There's Something About Melayu

Gritty, honest, brave, wickedly funny yet a tad tired and cliche at times.

That was how the opening night of the NUS Malay Language Society's inaugural drama production, Something About Melayu, could be best described in a nutshell. Wednesday's night performance was held at the University Cultural Centre.

I thought it was a fantastic first attempt. The script was tight and for a bunch of mainly amateur actors, the emotions were raw and so very real. It certainly helped that the whole play was incredibly funny as well.

Narrated from the perspective of young punkish Malay cleaner, the play takes the audience through most, if not all of the contemporary social issues that the Singaporean Malay community continue to face on a daily basis.

From widespread discrimination in the job market because they are unable to speak Mandarin to how ethnic Javanese and Boyanese pass themselves off as Malays so as to be eligible for financial support and subsidies by Mendaki to usual issue about Malay delinquents, "Something About Melayu" left virtually no stones unturned.

My personal favourite was the game arcade scene where there were 4 Malay boys on 4 different game machines, talking about typical mat-delinquent matters.

Also the soliloquy that dealt with issues that the modern, educated Malay woman faces on a continually basis and the sheer irony of how the Malay politician continued to immerse himself in the organisation of arguably less meaningful community activities at the expense of the more pressing needs of his family - his son, his mother and his day job.

The over-use of cliches and the old, tired social issues that has been dealt with ad naseum before such as how Malay kids always seem less able in Maths and the excessive tudong jokes, was a downer, but these only cropped up when I was talking to a certain Mr J.

But at the end of it, I was struck that most of all the issues dealt with in the play, felt strangely familiar to me - quite unlike I dare say, most members of the dominant race in Singapore.

Then it occurred to me that my time in the centralised institute and then the army helped me get an insider understanding of the real social situation in Singapore. Such an opportunity would not have been possible had I remained the relative comfort of the mission school environment I hailed from.

And to think I have always regarded the 3 years I took to do my A levels to be the missing 3 years of my life. On hindsight, it was painful, but an experience that was necessary for me to achieve such insights into the cross section of Singapore society. I do not think I totally understand what it means to be part of a minority race yet, but at least I get some semblence of it.

In my opinion, "Something About Melayu" should be made compulsory viewing for all. With some deft editing of the script to weed out the cliche parts, it should be good enough to go on an extended public run. The Singapore public needs to watch it and talk about it.

Because in the concluding words of the narrator in the play - "this play is not about Malays, but it is about Man - who just happened to be Malay."