We'll never truly know what being a Malaysian is; and that's alright

When we are asked about what it means to be a Malaysian, we are often guilty of sticking with safe answers that we know are almost guaranteed to get us a few laughs. The more infamous ones among them being "food, bad driving, etc."

This is probably because we don't really know how to answer such a question.

But what if I told you...

......that's alright because we will probably never have an answer.

Family resemblance

Mary and John Porter are a married couple with three children. Mary is known for her natural red hair that contrasts greatly with John's dark brown hair.

Their 3 children, Robert, James and Amy resemble their parents to a certain degree.

Robert and Amy have red hair of the same shade as their mother's while James has dark brown hair just like his father.

While upon hearing this one might be mistaken to believe that James looks extremely different from his siblings, this isn't true. Although James has a different shade of hair from his siblings, he has the sharp facial structure and large nose that his sister Amy has, something which Robert lacks.

Despite their differences in appearance and the lack of one essential common feature in that particular attribute, the Porters are considered family.

The above situation describes a philosophical idea made popular by Ludwig Wittgenstein called family resemblance.

It argues that things which could be thought to be connected by one essential common feature such as games may in fact be connected by a series of overlapping similarities, where no one feature is common to all (while football and chess are both games, chess does not have a ball although another game such as rugby does).

some good ol' family resemblance

This philosophical idea could be applied to other terms and in the context of this article, it may give a different and fresh look at what it means to be "Malaysian".

Before we do that, let's take a look at some generally accepted aspects of the Malaysian identity that should be rethought:

1) Embracing bad behaviour as part of our identity

There is a long list of behaviours that are shockingly annoying and what's worse is that we, Malaysians, are guilty of pointing at them and going, "Ah...that's so Malaysian!"

From the "power of the hand" to the annoying squeaking sound some Malaysians make with their mouth to attract the attention of the waiter (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky for not having to hear it firsthand), the list goes on.

Harith Iskandar giving some social commentary on Malaysian road users.

Our comedians love to point out some of the obnoxious things that we Malaysians apparently do.

I love to laugh at these jokes but no one should take them to be an accurate representation of Malaysian life.

Sure, there's some truth in those jokes but there's also a whole lot of exaggeration.

A problem arises when certain members of the public who enjoy these jokes start to find some of these behaviours to be "endearing"; even to the extent of subconsciously internalising and normalising such behaviour by justifying that they are part of the Malaysian identity.

Attaching actions such as double parking or driving down the emergency lane to avoid a traffic jam to the Malaysian identity doesn't make these actions any less bad or detrimental and only contributes towards the existing confusion surrounding what that identity is.

It's important to note that these actions are not the joke itself, they are the butt of the joke and performing these actions aren't going to entertain others. If anything, you will only be laughed at instead.

In attempting to settle on a normative identity for the citizens of our country, we ought to seek for an identity that's positive, not one that's built on the frankly negative and detrimental actions of certain members of the population.

2) Food isn't everything

Let's admit that when someone asks us what we love about Malaysia the most, we tend to say food simply because it's the easiest response to give and it's somehow that one magical thing every Malaysian can agree upon.

The problem is that we all don't even eat the same food and it's pretty sad if food is the only answer that we can think of actually giving.

Sure there are some food that every Malaysian apparently eats like Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai but if we take a further look at what 'Malaysian food' means to a Malaysian youth from a middle income background from the city, you will be surprised to know that it may include a whole range of colourful burgers, some bombastic flavoured Western ice cream, Taiwanese bubble tea, Japanese sushi places and Korean restaurants.

Our love for 'Malaysian food' may not be one that is actually attributed to food that immediately comes to mind as authentically Malaysian (whatever that is).

Add the fact that Chinese dishes like Pork Mee and so on aren't Muslim friendly and the picture becomes a little more diluted, especially in regards to what we mean when we talk fondly about 'food' in the context of being a Malaysian.

Yes, food may be an important part of the Malaysian experience but the concept of "Malaysian food" isn't as straightforward as we think it is.

3) Our exaggerated "accent"

Am I the only one who cringes watching comedy videos depicting the Malaysian "accent"?

If all the exaggerated 'lah, mah and ahs' in these videos don't already make your toes curl, they probably would upon the realisation that the particular accent that is often depicted is one that is probably only adopted by the Malaysian Chinese community and not representative of the population as a whole.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to embrace your accent but to say that one particular accent is representative of the Malaysian community as a whole is perhaps inaccurate.

The United Kingdom alone is a good example of how different regions can have wildly different accents. The same can be said for Malaysia, from the Kelantanese accent to the unique accent of some of our East Malaysian friends.

It's alright not to have one single accent that represents us all and having most media or entertainment outlets attempting to shoehorn the way we speak into a particular style is perhaps not very wise, bringing us to the crux of this article.

We all have our own Malaysia

Malaysia is an incredibly diverse country with numerous ethnic groups, religions and cultural traditions.

To find a common denominator amongst this diversity that explains adequately what it means to be a Malaysian is incredibly difficult and perhaps even futile and unnecessary.

We ought to realise that national identity is subjective with each of us viewing the country through our own lenses shaped by our upbringing, education, beliefs and ethnic culture.

The truth is that for us, the things we care about most when it comes to 'Malaysia' are personal and range from our family, our favourite restaurant to our old school that we attended as a child.

A young girl that grew up in the satellite city of Subang Jaya whose weekend getaway is a trip to the nearest shopping mall is going to have a wildly different experience to the old man that grew up in a rural area riding his bicycle along the windy roads of his village far from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical idea perhaps informs us that our attempts at searching for that one common feature that connects us as Malaysians are moot as the existence of such a feature is questionable at best.

Perhaps that's alright because what we have instead is a partially overlapping and continuously interwoven historical and cultural narrative that ought to be treasured and shared with our future generations.

We must keep in mind, however, that the narrative that we share should strive to be an accurate one that reflects the diversity of our country as our refusal to embrace it can be Malaysia's downfall.