Malaysia Culture

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Malaysia’s culture is a mix of different influences. It comes from the indigenous tribes who have been here a long time and the Malays who came from Asia. There are also customs from China and India due to trade and immigration.

In addition, there are traces of Persian, Arabic, and British cultures. Each group in Malaysia has its own culture, but they all live together peacefully and sometimes share traditions. This mix of cultures makes Malaysia’s culture special.

Malaysia boasts a rich history of arts and music, tracing Malay art back to the Malay sultanates. Traditional art primarily concentrated on carving, silversmithing, and weaving. Islamic taboos prohibited the depiction of humans in art until the mid-20th century.

Popular performing arts and shadow puppet shows often reflect Indian influences. The architecture of Malaysia bears the imprints of individual cultures within Malaysia and from other countries. Large modern buildings, notably the world’s tallest twin towers, the Petronas Twin Towers, stand as significant achievements.

Malaysian music, rooted in diversity, predominantly relies on percussion instruments. Most early Malaysian literature derived from Indian epics, which persisted even after Malays converted to Islam; this has increased in recent decades. Until the advent of the printing press, English literature was confined to the upper class. In the 19th century, local versions of Chinese and Indian literature emerged.

Cuisine role in Malaysia Culture

Food and cuisine play an essential role in Malaysian culture, symbolizing the vibrant diversity and rich heritage of the country. The culinary landscape of Malaysia is a melange of flavors, deeply influenced by the ethnic Malay, Chinese, and Indian communities that constitute the majority of the country’s population.

Each of these communities brings distinct culinary traditions, ingredients, and cooking methods, resulting in a gastronomic tapestry that reflects the multicultural nature of Malaysia. From the spicy and aromatic Nasi Lemak, the national dish of Malaysia, to the complex flavors of Indian-inspired roti canai and the traditional Chinese bak kut teh, food is an embodiment of the multicultural dialogue that has shaped the nation.

Moreover, food in Malaysia extends beyond simple nourishment, playing a crucial role in social interactions and celebrations. Sharing a meal is often a communal activity, signifying unity and fellowship.

Traditional dishes take center stage during festive occasions like Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, and Deepavali, acting as cultural markers and reinforcing communal identities. Simultaneously, the shared love for food transcends ethnic boundaries and cultivates a sense of national identity. Street food culture, in particular, symbolizes the blending of cultures, where a myriad of food stalls offer an assortment of dishes from different ethnic communities side by side.

Thus, food, in the Malaysian context, serves as a unifying factor, a means of cultural expression, and an essential component of the national identity.

Malaysian Arts

Traditional Malaysian art primarily centers on carving, weaving, and silversmithing. It ranges from rustic handwoven baskets to the intricate silverwork found in Malay palaces. Artists commonly create decorative kris and sets of beetle nuts.

They produce luxurious Songket textiles, in addition to traditional Songket and batik fabrics. The natives of East Malaysia are famous for their wooden masks.

Before the 1950s, Islamic taboos restricted the depiction of humans and animals, which limited the development of Malaysian art. Artists often embroider textiles such as batik, songket, Pua Kumbu, and tekat with a painting or pattern for decoration.

In East Malaysia, artisans use leather and beads to create impressions similar to gold and silver adorned with stones.

Artisans in many regions create earthenware. They fashion the Labu Sayong, a clay water container, to resemble a gourd, which is famous in Perak. They also shape the angular Terenang to hold water.

The belanga, a broad-based cooking vessel made from clay, allows heat to distribute evenly. Many items, including doors and window panels, feature carved wood embellishments.

People have always regarded wood carving as an art rather than a business. Traditional woodcarvers, upholding the belief that they must ideally suit their material, would dedicate years to just preparing the wood. They performed woodcarving as a highly ritualized act, ensuring the wood perfectly matched the client.

Malaysian Architecture

Malaysian architecture incorporates a mix of styles, including Islamic, Chinese, and European colonial influences, which have collectively evolved Malay architecture. Northern homes resemble those in Thailand, while southern homes align more with Javanese styles.

Europeans introduced new materials like glass and nails, leading to changes in the architecture. To adapt to tropical climates, Malaysians construct houses on stilts with high roofs and large windows to enable air circulation and interior cooling.

Throughout most of its history, Malaysia has predominantly used wood as a construction material, ranging from simple kampungs to royal palaces.

Traditional dwellings in Negeri Sembilan are constructed entirely without nails. Besides wood, Malaysians commonly use other materials like bamboo and leaves.

The Istana Kenangan in Kuala Kangsar, built in 1926, stands as the only Malay palace with bamboo walls. In East Malaysia, the Oral Asal live in longhouses and water communities. Longhouses, raised and built on stilts, can accommodate twenty to a hundred families. Water settlements also rise on stilts, with buildings connected by planks, and boats serve as the primary means of transportation.

Malaysian Music

Traditional Malay music and performing arts are believed to have originated in Kelantan-Pattani. This music relies heavily on percussion instruments, with the gendang (drum) being the most significant. There are at least 14 types of traditional drums.

Artisans often craft traditional drums and percussion instruments from organic materials like shells. Other instruments include the rebab (a bowed string instrument), the serunai (an instrument akin to a double-reed oboe), the seruling (flute), and trumpets.

Musicians traditionally use music for storytelling, marking life-cycle events, and celebrating harvest festivals. In the past, people used music for long-distance communication. The traditional orchestra falls into two types: the gamelan, which uses gongs and string instruments to generate melodies, and the nobat, which employs wind instruments to produce more serious music.

Malaysian Literature

The robust oral tradition that existed in what is now Malaysia prior to the invention of writing continues today. Indian epics profoundly inspired these early compositions. Even after written works emerged, oral literature such as folktales thrived.

The Arabic Jawi script came on the peninsula with the arrival of Islam in the late 15th century. In addition to these foundational elements, imprints of Chinese and Indian traditions weave into the rich tapestry of Malaysia Culture, reflecting the country’s vibrant history of commerce and immigration.

The emergence of the printing press in Malaysia revolutionized access to literature, breaking the barrier that limited literary works to handwritten manuscripts accessible only to a select few.

This development had a profound impact on Malaysia Culture. It created a bridge between the royal Malays, who predominantly spoke English, and the lower classes, who primarily read Malay literature. As the 20th century dawned, the literary landscape began to mirror the evolving social standards of Malaysians.

In a significant step towards categorizing the country’s diverse literary output, the government took the initiative in 1971 to classify literature based on language.

The Malaysian government officially recognized works written in Malay as “The National Literature of Malaysia,” highlighting their critical role in representing the essence of Malaysia Culture.

At the same time, they referred to literature written in other bumiputra languages as “regional literature,” acknowledging the regional diversity within the nation. Finally, literature penned in languages other than Malay or bumiputra languages was classified as “sectional literature,” signifying its specific linguistic and cultural niche.

Clothing in Malaysia

As of 2013, the majority of Muslim women in Malaysia wear the tudung, a kind of hijab. Prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, it was unusual for women to wear the tudung, and ladies who did tended to live in rural regions.

After the 1970s, as religious conservatism among Malay people in both Malaysia and Singapore intensified, tudung use surged dramatically.

In the 1960s, a number of ulama in Kelantan felt that the hijab was optional.

In 2015, the ulama of Malaysia considered this perspective to be un-Islamic.

By 2015, Malaysia has a tudung-related fashion sector.

By 2015, non-tudung-wearing Muslim women were seen negatively by Muslim Malay society.

Norhayati Kaprawi directed the 2011 documentary “Siapa Aku?” on the usage of tudung in Malaysia. It is accessible in Malay with English subtitles.

 Malaysia Sports

In Malaysia, the most popular sports include badminton, bowling, football, squash, and field hockey. Malaysia features traditional sports on a modest scale. Wau is a traditional kite-flying style that involves kites with complex decorations.

These kites can reach approximately 500 meters (1,640 feet) in altitude and produce a humming sound when flown owing to bamboo attachments.

In sepak takraw, players keep a rattan ball in the air without using their hands. During the rice harvest season, people traditionally played throwing gassing, a game involving giant tops weighing around 5 kilograms (11 lb).

Players would toss these tops by unfurling a rope and scooping them off the ground as they spun. Some of these tops have been observed to spin for almost an hour. Other sports include dragon dancing and dragon boat racing.

The Malaysian coastline attracts many enthusiasts of scuba diving, sailing, and other water activities. Whitewater rafting and hiking are also popular activities.

 Malaysia Media

A significant portion of the Malaysian media landscape reflects the influence of the governing UMNO party, with the government and ruling coalition political parties holding ownership of the country’s primary newspaper.

It is within this media environment that Malaysia Culture finds itself represented. Major opposition parties also publish their own publications, contributing to a diverse media landscape.

Notably, a variety of daily newspapers circulate in English, Chinese, Tamil, and Malay languages. However, the media has faced criticism for exacerbating tensions between Indonesia and Malaysia, thus perpetuating a negative perception of Indonesians among Malaysians.

FAQs

1. What is special about Malaysian culture?

• Their collective cultural emphasis on relationships and people means that they are extremely considerate in most situations. Today, the Malaysian social attitude is built on a desire for democracy, formal education, equal opportunity for all races, and respect for other religions.

2. What is Malaysia cultural value?

• Malaysia has strong Eastern values such as adab and decorum in public, respect for elders, the significance of family, community, and communal harmony, a strong sense of culture, diligence, and respect for authority.