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Reflection

Some news…

It has been a while since I visited this site. I’ve been busy with my other blog and my research work. Apart from that I spend most of my time deleting all the spam I got in the online forum. SPAM! so annoying. Anyway, just an update with my research, I’m still interested in issues around identity and how this informs our day to day life. It sounds simple but it isn’t. I’ve been trying to make explicit statements about it since then..

I also changed my title to be closer to communication design, that’s my main area. I’m also in the process of analyzing the online forum and find the connection with the overall process, from designing the online forum to the process of using it as a research tool. I’ve been reading several topics, some related to my research, some not. But it all does help somehow, someway. Furthermore I started teaching some design subjects in a college in Melbourne CBD. I find teaching fascinating.

I had a small break, and always find it too short, but enough for now. Would love to have it more often though. Well, I guess I’ll travel again another time, till then…

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Reflection

Happy New Year 2008!

Dear all,

It’s been more than a year this site been running. Although the progress is going slow but the days pass by very fast. Through www.malaysianidentity.com forum, I’ve met virtually many interesting people and still until now, some of us became friends. I want to thank you for all your support and thoughts that you put in the discussion and hopefully we can take forward the ideas to the next level. Some of the thought have now become reality, some are still floating around.

Honestly, the first idea of having this site is just to gather an information for my PhD, nothing else than that. But through the process it became more than that. For a while, this site become a center to start a discourse about design, Malaysia, culture, tradition, brand and identity. So much brilliant thoughts have been discussed and I enjoyed every moment participating in the forum. But after a while it gets slow. I moved on to the next level of my research and don’t have much time to manage malaysianidentity.com.

I hope to get back on track later after my PhD. This site will always run and welcome new member. I’m more than happy to collaborate with anyone who is interested in managing this site with me.

Till then, I wish you Happy New Year 2008 and wish you all the best in future under taking.

Nurul

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Reflection

www.nurulrahman.com/blog

I have to admit I haven’t been writing in this blog that much, sorry about that, I’ve been really busy. So far this project is going really slow. I would appreciate if anyone would like to collaborate joining us on board.

And if anyone want to make any announcement related to design etc, I’m happy to put it in this blog.

I’d also like to invite people to start a discourse about design in Malaysia through this site. At least make use of this site.

Please do let me know through email nurul.rahman at student.rmit.edu.au
If you’re passing through this page wondering what I have been writing about lately…check out my research blog at www.nurulrahman.com/blog. It is quite hard to handle two blog, so I decided to concentrate on the official research blog. But sometimes, once in a while I will come to this site and continue throwing my thoughts and ideas about Malaysian Identity.

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Reflection

Collaboration invitation!

I have to admit I haven’t been writing in this blog that much, sorry about that, I’ve been really busy. So far this project is going really slow. I would appreciate if anyone would like to collaborate joining us on board.

And if anyone want to make any announcement related to design etc, I’m happy to put it in this blog.

I also like to invite people to start a discourse about design in Malaysia through this site. At least make use of this site.

Please do let me know through email nurul.rahman at student.rmit.edu.au

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Reflection

A tribute to Malaysia

A new friend of mine in London put this up. Good work! This year Malaysia will be 50 years of Independence. Check the site out. 50 years Malaysia
One of the questions I would ask is: After 50 years of Independence…where are we heading now?

I’m starting a new project for my PhD. The purpose of this project is to investigate the understanding of Malaysian Identity through material culture visual analysis. I’m collecting images and videos that related to this. If anyone have images and want to be part of this project, send me email to this address – nurul.rahman[at]student.rmit.edu.au
m50pageimage.jpg

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Reflection

Exchanging Culture..

Recently I’ve been a YouTube regular visitor, looking for any interesting video that relates to my research topic. This video is from The Global Youth Citizen workshop that been held in Bogor, Indonesia. I assume that the participants are between 20-25 or perhaps younger. What interests me is the effort that these students try to make to blend into this community. And also try to understand each other cultural differences. In this workshop some of the issues that have been discussed are about the issues of identity. Again why is identity important to each of them? Or to us?

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Reflection

Changing Culture

I’ve been discussing, chatting, interviewing and reading lots of thing about the issues of identity. Until now the issues of identity still ambiguous. Why identity needs to be interpreted as one? Why must there be a single identity? After few months discussing about issues of Malaysian identity in the virtual round table these are my conclusion.

Identity represents certain group of people, an image or history supporting the group. Identity in Oxford English Dictionary is defined as ‘the fact of being who or what a person or thing is’.

My definition and understanding of identity might be different to my mother’s or my grandmother’s. Identity changed, transformed and evolved through time and generation. There are many reasons for the changes of identity. It can be education, technologies, government laws, political, religions and beliefs, tradition and lifestyle. It can change because of the new era of globalisation and free market. Furthermore, it can also be, because of the freedom to choose.

And it doesn’t have to be a single identity. It can be multi identity in any country, or places or person. Identity evolves and transforms!
This is one of interesting Petronas Malaysian Ad for Deepavali festival in Malaysia 2006. Deepavali, also called Diwali or Divali, is a major Hindu festival that is very significant in Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism. Known as the “Festival of Lights,” it symbolises the victory of good over evil, and lamps are lit as a sign of celebration and hope for mankind. Deepavali is one of many festival celebration in Malaysia.

Malaysia is changing, progressively. Thanks to the education system, development, technology and globalisation. But for the younger generation since 1999, being westernised, through action, wearing branded item clothing and speaking in English can define certain status in Malaysia.

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Reflection

What’s in the name?

The world is changing but we will always proud of who we are. For many people, other than Malaysian, perhaps name doesn’t represent anything. As what William Shakespeare said ‘Whats in the name’. But it is the opposite in Malaysia. Name represents everything…our race, and most probably our religion. The main race in Malaysia is Malay, Indian and Chinese. Apart from these, we also have others like Punjabi, Eurasian, and Indigenous tribes like Kadazan, Iban and many more. I can write on and on about people in Malaysia but not on this page. Perhaps later.

To describe this scenario in detail, I should give an example to this. In Malaysia, if a person says he/she is Malay, that means that he/she is 99.9% Muslim. How do I know this? Let’s just say it is ‘as easy as peanut’ like the Malaysian love to say to describe how easy some things is. In Muslim religion (Arabic base), the ‘daughter of’ term is known as ‘binti’ and the ‘son of’ is known as ‘bin’. For example, Jamilah binti Rahim and Ridzuan bin Johari. I assume by now you too will notice which religion and what gender they belong to. ‘As easy as peanut’ isn’t it?

For Malaysian Chinese it will be slightly different. But still you can ‘assume’ what race and religion they belong to. For example if the name is Chan Siew Leng, I somehow know what gender and religion it belongs to. Comparing to Sally Chan Siew Leng, the first name is an additional to sound ‘westernised’ and belong to certain religion.

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Reflection

Rethinking Identity

In the forum, we discussed about the issues of identity, most of it is about the issues authorities and ownership. I also did put up the link and topic at others forum. The one i did have respond from the topic is from rantauan.com, a site where the Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian around the world meet online. Reflection I got from these discussion are list of question about the identity. Here is the list of questions that interest me. It is open to any discussion or suggestion.

Qoute from Tassa in rantauan.com

“How are you going to indentify a Malaysian culture, which is similar to the Indonesian, without stabbing on each other or should I say, not stealing each other culture to call your own? Singapore was part of Malaysia, so…. we share the same culture as you do, we are no different with the Johoreans, as far as I know. How are you going to introduce “Batik’ and ‘Rendang’ as a Malaysian icon to the world? “

Quote from Indonesian news:

Quote:
Saat Ibu Negara Ny Ani Yudhoyono memintanya untuk ikut menyumbangkan pemikiran dalam pengembangan batik sebagai ikon nasional, Iwan mengutarakan keprihatinannya pada kondisi pendidikan, riset, dan kemampuan promosi Indonesia sebagai negeri batik. “Sekarang Malaysia ke mana-mana mengaku batik sebagai milik mereka. Itu karena kita tidak punya kemampuan public relations,” kata penerima Anugerah Kebudayaan 2004 kategori individu peduli tradisi ini


Quote by Indonesian living in Malaysia as stated in Malaysian news:

Quote:
Apa yang sangat takuti adalah penerimaan dari negara-negara lain terhadap promosi ini. Jangan terkejut suatu hari nanti orang tahunya bahwa batik itu berasal dari Malaysia, rendang juga makanan tradisional khas Malaysia, wayang kulit adalah kesenian tradisional Malaysia, sehingga tiada lagi yang menjadi milik Indonesi

I learned that every countries are facing the same problems.Our next generations are struggling for new identity in the era of globalization. Do they care so much about their ‘identity’? What is identity? Webster’s dictionary states identity is “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. Identity begins with our names, addresses, family groups, and cultural backgrounds, but how does it grow from there? Is identity how we see ourselves or how others see us? Is identity what we are or what we would like to be? Do we form our own identity or do others form it for us? Can identity be changed? Why is it important to express our identity?”

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Reflection

Question of National Identity

This text is licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

searching-for-malaysia.gif

How important is the National Identity to Malaysian?
Is it not Malaysian without the these identity?