#ConversationsforChange: What does being Malay mean to me?

What does ethnicity mean to you? Is it something you are born into or nurtured with?

In Singapore, I grew up being defined by the state as Malay. However, even the definition of being Malay is enshrouded in ambiguity:

• Does it refer to a group of people of the Malay peninsular?
• Was it a social construct by Europeans to categorise indigenous communities of this geographical location?
• Is it the social identity that emerged to unite the similar yet diverse cultures of the Javanese, Bugis, Boyanese communities?
• Does it refer to Austronesian natives of Maritime Southeast Asia, which encompasses the indigenous group that lives in modern Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia & the Philippines?

It was enlightening to me that being Malay could possibly mean that you didn't belong to a pure ethnicity but a melting hot pot of races, but also the way of life of the community that you're part of. Seeing how different my cousins from Malaysia and Indonesia are despite inheriting similar DNA as compared to my cousins in Singapore whose parents married outside of the Malay community i.e. Chinese and Japanese and yet they feel like my siblings from literally another mother.

When I got married to the love of my life in 2018, I was exposed to a family that is built by love that is so incredibly diverse it conquered political tensions of past and future. He is Pakistani from his dad's side, and Indian and Chinese from his mom's.

Understanding that we both came from diverse cultures, we wanted our wedding events to be inclusive.

For our engagement, I customised a modern take of the electric blue songket textile of my grandmother's which was handed down to my mother, which my mother handed down to me. Incidentally, he already had a kurta of a matching colour.

Our intimate wedding ceremony embraced his Pakistani heritage and our Muslim faith.

Our wedding reception celebrated my Malay heritage and our cosmopolitan upbringing in Singapore.

Our huge party of 700 guests, which were small by our respective communities' standards of 1,000+ guests from each side. Despite our differences in ethnicities, our family celebrations are not limited to immediate family units but our parents' extended families that included their first and second cousins, in addition to all of our friends. This often led to separate wedding receptions because of the sheer size. The common question we both asked each other whenever we had our pictures taken was "New family. Who dis?".

This led me to start building our family trees on MyHeritage so that we finally have a definitive answer as how exactly we are related to an extended family member in question. Till date, I have mapped out 192 family members and the journey has just started. As I continue to build on this tree from the inquisitive conversations that I have with the elders from both sides of the family, I then got curious about the DNA that make up our unique ethnicities.

To my surprise, I found out I wasn't completely Malay.

I had 29.8% Thai and Cambodian ethnicity as well as being 1.1% Papuan.

I've been to Bangkok and Chiangmai in Thailand and love Thai Basil Chicken. I've been to Jakarta, Batam, Bandung and Yogyakarta in Indonesia and Nasi Rawon remains my all-time favourite dish that is incredibly elusive (the legitimate and tasty ones anyway). But I've never been to Papua or Cambodia. More importantly, my family has never spoken about families outside of Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.

My curiosity did not end there and I ended up getting Rauf a DNA test too. Turns out he also doesn't just have Pakistani, Indian and Chinese ethnicities.

He's 8% Central Asian (modern day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan), 4.4% West Asian (modern day Iraq) and 3% Scandinavian.

Rauf and his family actually make consistent effort to trace their heritage and keep in touch with their Chinese families in Singapore and extended relatives who are still based in Calcutta, India, both on his mother's side. We even made plans for me to visit their extended families in Pakistan from his dad's side in 2020 (which was shelved due to COVID-19). However, his family always believed that the Pakistani heritage was pure, but as it turns out that their family may have been a melting culture pot originating from Central Asia, West Asia and Scandinavia.

What does it mean to have these ethnicities but not having been brought up to remember our roots? Did our ancestors choose to keep parts of our heritage alive by choice? Perhaps they didn't even recognise these differences? Or are ethnicities are exactly that - biological DNA shaped by social constructs that are ever evolving?

All I know is that even before these discoveries, I know that being Malay or Asian was never monolithic. There are so many dimensions to who I am, beyond race itself. I have roles within my family (daughter, sister, cousin, aunty, wife) and in society (friend, colleague, employee, trainer), and the personal struggles I've overcome, the spiritual compass that I was raised on and I choose to navigate life with, the values and ethics of being born and bred Singaporean who has only recently travelled more often due to work opportunities (thanks, LinkedIn) and marriage privileges (thanks, Rauf).

So, just as I started to pen my thoughts around #conversationsforchange with questions, I am still left with one more: does being 1.1% Papuan mean I can also identify as a Pacific Islander?