Tradition, tourism, and the cultural show: Malaysia's diversity on display

Journal of Musicological Research

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 87-112

  Sarkissian, Margaret ^a  

^a SMITH COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 5244383709     PISSN: 01411896     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01411899808574742     Document Type: Article

References (21)

1. Edward M. Bruner, "Of Cannibals, Tourists, and Ethnographers," Cultural Anthropology 4 (1989): 439
2. See, for example, Carol Rubenstein. "The Cultural Show: Is It Culture or What and for Whom?" Asian Music 23/2 (1992): 1-62
3. Renato Rosaldo. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 208
4. Edward M. Bruner. "Tourism in the Balinese Borderzone," in Smadar Lavie and Ted Swedenburg, eds., Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), 157-79
5. Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983)
6. Greg Acciaioli, "Culture as Art: From Practice to Spectacle in Indonesia," Canberra Anthropology 8/1&2 (1985): 161
7. Lorraine V. Aragon, "Suppressed and Revised Performances: Raego' Songs of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia," typescript (1995), 44. Forthcoming in Ethnomusicology
8. Mohd. Taib Osman, Bunga Rampai: Aspects of Malay Culture (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1984), 279
9. Kementerian Kebudayaan, Belia. dan Sukan Malaysia, Asas-Kebudayaan Kebangsaan (Kuala Lumpur: KKBS, 1973), vii
10. Tan Sooi-beng, "The Performing Arts in Malaysia: State and Society," Asian Music 21/1 (1989/90): 138
11. Isabella Bird, The Golden Chersonese: The Malayan Travels of a Victorian Lady (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1990), 125
12. Interview with musician Encik Idriss Hj. Shariff, 2 August 1994. For a comprehensive study of bangsawan, see Tan Sooi-Beng. Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1993)
13. Interview with Encik Idriss, 1994. Ensembles included under the rubric "traditional" are an eclectic group. Wayang (shadow-puppet plays) and gamelan are perhaps obvious inclusions. Indigenous Malay wayang is found mostly in the northeast coastal area of Kelantan, and gamelan, though imported originally from Central Java by way of a royal marriage, has become associated with the court of Trengganu. For more information on Malay wayang and gamelan traditions, see Patricia Matusky. Malaysian Shadow Play and Music: Continuity of an Oral Tradition (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1993)
14. and "An Introduction to the Major Instruments and Forms of Traditional Malay Music," Asian Music 16/2 (1985): 163-65, respectively. Kroncong and caklempong, however, are more unusual choices. Why kroncong, a rather old-fashioned popular music from Indonesia, is preferred over indigenous asli popular music is unclear, particularly considering that Encik Idriss Hj. Shariff, one of the leading younger-generation asli musicians, is a member of Briged Seni. The caklempong ensemble is a curious recent phenomenon. Although the instrument (a single row of knobbed gongs in a small rack) is traditional, the notion of a multioctave ensemble playing arrangements of many types of music - somewhat akin to the range of material played by a handbell choir - is new. The inclusion of "Indonesian studies" in the form of gamelan and dance is probably more directed toward tourist expectations than local interest. A similar phenomenon has already occurred with shadow puppets: since tourists associate Central Javanese-style figures with wayang kulit, local entrepreneurs import puppets from Java and consequently rarely stock Malay-style puppets. Finally, the inclusion of an American-style wind symphony under the rubric "western music" is somewhat unusual in a country where piano and organ are the most widely taught musical instruments. It can be attributed personally to the young director of the fledgling academy, Encik Kamaruddin Atan. Holder of a Master's degree in music education from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Encik Kamaruddin is one of Malaysia's small corps of professional trombonists
15. John Pemberton. On the Subject of "Java." (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994), 152
16. See Margaret Sarkissian, "'Sinhalese Girl' Meets 'Aunty Annie': Competing Expressions of Ethnic Identity in the Portuguese Settlement, Melaka, Malaysia," Asian Music 27/1 (1995-96): 37-62. As I discuss in this article. "Ti' Anika" has become an emblem of Malacca's Portuguese Settlement, despite the fact that it is not indigenous. Instead, it is one of a small repertory of Portuguese songs/dances imported in the mid-1950s for what can best be described as proto-tourist shows. Over the space of forty years, however, it has been adopted by Settlement residents and accepted as "traditional. " Briged Seni's rendition of "Ti' Anika" raises the interesting issue of artistic license: although they borrow the melody wholesale, they have re-choreographed the dance steps. Instead of presenting an "authentic" Portuguese Eurasian version (a fascinating issue in its own right), their choreographer, Encik Karim, emphasizes movements he feels are particularly "Portuguese." The end result is a dance in which the movements are much cleaner, crisper, and more stereotypically "Portuguese" than anything performed by Malacca's Portuguese Eurasian troupes, whose versions of the dance are much smoother, more "Malay" to my eyes
17. This difference may possibly be reflective of deeper cultural values. As Larry Witzleben has observed (although the situation is changing today), "disdain for the professional musician has a long history in China" (J. Lawrence Witzleben, "Silk and Bamboo" Music in Shanghai: The Jiangnan Sizhu Instrumental Ensemble Tradition [Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1995], 30). In the past, influenced by an ingrained Confucian aversion to specialization, amateur music making - whether literati playing the qin or elderly musicians gathering in a tea house to play Jiangnan sizhu - was highly valued. In South India, on the other hand, even though amateur performance was highly valued, apprenticeship to a teacher and the notion of long, arduous training are central elements in the way classical music and dance were perpetuated
18. See Margaret Sarkissian, "Music, Identity, and the Impact of Tourism in the Portuguese Settlement, Melaka, Malaysia," Ph.D. dissertation (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993), and "Domesticating the Diaspora: Transformations of Repertory in a Malaysian-Portuguese Community," paper presented at the 41st annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (Toronto, Ont., 31 October 1996)
19. Ravina Aggarwal, "The Monastery and the Marketplace: Women's Power and Ethnographic 'Truth' in the Ladakh Himalayas," paper presented at Smith College (Northampton, MA, 22 February, 1996)
20. Acciaioli, "Culture as Art," 153
21. See James D. Chopyak, "Music in Modern Malaysia: A Survey of the Musics Affecting the Development of Malaysian Popular Music," Asian Music 18/1 (1986): 124