MERRY Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Yes, I know I am a tad late with the former greeting but I just had to state it on record here since it’s a symbolic act of defiance against our usual shallow and reactive demagogues who always seem to bait and get the media limelight.

I just returned from celebrating Christmas with my in-laws and their relatives in Sarawak, albeit a muted celebration this year because the family is still in a mourning period after the passing of my wife’s grandfather.

The beauty of a multicultural union is that we build further understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultures and religions beyond the narrow confines of assumptions and gossip.

I, for one, found the challenge rather inviting and fought hard against stereotypes when my wife and I first started dating almost 20 years ago. She is an Iban – or Sea Dayak – the renowned indigenous Bornean tribe known for being head-hunters in the past.

Even when we started dating, I would travel to Sarawak to join in the Gawai and Christmas festivities as much as her and her family would with my own side’s Hari Raya Aidilfitri and whatnot.

Our union gave me extra celebrations to celebrate and boy, our wedding too was an exhaustive affair since we had to traverse peninsular and Borneo Malaysia along with the usual cultural sensitivities.

I also picked up another language – Iban – which finally made me trilingual, and which most Malays aren’t (unless you count Arabic, of which most Malays are well-versed at reciting and memorising but I’m not so sure about conversing or colloquial use).

I envied non-Malays because they are at least trilingual, so that’s one tick off my own bucket list, which to be honest isn’t an exhaustive list as other I think. I’m a simple guy.

Our union is even enriched further with the birth of our children a couple years ago. We read each other’s minds when we both insisted them being born in her hometown in Sarawak,

So, naturally, being a parent, I had a conversation over food and drink with my wife’s cousin who has three boys – the eldest being 11 years old and the youngest five years old – and one of the topics that came along was about when we would be planning our sons’ circumcision.

Yes, circumcision is also a cultural and ritualistic practice by the Ibans and it looks like my son would not be alone in both sides of the family when it comes to this rite of passage in both cultures.

Of course, this will now be done also in a clinic as opposed to the age-old tradition of soaking in a river and the rites being performed by an elder.

A highlight of this year’s Christmas trip was meeting a fellow non-native musician who fell in love with the people, culture and warmth of Sarawak.

On a Boxing Day gathering at a relative’s, I struck up a conversation with a Parisian by the name of Julien Cottet, who plays, makes and teaches the sape.

He wasn’t decked like a musician, neither was I (I was proudly wearing my new Pangrok Sulap “Orang Kampung” but we clicked as maybe being the outsiders yet family.

He came to Sarawak for a short visit and ended up falling in love with Sarawak and married and settled down in Sarawak – embracing its traditional musical instrument as his main musical instrument along the way.

To me, he is way ahead of me in embracing Sarawak – especially coming from half a world away and mastering the sape, “respek”! I’m just plain ol’ folk rocker.

Likewise, he also shared the challenges of being an outsider who embraces the local and the steep learning curve of understanding and finding out its own sets of rules, customs and rituals.

In his case, the vicissitudes of the sape as not only a musical instrument but also the cultural contexts of what it means to play and approach the instrument.

There are just so many parallels that get lost in Malaysian cultural politics if you believe the noise that passes as headlines by the usual demagogues who are truly riders of religion.

Such intolerance has no place in our society but at the same time, I revel in the fact that some of us delight at sticking it up to them not just as an act of defiance but more so as an act of love, peace and understanding. That’s the real win for me. – December 30, 2022.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.