be and the more Malay I want to get. No.. not minah. Get it right.

Malay. Faham?