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One-day Seminar on Malaysian Literature Contemporary Malaysian Literature: Challenges, Achievements and Prospects

Saturday 14 February 2009, IIUM.

It was a great experience I ever had as I've got the opportunity to attend the One-day Seminar on Malaysian Literature. It helps me falling in love with literature actually..=) In this seminar, they have brought well-known writers (that makes me so excited!)and also academician in the field. I've learned something from this seminar..but I still can't understand some of the presentations as I'm not into that level yet..huhu..=(
This seminar was discussing on the challenges and achievements of Malaysian literature and also the future prospects of literature in independent country. If you are literature student, you should familiarised with these names as they are well-known writers in this field..Wong Phui Nam, Muhammad Haji Salleh, Ghulam Sarwar Yusof and Susan Philip..they were the panelists on that day..Besides, my lecturer also one of the panelists..her presentation I understand the most..it's about Indian diasporic writing..(yeah Go go Dr. Shan!)The most unforgettable moment is, I've met a very nice and warm person..He has lots of things to speak during that seminar, but because of the limited time..he could only give a brief on his experience and that was great..I wish I could meet him again..you should know him if you read the poem si tenggang homecoming..


Prof. Dr. Muhammad Haji Salleh..



I got his signature..haha



Candid our own faces..Tqah n Ziha..



Clara and me..

MY MLE ANTHOLOGY

Our anthology consists of 5 poems and 5 short stories;

Poems
1.Family Reunion by Hilary Tham
2.Monsoon History by Shirley Lim
3.Midnight Satay Vendor by Ghulam Sarwar Yousof
4.Five Stars Poetry by Salleh ben Joned
5.Do Not Say by Muhammad Haji Salleh

Short Stories
1.Ratnamunni by K.S Maniam
2.Death Is A Ceremony by Lee Kok Liang
3.The Inheritance by Karim Raslan
4.Shame by Shirley Lim
5.Pak De Samad's Cinema by Che Husna Azahari


INTRODUCTION

Back then in the history, Malaysian literature develops in its own root which Malay language used as a medium in writing. Malay writers particularly talked about issues on patriotisms and nation building. The emergence of Malaysian writers from other races begins and rose together with the development and modernization in Malaysia. Malaysia literature in English has developed over fifty years which is after our country independence. Poetry is the most popular genres among Malaysian English writers in the 1950s and 60s. Muhammad Haji Salleh, Salleh ben Joned, Ee Tiang Hong, Wong Phui Nam, Wang Gungwu and Omar Mohamed Nor were the early poets during that time. Their work such as Bunga Emas was published in literary journal and in a few local anthologies. Meanwhile, Shirley Lim, Hilary Tham, Siem Yue are the younger group of poet that emerged in the 1960s. Shirley Lim has won the international award which is the Commonwealth Poetry in 1980. The achievements of some English writers winning international awards have shown the development of poets writing in English as many anthologies of poem have been published during that time.

Short story is another popular genre among Malaysian writers. Lee Kok Liang, Llyod Fernando and Awang Kedua were the pioneer short stories writers in Malaysia. Their works were compiled in a The Compact: A Selection of University Malaya Short Stories (Hochstadt, 1959), Twenty-two Malaysian Short Stories (Fernando, 1968) and The Flowering Tree (Thumbo, 1970). In late 1970s, a new generation of short stories writer has emerged such as K.S Maniam, Shirley Lim, Syed Adam Aljafri, Kris Jitab, Karim Raslan and Tunku Halim and most of them have their own collection of short stories. Regarding to the Malaysian writers that comes from different races in our country, their literary works are also varies and touches the important multicultural issues ranging from broad questions of identity such as sense of home/homelessness, gender, language, multiculturalism and diasporic perspective. Therefore, emphasis will be given upon the new type of English according to Malaysian context which reflects Malaysian cultural aspect. This anthology entitled Nativisation: The Celebration of the Heterogeneous Malaysian Culture consists of five poems and five short stories from Malaysian English writers who have different kind of background. First of all, let us begin with the definition of nativisation. According to Hajar Abdul Rahim, there is a specific meaning of nativisation.

Nativisation is the linguistic readjustment that a language experiences at the phonological, grammatical and lexical levels due to the influence of local languages and various socio-cultural factors. It is a prominent feature in languages that are used in multiethnic and multilinguistic communities. In varieties of new-Englishes such as Malaysian English, nativisation is a pertinent stage of cultural and linguistic transformation. The use of local lexis in the English variety is especially prominent at this stage not just to fill in a linguistic gap or because there are no English equivalent to account for local cultural environments, but also because the nuances of a local form is much more forceful than the English form to convey experiences, ideas, meaning, and also environment that are closely tied with the local cultural and social situations. The use of the local lexis in this case could be seen as a lexical style. Language users, especially efficient bilingual, choose to use a local form instead of an English lexical form because of the different semantic and often the ideological impact of such a use. This assumption is the motivation behind the current investigation of the nature of linguistics readjustment in Malaysian English. In particular, it explores the trend in use of local lexis in the standard variety of English in Malaysia to reveal new knowledge of semantic and discoursal spaces that mayor may not defy the conventions or norms of linguistic borrowing and the ideological implications of such use on the development of Malaysian English.

There has been the emergence of new Englishes in our country. As we all know, English is used as a second language in our country. But Malaysian English writers have made this language as our by creating new English regarding to our context. According to Muhammad A Quayum, it is not easy for them to write in English as they face some challenges during that time. First, in spite of its long historical presence, English is still considered an ‘alien’ language in this part of the world, rooted neither in the soul nor in the soil. Second, because of its role in the colonial era when English was used as an instrument of oppression, nationalists often cast aspersions on the language and castigate those who write in it. They, albeit falsely and unfairly, accuse these writers of being cultural anomalies, looking to the West for tutelage as well as audience. This brings a political marginalization for writers who may already feel isolated in a heterogenous linguistic community, where in particular, the indigenous language(s) enjoy preferential treatment.

Even though there are many challenges that faced by Malaysian writers during that time, their works have shown the success as they finally make Malaysian own identity in creative writing in English. Malaysian writers have given the Malayanism elements in their writing such as using the local setting in text in order to domesticate English. Besides, by nativizing context, it has created new situations which are unfamiliar to native speakers of English. As a result, the creative writing becomes a medium to the writers so as to initiate the variety of Malaysian cultures.

As we know, Malaysia is a multiethnic country which comprises of three main races; Malay, Chinese and India. Racial unison and interaction has fashioned a diverse and vibrant society that is outstandingly unique. We can only find three major races, smaller aboriginal tribes and a vast mixture of foreigners and expatriates in Malaysia sharing a good relationship, for not only do these races tolerate each other, they actually actively share in one other’s cultural richness. Therefore, we as a team of editors have compiled the wonderful works of Malaysian English writers who have add the elements of Malaysian culture which ultimately brings the emergence of new English writing in Malaysia. There are five short stories and five poems in this collection to represent some of the great Malaysian writing in English. Most of the works chosen here reflect the concerns of nativisation texts that portray the issues of multiculturalism among the heterogeneous society.

Ratnamuni will be the first short story that will beautify this anthology with the elements of Indian cultures. The appearance of the short story ‘Ratnamuni’ by K.S. Maniam is the exchange of a literary incident into a commonly felt truth about the individual and society. In this short story as well, he has brings the awareness of spiritual experience in the individual of the larger personality or behavior. K.S. Maniam was born in Bedong, Kedah in 1942. He is a Hindu who is a former migrant from India to Malaya. The setting of the story is in Bedong, due to his experience being brought up in Bedong, he has sets the story successfully.

This story ‘Ratnamuni’ is a short story about a poor labourer, who emigrates from India to Malaya. This story has been telling by Muniandy himself. He performs the expectation, the depression, the shame and the predictable violence of his life. A sad tragedy has been happened in his life, where he killed a man and this tragedy has pulled him out of an expression which makes his life being in darkness. At first when Muniandy came to Malaya he only brings a beggar bundle with him and at the end of the story when he surrendered himself to the police, he really become a beggar when he did not own anything with him. He was being under depression we he did not understand and not be able to identify why his love wife has killed herself. He tries to think back when his wife regret before her death. As their son grows up, Muniandy can’t be able to avoid the truth that Ratnam is his wife’s son with his neighbour, Muthiah and the depression that he is facing makes him to start drinking. Although, Muniandy is a person who has many bad habits, but he still owns the spiritualist power which he owns through his ‘uduku’, a special drum used by Hindus for their spiritual use. The terrible part of this story accept an extraordinary similar to classical misfortune, a considerable success on the writer’s measurement because of his characters are poor and not strong.

In this short story, K.S. Maniam has put elements of nativisation of culture in it. First of all, K.S. Maniam has highlighted the Indian’s culture of spiritual power which owns by a person when he hears the sound of ‘uduku’. In this story as well we can see how ‘uduku’ has been used for spiritual by Hindus as follows:
I wake up and ask all the listening ears and round eyes. What did I say when I was inside there? ‘Ghost! Ghost!’ the children shout, pointing to Sulaiman’s mango tree. The ‘uduku’ did not float the spirit over my house. She did not enter my home. The way must be cleared. I nail the restless evil into the tree. Go and ask Zuraya, our ‘Malai’ helper at births, ‘ayah’. The djin raising her hair every time she goes by mango tree. I am the one with power to chase it into the bark.
Other than that, another nativisation of culture that has been used by K.S. Maniam in this short story is in the usage of Tamil words which shows that this story has been nativised. The usage of Tamil words that can be found from this short story, ‘Ratnamuni’ are ‘uduku’, ‘pottu’, ‘thoornooru’, ‘Cheenan’, ‘Malai’, ‘avayar’, ‘Muruga’, ‘santhanam’, ‘ayah’ and many more. Besides, there are some practices that follows by Hindus has been included in this short story as well which is Indian women will bow on their husbands toes in the morning as giving respect to them and for blessing from them. This we can see from:
Always crossing legs on the floor, near the door. Knocking her head on my toes every morning, ‘thoornooru’ on her forehead.
In this short story as well, K.S. Maniam has also highlighted the historical event of Hindus to show that this short story has been nativised in the form of Indian context. The example of historical events of Hindus that has been used in this short story, ‘Ratnamuni’ are as follows:
I said, “The Lord Siva danced and made the world”….I am Hanuman, the rowing monkey for them

Ratnamuni has shown many of cultural aspects of Indian people who live in this country. Meanwhile Death is a Ceremony is a text that represents the Chinese cultures which is also part of Malaysian culture. Overall, Death is a Ceremony is a story of a boy named Baba, who had grown up to a man. In this story, he is recollecting the memories of his late grandmother’s death, at the moment of his mother’s funeral ceremony. In this story, culture is a strategy of survival, which depicts how culture signifies, or what is signified by culture, a rather complex issue. As the eldest son, he is responsible to be the head of the funeral procession, whereas makes he noticed the absence of something – the sense of lost respect towards his own culture. As a consequence, the conflicting styles are in a reflection of the cultural and historical discourses, battling to be heard within the story that lies beneath Malaysian’s Chinese community. Through his memory recalls, he is in search of his own identity and yet realizes what he already dismissed - the value of a family that he left out many years ago for the modern lifestyle in the city. There were lots of cultural issues discussed in the story which support that the writer celebrates the Malaysian culture in more specific term, a Chinese culture.

In this story, he used the flashback literary technique profusely to depict the past and the present concurrently, wherefore make it more interesting to see how certain things being presented in this story and thus, makes the story stands out. Here, within the framework, the story is written from the third person, omniscient point of view which mean that the narrator sees all, reports all, knows and explains the inner workings of the minds of any or all characters. For instance, sometimes the narrator tells the readers about the main character – Baba, through the eyes of other minor characters in the story. The used of some diction from two different races in the text – i.e sarong (Malay) and chi kee (Chinese), were the portrayal of Malaysian multicultural lifestyle amongst the people take place. Hence, the writer wants to deliver a message for the new generation; to put more appreciation towards the culture in order to maintain the ancestral tradition. That’s the right way to keep on celebrates the Malaysian culture throughout ongoing civilization in the future, although after the 50 years of nationhood.

Shame by Shirley Lim is another depiction of Chinese culture in Malaysia. Shame by Shirley Lim is about how woman in Baba Nyonya society must behave according to their society’s expectation. The main character in this story is Mei Sim, 6 years old little girl who was stuck in her society culture. In the short story “Shame” by Shirley Lim, the story took place in the most historic country, Malacca. This story is about a little girl, Mei Sim who always be nagging by her mother because of a small mistake that other girls also done. Mei Sim’s mother always told her to behave herself because she afraid that her relatives will talk behind and assume her that se has raise her daughter with no shame. For Baba and Nyonya societies, this issue was serious because they want to take care of their heritage’s culture. In this story, Mei Sim has discovered many things about the adult life through her mother and grand aunty conversation.

This story starts when they went to her grand auntie’s house to celebrate the New Year party. In that house, she has explored many new things that were not supposed to be known by a little girl like her. Both women was gossiping and talking about one things and then jump to other things. They talk about how to tame Mei Sim’s father and so on. Accidently, in their conversation Mei Sim has heard some rude words that had been used by them. In the same house, her grand auntie’s daughter was been treated like a slave in front of them by her own mother. According to their conversation, her grand auntie told her mother that her daughter was bringing a bad luck and for that reason in believing the future teller, she willing to treat her own daughter likes a slave.

Commonly, Baba and Nyonya societies were still believe in the future teller and about the good luck or the bad luck. Then, Mei Sim stuck with accident were her mother caught her with a little boy who was try to touch her dress and that was the first time she felt shame. In this story, we can see how much concern Baba and Nyonya society toward their manner. In Malaysia, Baba and Nyonya culture was well known in their way to nurture their society. This story tells us about Mei Sim’s experience celebrating New Year’s party in her grand aunty house and because this is one of Malaysian culture, every celebrating must followed with an interesting tradition costume and for Baba and Nyonya’s culture it was kebaya Nyonya that become their heritage costume until now. On the way to her grand aunty house, Mei Sim and her mother took trishaw and trishaw is one of the popular attractions in Malacca. In this story, Shirley has highlight many importance scene that show how interesting Baba and Nyonya’s culture in the eye of other societies.

Besides, there are two short stories to embody Malay cultures in this anthology which are The Inheritance by Karim Raslan and Pak De Samad’s Cinema by Che Husna Azhari. The Inheritance is a story about the rich man named Usman Khalid who has died, leaving a wife and four daughters behind. All the four son in-laws were figuring that they would be willed a fortune especially Tajuddeen who has been trusted to lead his father in-law companies. Among the four, Mahmud was the best liked for his humorous identity. However, he had a hidden agenda from the beginning of the story till the end. It was something which the deceased had done that would surely shock the entire family. They did not have a clue that the late Usman Khalid had a second young wife and three little boys with the same distinctive lower jaw and shallow fish-like eyes of their late father until an out-station taxi from Tanjung Malim arrived. The three little boys from Usman Khalid second wife will be inheritance Usman Khalid property. And there goes Tajuddeen's hope, and maybe to the other two son in-laws too.

The text has shown some elements of nativisation in Malay culture. The element of nativisation in this story can be seen when the writer associate with the food, language, traditional garment and greetings. One of the nativisation elements in this text is the food. Through this story, we can see the variety of food which is mention in this short story. It is referred to this quotation:
“Tajuddeen merely indulged in the odd RM1 packet of nasi lemak. The tarik, he save for special occasions.”
“He tipped the cigarette ash carelessly into the ashtray and strode into the kitchen where he stood and surveyed the preparations-the fried chicken, the freshwater prawns and the bowls of acar”.

Nowadays nasi lemak and the tarik are not referred to certain races only. But these kinds of food and drink are shared by all Malaysian as the mixture of variety of food and drink from different races has made it as Malaysian meals. Meanwhile, nativisation of culture from appearance aspect, the words sarong and selendang reflect the traditional garment that synonym with Malay people. From language context, we can see the word that was mixed in Malay language or Manglish through these quotations:
“Sitting next to Mahmud in an immaculately starched and uncreased baju was his fellow brother-in-law, Tajuddeen”.
“no-lah!”Ahmad gasped. Tajuddeen remained silent. He disapproved of such disrespect”.
Words like “baju” and “no-lah” are from Malay word and manglish word that mixed with English language. In brief, this short story by Karim Raslan has shown how the people in the story celebrate their culture.

In the short srory Pak De Samad’s Cinema has focused on certain people culture in one of the states in Malaysia which is Kelantan. There is a culture in Kelantan where every village has gedeber. According to the story, gedeber refer to macho men of the village. Gedeber is actually means more than just a macho man, it means fearless, strong and usually very tempestuous too. Gedeber is to hit man if they are being asked to and get the money after their work done. Therefore, gedeber must have some martial arts skills for instance, silat, spelek (a form of Thai boxing), Thai boxing, or main tongkat and many more. The writer has wisely used these terms which can only be identified by Malay people as to make the text is truly Malaysian. The martial arts that have been illustrated in this story reflect the Malay culture which is full of arts; morever there is a term of kerises which symbolize Malay symbol in the culture. Pak De Samad used to work as a gedeber in his village. But, as time goes by, he quit his job as a gedeber opened his own cinema. Pak De Samad’s cinema becomes famous as the crowds come from all ages besides the fee is also cheap; twenty five cents per head.

There are a lot of nativisation elements that we could find in this story, for example:
Pak De panggung was very versatile. Very soon it was used for everything. Bangsawan troupes would come and perform in Molo using the Panggung. Plays- bangsawan plays, that is, such as ‘Puteri Cendawan Merah’, ‘Puteri Cendana Biru’-would draw the crowds, mostly kids and young people.

Here, bangsawan is also part of Malay culture. Bangsawan is a form of Malay opera and it becomes one of the entertainment sources during that time. Bangsawan is also form of theatre which uses a series painter backdrops representing a variety of scenes such as a palace, a forest, a garden, a seascape and so on (www.angelfire.com). Today, there are no active bangsawan troupes in Malaysia. Therefore, in this story, we can know that bangsawan is part of our culture as previous generation has developed it successfully.

The collection of poems that we have compiled in this anthology also reflects the issues of nativisation in Malaysian culture. We have chose five poems which are do not say by Muhammad Haji Salleh, the midnight satay vendor by Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, Five Star Poetry by Salleh ben Joned, Monsoon History by Shirley Lim and Family Reunion by Hilary Tham. The first poem in this collection is do not say by Muhammad Haji Salleh. The poem ‘do not say’ by Muhammad Haji Salleh resists the negatives thought form the colonizer towards the locals. The persona fights back the judgment of the colonizer by justifies each statement through the questions of experience the richness of Malaysian culture. Therefore the nativization of Malaysian culture are firmly stated in the poem to show the variety of Malaysian culture through local music such as dondang sayang, local dance; ronggeng, assorted form of literature such as pantun, sajak, bangsawan and shairs, a symbols of strength through the keris, and the beauty of our craft and attire from the pattern of songket. Base on the uniqueness of Malaysian culture, the persona make a stand that our people are as good as the other because we have the courage to develop our country and the culture that makes us unique in our own ways.

Next, the midnight satay vendor by Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, highlights about the differences between the upper an lower class society. The persona in this poem explains about the hardness of a satay vendor’s life who works to support his family, selling satay around the high-class residential and at the pasar malam. Besides highlighting the issues in the society, Ghulam-Sarwar nativizes certain Malaysian cultural aspect in this poem through the use of the most popular food among Malaysian; satay. He also uses well known local setting which is pasar malam as a nativization of cultural setting because most of Malaysian varieties of foods and goods such as local vegetables and fruits are sold there. Pasar malam is a place where lots of people gather once a week; for a vendor to gain livelihood and a customer to get their goods. The nativization of local food and setting gives clear images of local culture and issue that highlights in this poem.

Then, in the poem ‘Five Star Poetry’, Salleh Ben Joned centralizes the values of poetry for nation. He incorporates the importance of poetry in our everyday life with some elements of culture in this poem by placing side by side, the most wonderful arts from Western equivalently with the beauty of Malaysian’s arts. Therefore, the essential of our culture in creating the great value for our nation is something that we have to proud of because we have good values of our own as we compare with the other.

Meanwhile in the poem Monsoon History, it is about family and how life is secure and warm in the company of the beloved ones, while the outside world is at the mercy of the weather. The persona recalls her past experiences in Malacca, some forty years ago and takes the readers forty years back in time to show how the family lives surrounded by two the different world; The outside world and the inside world of the home.

In this poem, Shirley uses the phrases to create a sense of belonging, unity and a traditionally strong and secure family environment. Shirley uses words “drinking milo”, “nyonya and baba”, “sarong-wrapped, “silver paper”, and portraits to show the inner world of comfort and identity. Another interesting feature in this poem is the strong presence of cultural sentiment. This is show through customs and traditions such as “drinking milo”, “nyonya and baba”, “sarong-wrapped, “silver paper” and so on. The use of word “nyonya and baba” symbolizes traditions of the “nyonya-baba” people living largely in Malacca, one of the Straits Settlement in Peninsula Malaysia and in other parts of country they remark unique culture and with strong traditions and customs.

Cultural richness which is tradition and customs are part of the culture practiced by the people portrayed in the poem. There is a rich cultural heritage that needs to be safe from one generation to next generation. Understanding our rich traditions and cultural practices would make us understand ourselves better and make us realize who we are. Our cultural diversity is our strength. We need to kept close to our heart our culture and traditions.

The poem ‘Family Reunion’ is about a Chinese family gathering for dinner after being apart for a long time. While they waiting for the dinner to be ready, they sit together and having a conversation among them. The warmth and closeness of the family members can be feels through the conversation that they have from telling about the small thing like the death of the cat until a story about their own life. The poem revealing the elements of Malaysian culture because the gathering of a family is a common events that happen especially when there are festival celebration such as Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali or Hari Gawai to be celebrated. In addition, the element of Malaysian culture can be identify through the food ‘curry’ that the mother cook specially for the family as the main dish for the dinner. Therefore, Hilary Tham expressing her experience gets together with her family in this poem, as a part of cultures that being practice commonly among Malaysian as they feels the tenderness of being together with family.

Finally, this anthology has given us lots of useful experiences. We have been reading many short stories and poems in order to share with readers the uniqueness of our Malaysian writers’ works. Beside the issue of nativisation of English is really interesting to us as team of editors as through it we can identify many thing especially about the richness of Malaysian culture that shared by the heterogeneous society. Hopefully, after reading this anthology, readers would have great appreciation towards the Malaysian
Literature in English as well as the diversity of Malaysian culture reveals in our own literary works.

The Son of Jose Rizal and Others Postcolonial Literature...when world becomes one..

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The birth of “The Son of Rizal and Other Postcolonial Literatures, … when world becomes one…” is due to our third project in the course Literature and Nation Building. With the group of five members, we managed to divide our task to search some short stories and poems concerning the issue of nationhood. We would like to thank our most helpful lecturers and friends especially Dr. Shanthini Pillai who had guide us to finish this assignment. Besides, we also appreciate the Tun Sri Lanang Library and its staff to let us get the sources. After all the effort and hard work, we would like to present this anthology as the best product from all of us. Happy reading!

INTRODUCTION

The poems and short stories that make a volume in this collection were originally selected for a purpose of introducing the post-colonial literatures which arose throughout colonized countries. According to Mcleod, at the turn of the twentieth century, the British Empire covered a vast area of the earth that included parts of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Canada, the Caribbean an Island (p. 6). Post-colonial literature or some might recognized it as New English literatures, is a new way of writing that reacts to the discourse of colonization which frequently involves writing that deals with issues of de-colonization or the political and cultural independence of people formerly subjugated to colonial rule. In an attempt to formulate “a grammar of Commonwealth Literature” (“Post-colonialism” 51), to use Fernando’s words, the authors explain that post-colonial literatures have evolved through three stages: (i) “[works] produced by ‘representatives of the imperial power,” (ii) “[works] produced ‘under imperial licence’ by ‘natives’ or ‘outcasts’, and “ finally, (iii) the “development of independent literatures” or the “emergence of modern post-colonial literatures” (p.5-6).


Before going further to a serious discussion on nationhood and these selected works, the definition of post-colonial countries and issues of new English literature will be thoroughly be scrutinized. Colonialism is a term that critically refers to the political ideologies which legitimated the modern invasion, occupation and exploitation of inhabited lands by overwhelming outside military powers (www.semioticon.com). The authority which these colonial countries possess gives them advantage to take charge of the small countries which is still under development and new in governing the land. In fact, they brought along new ways of ruling the States, new culture as well as implying their mother tongue to the native. For years, language of the colonial or we might directly approach it as English, has become a vast usage all over the colonised countries. The literary works in English grew rapidly with the rise of the language in India, Africa, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere.


Throughout centuries, these particular writers play their roles in order to resist the colonial’s views of the native, lift-up spirits of nationalism and create awareness to the people of the land of who they are as part of the nation. Here, the teams of editor presenting a bunch of stories and poems from post-colonial countries; Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, India and Africa. Representing the land, these selected writers embrace different perspectives of nationhood in which the depiction can be found throughout their works. Moreover, their works turn to build a new nation with identities after colonisation by re-writing the history and make it into fiction of the present time, re-building the community by injecting awareness and spirit of patriotism, re-building notions of the self and re-designing the English language whilst make it sound locally to the land. The definition of nationhood according to Benedict Anderson is an imagination of building a nation into existence. It is planned by people and shaped based on certain grounds. According Timothy Brennan in his essay, nation refers ‘both to the modern nation-state and to something more ancient and nebulous- the “natio”-a local community, domicile, family, condition of belonging (p. 45).


The writers applied varieties of strategies in order to mark-up certain elements of nationhood such as patriotism, resistance of colonialism, national language, national unity, national heritage and legacy, sacrifice, national heroism and division or marginalisation within nations. As we read and analysed from beginning to end of the writing, we found out these elements implied differently either in the short stories or in the poems. The writers even try out using the new language practically in their writing. Indeed, it’s a big challenge to the writers to write in English about the land and the people whilst they speak their own mother tongue. In spite of these selected countries historical presence, English is still considered an “alien” language. There are some potential disadvantages for a writer who chooses to write in a foreign or transplanted medium. For example, if he is not fully confident in the use of the language, it may thwart his creativity thus his purpose of creating awareness and the issues of nationhood might not be achieved. Moreover if the majority of the people in his land use indigenous language (s) for their active communications, it may hinder his accessibility to their emotions and experiences and so make his task of representing reality somewhat more difficult. There is of course, an added responsibility to the writers to make use of the new language sounded locally which can adapt to the local culture. The term New Literatures in English refers to literature written in the English language including literature from the countries which is the medium of communication are not English. In addition, English literature is a diverse as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world (Wikipedia). Thus, when the postcolonial countries are involving in this creative writing, they are not just representing their cultures yet they also highlighting certain issues about their countries such as their national heroes and patriotism.


This anthology entitled The Son of Rizal and Other Postcolonial Literatures, when world becomes one comprises six selected poems and four short stories from post-colonial countries. Each poem and short story from these different parts of the world represents the writer’s views of his land and his people. Indeed, some might be considered as his or her personal indication of his or her true sense of belonging of the land where he or she lives in. The term ‘when world becomes ones is an indication of the compilation of stories and poems around the world in a volume. Just flip through this volume, the readers can get entirely notions of nationhood which best represent the postcolonial countries.


We start the discussion on poems from Malaysia as we; the team of editors are originally truly Malaysian. Ee Tiang Hong in his poem, Patriotism, questioned certain issues of freedom and rights of equality. Being a part of the nation and one of the heterogeneous communities, certain queries might appear in mind as one might not possess equal rights. Yet all these need to be put aside and accept the new order and be grateful of being a part of the nation.
After generation, the question seems to be repeated and the history continuously emerged since we never really take it into consideration.
And surely after all these
The gates of heaven must open,
Unconditional, without question,
No question but that
All men are equal
Under the rain and sun.


Ee’s approaches the readers as well his own community to be remindful of the national unity and identity additionally. The title ‘patriotism’ gives literal meanings to the Malaysians to lift-up the spirit of patriotism; spirit of ‘proud to be Malaysian’.
They demand
That we accept the new order,
Stomach the reversal of our lot,
Hold our tongue, seal our lips,
Be grateful for what we have got
(The fruits of our toil),
They demand....
In addition, Ee depicts the image of dilemma and the feeling of alienation among some Malaysians. The crisis of identity, of place and purpose, hasten in Patriotism are fundamental in that they strike at the very confidence out of which the individual functions (Ee, 1976).
Our neighbour country, Singapore, we present Lee Tzu Pheng with her controversial poem, My Country and My People. According to Wikipedia, Lee is often seen as one of a generation of “nation-building” English writers in Singapore, whose work in the ‘50s-‘70s questioned the identity of the newly independent nation. My Country and My People was banned by the Singapore government due to fears that her reference to her “brown-skinned neighbours” would offend the Malay community of Singapore. She questioned her uncertainty on her identity of being Chinese grew up in China’s mighty shadow, of having Malay as a neighbour and of using English as her medium of communication.
My country and my people
I never understood.
I grew up in China’s mighty shadow,
with my gentle, brown-skinned neighbours;
but I keep diaries in English.
I sought to grow
in humanity’s rich soil,
and started digging on the banks, then saw
life carrying my friends downstream.

Her search for identity breeds humanity and nationality where she founds out her true sense of belonging on her new land. In the beginning of the poem, the persona shows how she feels of being born as a daughter of a better age where she is able to receive proper education and learn about the coloniser whose technically brought in her ancestors to the land. Ode of The War Wife, written by Doan Thi Diem from Vietnam is concerned about national heroism and sacrifices by the soldiers. The persona, being the wife of a soldier is expressing her thoughts and feelings when her husband makes his way to the war. In the first stanza, she portrays the sadness and gloomy of all people when anarchy is in the air. The use of hyperbolic phrase;

Moonlight trembles to the thuds
of Trang-an’s drum

This phrase enlightens the proclamation of war as being so loud and serious. After 300 years of serenity, solders are exclaimed to get into battle. Although they are ready to fight for their country, they still have a heavy heart to leave their family. This is stated in the phrase;
sorrow runs to the frontier
resentment fills the room


Young men in the country leave their job to fight against the enemy; leaving their family, home and everything to sacrifice their life to win the war for the country. Even the grass and water are personifies as doesn’t favor him going to war leaving his family behind. War renders a bleak future. That’s why the persona keeps on repeating how sorrowful and dismal she was when the war started. However, she didn’t stop her husband from going to war because she realizes that fighting for their country is an honourable act as they sacrifice their soul and life for the sake of the nation. Whatever the consequences that will come over, she had to accept and be contented.


Most of the selected literary works that we chose are depictions of the writer true sense of his belonging to the land. One out of these six poems that randomly being chosen based on the issue of nationhood is Poem before Execution by Jose Rizal. He himself is the national hero of the Philippines thus his poem reflects his spirit of bringing his land and nation into one to defeat the colonialist. He wrote this poem before he was being executed to death. Indeed he knows of his leaving, he still confides his people of fighting for their rights and land that they belong. He stated in his poem in the fourth stanza of his dreams when he was a child that he wants his people one day, without worries and fears they can live in peace and happiness.

My dreams when I scarcely a child, a youth,
my dreams when I was young, still in my prime,
were to see you, jewel of the eastern sea,
one day with dark eyes dry, with smooth brow raised,
no frown, no wrinkles, tainted with no crime.

He is ready to sacrifice his life for a better future for his people and his country. His love for his country and people make him realize that he needs to forgo and leave his people a chance of freedom. Together with his soul and spirits, he breeds the sense of nationhood. Jose Rizal in some extent wrote this poem to remind his people of their responsibilities to take good care of their country thus the responsibilities not only for the time being yet it should be continued till the next generation. This poem is indeed a hit marker to their soul; lift-up the spirits of nationalism and the sense of identity towards resistance.


Africa is a poem by David Diop. Regardless of his background where he was brought up in France, his true sense of being an African portrayed in all his literary works. In our point of view perhaps, this poem is a reflection of the poet’s heart of his longing towards his country; Africa. He feels proud to be an African as he amazed of the spirit that shows by his ancestors which struggle in their life. Ancestor here means the previous generation of African. As we know the previous generation of African faces the bitterness in order to gain the liberty. These lines show us the sense of longing towards the mother land and how the persona appreciates their oppression in life.
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery

Another theme that we found in Africa is the hatred towards colonial which we can refer to these lines:

Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun

The persona giving the reality of what his ancestor had gone through so as to gain the freedom. Besides, through this poem, the persona also wants to give awareness toward the new generation of African so that they will not forget about their past history. It is not only to remember the past but it is about to preserve the national liberty that truly belongs to them.


We chose Kamala Das’s poem from India to present the notions of nationhood,
an Introduction. It is a poem about post-colonial women in India who struggling for their self agency and national identity. In the first line of the poem, the persona reflects her knowledge of the political issues in her country even though it may sounds strange for a typical Indian woman to know about politics as well as the world. The persona, or we would like to refer as a woman, knows her roots and identity of being an Indian woman. In fact, the persona does not want to be like any other typical Indian woman as she thinks she deserves to know more than that. Her life belongs to the land. Kamala Das is one of India’s foremost poets. Even though most of her works touch the issues of feminism, yet we still chose her work as there is certain elements of nationhood that we can take into consideration. The assigning of gender roles within a nation has deep implication for the development of that nation’s identity (Susan, 2008). This is what Kamala Das attempt to raise in her poems. Women are established as culture bearers where she preserves traditions of the community as well as the land. In fact, nations are commonly referred to in female terms such as “the motherland”, and physically embodied by such female icons as the Statue of Liberty, Britannia and Marianne (Susan, 2008). Hence, in an Introduction, the persona in the poem concerns the issues of women in a notion of nationhood.


Short story is another way to show the notion of the nationhood among the postcolonial countries. Here, in this anthology there are four short stories from Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines. Each of the short stories has different kind of issues that was being raised regarding to their situation in the country. Therefore, we have chosen these stories which are Arriving by K.S Maniam, The Son of Rizal by Jose Garcia Villa, The Interview by Gopal Bratham and Retired Rebel by Suchen Christine Lim in order to provide the readers the information on how people in postcolonial countries celebrate their sense of nationalism.


Arriving another hit-hearto from Malaysian writer, K.S Maniam, is a story of a character named Krishnan who suddenly become uncertain of his true identity. The called pendatang have been disturbing his soul and mind which then he recalled his ancestral background. Being the minority group in the land named Malaysia together with other races such as Malays and Chinese not such a problem to him yet the word ‘pendatang’ had changed his psychologically minded of searching his true identity.

Maniam is also known to experiment with literary techniques in all three genres of fiction-short stories, plays and novels. His use of dream and flashbacks in many of his works allow for a more complex plot and undoubtedly, challenging read.
(2004, p. 173)


The context of his text is surrounded of an important aspect of the “local culture” which can also be traced in Maniam’s use of realism and naturalism. He often writes about the issues relevant to the migrant Tamil community in Malaysia. In Arriving, Maniam depicted of the struggle of the protagonist, Krishnan, who is the third generation on the migrant Tamil, to find a sense of belonging in the adopted land. To some extend, Krishnan tries to believe that he is a pendatang, but then he realized that the only things and the only country that he knows and belongs to is Malaysia, not India where his ancestors used to be. Indeed, he is from India but his country or to be more meaningful, his motherland, the land which he possessed the life since he was born is truly and only Malaysia.


Krishnan would say, “Yes, I’m always arriving, arriving. I’ll never reach. Reaching is dying. Reaching is not arriving. Arriving at what? I don’t know. Only arriving. Never getting there. Arriving.”
There are two different meaning that can be looked into this statement made by Krishnan. Arriving here in that sense means of he came from a different land or to be exact his ancestors were came from a different land but he has arrived in this adopted land to be Malaysian; a part of the nation and he is belong to this adopted land.


The Son of Rizal is a story from Philippines by Jose Garcia Villa. This story is about a man who meets with Juan Rizal on his way return to his home after viewing the annual Rizal Day parade. This guy has attracted to Juan Rizal as he is willingly to listen to Juan Rizal’s story. Surprisingly, Juan Rizal tells him that he is the son of the national hero of Philippines. Everybody knows that Jose Rizal has no son, but he hesitantly has to believe in Juan Rizal’s story as he seems like pleading him to believe. Their conversation stops when Juan Rizal has reached to his place, Calamba. After a month, this man has an invitation of a friend at Calamba. He wishes to visit Juan Rizal too, there, the secret reveals when his friend tell him the truth. Juan Rizal is not Jose Rizal’s son; his real name is Juan Kola. Children called him Juan Sira which means nutty Juan. He will tell everybody that Jose Rizal was his father as there is a sad story behind it. His father was a very cruel to him: he used to beat him for any or no reason at all. He grew to hate his father as much as he feared him. But when his father died he feels really sad as he used to his father meanness and cruelty. He started thinking of Jose Rizal and forgets everything about his real father. What the most touchable thing about this story is the spirit of the hero that lives with the people in Calamba.


Then the boy began thinking of Rizal. Rizal was born here, you know, and that makes him closer to us than to you who live elsewhere. Rizal to us is a reality, a magnificent, potent reality, but to you he is only a myth, a golden legend. He is to you a star, far away, bright, unreachable. To us he is not unreachable for he is among us. We feel him, breath with him, live with him. Juan Kola lived with him-lives with him.
The sense of patriotism among these people should be in the entire citizen of Philippines. Not only by celebrating Rizal Day Parade, but they have to practice the words of the national hero and having the spirit of him so as to defend the liberty of their motherland.


The interview by Gopal Baratham is a story from Singapore which is relating the experience of interviewing Brigadier Mason, a British army during the world war. The interview started by asking his experience being imprisoned by Japanese army. From the interviewing process, there are many things to discover about life during war that the new generation does not know. On the other hand, the interview with Brigadier Mason will certainly provide nostalgia for the older viewer. The journalist father asked him to interview Brigadier Mason due to certain reason; one of the reasons is to give the clear picture of previous generation face during the war.

‘The trouble with you people,’ he frequently said, ‘is that you did not live
through war.
You haven’t seen enough change and suffering to value solid principles.’

These lines mean that the problems of the present generation is that they did not exactly take a lesson of what have been done by the old generation where they have to face difficulties in order to get independence. They will celebrate the day of independence but did they really understand the meanings of independence and the soul of bring glory to the nation.


Suchen Christine Lim on the other hand is emphasizing national language and resistance against colonialism in her short story titled ‘Retired Rebel’. The main character, Jimmy is a retired corporal insists to never look up to the British even he had worked for them for twelve years. He is proud to admit that he is better than the whites, as can be seen in the very first paragraph;


“I’ve worked for twelve years with the British Army, but I didn’t look up to the British even then. In fact, I looked down on them. I was a rebel, I tell you. Don’t talk pidgin to me, I told the Brits. You want to speak to me, speak proper English, I said.


As Jimmy told his story to Maria, his Philipino maid, he gives many examples of how dumb a white man even in using his own mother tongue. Jimmy had actually received his former education at St Joseph and he did learn English very well. That’s why he can speak properly and hold his head high. However, although Singapore had declared English as their national language, back in the early years after British pulled out of Singapore, there are some Singaporean who didn’t like Jimmy because they thought he is very proud to speak the colonial’s language. They once called him ‘English boot licker’ and ‘English shit’ just because he speaks English very well and his Chinese was not so good. This is, obviously the other evidence of resistance against colonialism in this short story. The folks think that when you speak English properly, you are actually supporting the colonialist. But then Jimmy tried to prove he is still a Chinese Singaporean who loves his root and doesn’t betray his nation. Ever since he had retired, he still being a rebel against the whites.


Finally, the anthology has been prepared so as to emphasize on the issue of nationhood in the postcolonial countries that we have chose. The short stories and poems are not only to be read as interesting pieces of art, but they have to be read as guidance so as to be a good citizen. We have been reading the short stories and make analysis for each genre and we found it is beneficial to educate the new generation of their countries history.

The Son of Jose Rizal

(Author's Note: Doctor Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines, died a martyr's death. Accused of sedition against the mother country, Spain, Rizal was deported, imprisoned, and finally shot. He was married on the morning of his execution. The day of his death is observed annually in the Philippines as an official holiday. Doctor Rizal left no son.)

I


Last December 30 I boarded the last afternoon train for Lucena, Tayabas. I had waited until the afternoon to leave, for in the morning my wife, my children and I had gone to the Luneta to view the annual Rizal Day parade. On the morning of the 31st I had to close an
important land deal in Lucena.

From my compartment in the train I could see that the third-class cars were filling with returning provincials who had come to the city -- Manila -- to celebrate the day. They formed a clumsy, motley, obstreperous group and crowded both the station platform and the steps to the cars.

They bustled and palavered loudly like little, unruly children. Some were students going home for a day or two, and they were easily and contrastingly distinguishable from the rest by their modern, flashy clothes. There was a short, ducklike fellow among them who hummed "Ramona," but nobody listened to him for another was cracking a joke about women.

There was much pushing and jostling on the steps to the cars, and a woman who was invisible, whose feet had been injudiciously stepped upon, issued a string of shrill invectives. She called the persons about her "Goats!... Pigs!... Brutes!" She cried to them: did they have no regard for women, did they have no conscience, and, oh! of what advantage being a woman if you had to be trampled upon like an old, useless mat!...

But there was one person of all this crowd who caught my true attention -- or was it a feeling of pity? I felt guilty that I should think myself so superior as to bestow compassion on a fellow creature. Yet there I was, feeling it, and unable to help myself... He was a small, debile, bark-colored man, lugging a long, narrow buri bag which in the native tongue is called bayong. He found difficulty in pushing through the group on the steps to the car, and finally retreated quietly to the platform. On his shallow, thin face was written the fear he had that the train might start before he had got on. The black-green, shapeless, old felt hat that he wore was too small for his head, and he pulled it in deeper. Then the
locomotive bell began to ring its slow, awing, annunciative notes, and the man got nervous. He was pitifully helpless like a lost animal as he stood there not knowing where to get on.

In my pocket I had two tickets, for not quite fifteen minutes ago my eldest son had insisted on going along with me, but had later on desisted. The tickets had been bought, and I could not find the nerve to return the other. In such little things I am most conscious and sensitive, and would feel myself brazen and shameless, if I returned with indifference the things already paid for... Caritatively again (and I hated myself for it) I thought of offering the other ticket to the man.

Half guiltily I whistled to him, and he glanced confusedly in my direction. I beckoned him to approach, which I saw he was reluctant to do -- so afraid was he that he would lose more time and not get on the train at all. But I raised my two tickets for him to see, and I surmised that he understood my intention, for he hobbled hurriedly to my window. In brief words I explained to him that I had an extra ticket, and would he be kind enough to share my company in my compartment? I was alone, I said. Timidly yet eagerly he accepted my
invitation.

The steps to the first-class cars are often, if not always, clear, and soon he was at the door of my compartment. He mumbled a ceremonious, deferential greeting, removing the black-green hat. I told him to step in, and he did so, silently lifting the buri bag and depositing it on the iron net above our heads; beside it he placed the hat. Then he settled himself awkwardly on the seat opposite mine, and regarded me with soft, friendly, pathetic eyes.... The train started.

He was sparely built and poorly dressed. He wore the poor man's camisa-chino, but it was clean and freshly starched. He had on white drill trousers and red velvet slippers.

He smiled shyly at me and I smiled in return.

"You see, I've got my ticket," he tried to explain, pulling it out of his camisa-chino's pocket, "but it was hard to get in. I cannot afford to ride in here, you know," he confessed half embarrassed. His thick lips moved slowly, docilely, and his voice was thin, slow and sad. His small, round, melancholy eyes were lowered in humility.

I told him I was glad to help him. I said I was bound for Lucena, and he where?

"Calamba. That is where I live.... I have three children -- two little girls and a boy. Their mother -- she died at childbirth."

I expressed my sympathy and told him I hoped the children were well.

"They are good children," he said contentedly.

We fell into a warm, friendly chat. He was well-mannered in speech, and although he did not talk fluently -- sometimes he was tongue-tied -- yet he managed to convey his thoughts.

We became confidential in each other, and I spoke to him of my business. I said I was married and had more children than he had, and was a commercial agent. I said I was tired of the work but was not sure I would be more successful in other lines.

He was sympathetic and in return spoke to me about himself and his trade. His name was Juan Rizal and he was a shoemaker. He had a little shop in the front of his house. "It is not a big house," he said.

I said: "You have a good name: Juan Rizal."

"My father is Rizal," he answered.

"Then maybe you are a relative of the hero," I said inferentially.

"Near relation, I suppose."

"No. Rizal is my father" he said. "Rizal. Doctor Rizal," he emphasized, and I saw a brilliant light of pride in his small, buttonlike eyes. "Yes," he affirmed himself with not a little bombast.

I said I had not heard and did not know that Rizal had a son.

"Yes, he has," he said matter-of-factly. "I am he." And he looked at me superiorly.

"The books do not speak of Rizal having a son," I said.

"They don't know," he negated with perfect self-confidence. "They don't know -- at all. I am the son of Rizal."

As he said this, he sat himself erect, lifted his chest out, and plaited together his fingers on his lap. He was little and thin, and when he stretched himself to look great and dignified, he became pathetically distorted. Now he looked elongated, disconcertingly elongated, like an extending, crawling, loathsome leech.

And I was moved and I lied: "I am glad to know you. I am glad to know the son of Rizal," I said.

"Rizal had only one son," he explained. "I am he, that son -- yes, I am he. But people won't believe me -- they are envious of me."

There was a slight whimpering, protestive note in his voice. His thick lips quivered and a film covered his eyes. I thought he was going to cry and I began to feel uncomfortable.

"They are envious of me," he repeated, and could not say more -- a choking emotion had seized him. He swayed lightly as though he would fall.

I realized the intensity of his feeling and I kept quiet. When he regained himself, he asked me in a half fearful, half apologetic tone:

"Do you believe me?"

I faltered: "Y-yes."

A happy light beamed in his dumb, doglike eyes.

He said: "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." He said this, straining himself, for he was greatly excited with gratitude.

There passed moments of silence, and we looked through the window at the passing scenes. The greenery in the soft sunlight was beautiful and healthy, imparting to the eyes a sense of coolness, of vastness. The air, though rather warm, we felt cool and soothing. The train moved smoothly, like a vessel on a very peaceful sea.

It was I who broke the silence. I said I had gone to the Luneta that morning to see the parade. The sun had been hot, and my wife, the children and I had perspired a lot. "It is a trial, waiting for and watching a parade," I said.

He said I was right and that he too had seen the parade. He had come to Manila for that purpose only. "I go once a year. It is a sort of -- pilgrimage. But -- I love my father, you see...."

It was a naive, full-souled statement, and he said it with contagious tenderness. His eyes ceased for the moment being dull and inexpressive -- the soft warmth of gentleness, of a supreme devotional love, filled them -- and they became the eyes of a dove.

"I love my father," he repeated wistfully, softly, as though he were chanting a most holy, sacred song.

But I (and may God punish me for my cruelty!) remarked inadvertently that he didn't look like his father.

A look of great, immeasurable hurt stole into his eyes, and he looked at me imploringly, questioned me with those small, melancholy eyes that but a moment ago had been so happy, so inspired, so tender. Struggling out of impending defeat, clamoring to be saved, to be believed in, those eyes looked at me so that a lump rose unwillingly to my throat.

But he said as though he bore me no grudge at all for my cruel remark -- said it softly, lowly, as though in solemn prayer:

"I take -- after my mother."

Yet he was disturbed, completely broken by my remark, I realized. It had cut him deeply, struck his very core, although he wanted to appear composed. And his efforts were futile: his unrest was visible everywhere in his person: his eyes grew painfully feverish, his
nostrils quivered, his lips trembled. And he gave it up with a twitch of his lips, let himself be as he felt, discoursed, to dispel my doubts; on his mother and his birth: [Note 1]

"My father and my mother -- they lived together before they were married. They lived in Talisay, during my father's deportation, but I was born in Dapitan. People don't know that. When I was born they thought -- thought -- I was dead. Dead. But that is not true. I was alive. People thought I was born so, because when my mother was in a delicate condition before my birth, my father played a prank on her and she sprang forward and struck against an iron stand. She became sick -- I was born prematurely. But I was alive. Do you understand? I was born, and alive -- and I lived" There was galvanic energy in his
excited voice. "My mother, she was Irish -- Josefina Bracken." He gazed deeper into my eyes. "I don't remember her well," he said. "I don't remember her. She had brown eyes and a little nose." He blew his nose with a cheap, colored handkerchief.

"My father liked her but maybe he did not love her. He loved Leonora. Leonora was his cousin. They were separated when my father went to Europe. Leonora's mother intercepted his letters -- she withheld them from Leonora. When my father came back she was married." He stopped and brooded.

"I ran away from my mother when I was old enough to do so. I ran away to Calamba. My father was born there. I wanted to go there -- to live there. I have lived there ever since.... Have you ever been to Calamba?"

I said: "No."

"My father married my mother on the morning of his execution," he pursued. "My father was brave," he said. "He was not afraid of the Spaniards. He fell forward when they shot him -- they wanted to shoot him in the back, but he turned around and fell forward."

He was greatly excited. His face was flushed. "They shot him -- my father -- the white scoundrels! They shot my father -- as they would -- a dog!" He was indignant and a string of tirades left his lips. He shook with fuming rage. His thin, sticklike fingers closed and opened frantically. He was so vituperative I was afraid he did not realize what he was saying.

I stretched a comforting hand to his to calm him down. He looked at me with quivering lips and I realized his helplessness. He told me with rising, apologetic consciousness that he had not meant to upset me. He begged tearfully for my forgiveness, clutching my hands tightly in his. "Please forgive me," he said. "Please forgive me."

I was afraid he would kneel down, so I moved over to his side and said I understood.

"Do you?" he said. "Do you?" His voice was pleading, full of internal ache.

"I do," I said.

He quieted down. He turned his face away from mine, ashamed that he had let his feelings run loose.

We were silent again. Only the chug-chug-chug of the train could be heard, and the wind-tossed laughter of those in the neighboring compartments. The air had grown cooler, dusk was fast approaching, and only a lone bird flitted in the sky. There was a sweet, flowing sound as we crossed a rivulet.

My companion turned to me and made me understand that he was desirous of asking a question. I encouraged him.

"His books -- you have read my father's books, the Noli and the Filibusterismo?" There was still a tremor in his voice, and he mispronounced the last title, calling it "Plisterismo."

"Only the Noli," I said. "I have not had the time to read the other."

He kept his questioning gaze, and I gathered that he wanted me to talk on the book.

"It is a good book," I said. "Only a keen, observant mind could have written it."

He beamed and showed happiness at my words. Peace and repose spread over his face.

"I am glad you like it. I have -- never read it. That is why I asked you. I have -- never learned to read."

We were approaching the station of Calamba, Laguna.

"We are nearing your place," I said.

"Yes," he said, and a sadness was now in his voice. "I wish," he murmured, "I could invite you home."

"I will drop in some day."

The train slackened speed and finally stopped. I helped the son of Rizal lift the buri bag from the net.

"For my children," he explained, smiling. "I bought them fruits."

He asked me before he alighted: "Do you really believe me?"

"I do."

He was very happy and shook my hands effusively.

"Good-bye," he said.

"Good-bye."

The train moved again.


II


The following month I went to Calamba on the invitation of a friend. It had been a long time, about six years, since we had last met in the city, and now I was to be godfather to his firstborn. The choosing of the name depended on me, he had written, and I was elated by it. Aside from the customary baptismal gift, I brought with me a plaster bust of Rizal which I intended to present to Juan Rizal; I purposed to drop in on him for a while.

After the ceremony I asked my host if he knew anything about Juan Rizal.

"Yes," he said. "You mean Juan Kola."

I told him to explain.

"He is a shoemaker -- owns a little shop near the edge of the town. The children call him Juan Sira. You know what that means: nutty."

"Tell me more."

"Well, he calls himself Juan Rizal -- tells that to people whom he meets.... There is a sad story behind it. I will tell it to you:

"When Juan Kola was a small boy, his father was very cruel to him: he used to beat him for any or no reason at all. Naturally the boy grew to dislike his father -- learned to hate him as much as he feared him. But when the boy was twelve or thereabouts, the father died. The boy knew no happiness so great so that he cried. Otherwise the boy would
not have wept: he was so used to his father's meanness and cruelty that any sorrow, any pain, could not make him cry -- he had forgotten how to cry -- had learned to stifle that surging in the breast that brings tears to the eyes -- and he would merely whine, dry-eyed, like a kicked puppy. But this time he wept, and for a long time afterwards you could see him in the streets crying. And when people asked him why he cried, he replied, 'I don't know. I just want to cry.' He was not evading the truth, the boy simply had no words for it. But the people knew.

"Then the boy began thinking of Rizal. Rizal was born here, you know, and that makes him closer to us than to you who live elsewhere. Rizal to us is a reality, a magnificent, potent reality, but to you he is only a myth, a golden legend. He is to you a star, faraway, bright, unreachable. To us he is not unreachable for he is among us. We feel him, breathe with him, live with him. Juan Kola lived with him -- lives with him. In his young untutored mind he knew that if Rizal were his father he would be a good father, a supremely beautiful father -- and he, Juan Kola, would always be happy. And so Juan Kola, the little unhappy boy, made Jose Rizal his father.

"He was a poor boy, Juan Kola, and he could not go to school. He had to work and earn his living. He does not read nor write, but he knows much about Rizal's life from the school-teacher who boarded with the shoemaker to whom he was apprenticed. Of nights, when work was over, he would go to her, to this schoolteacher, and ask her questions --
and she, filled with sympathy for the boy, gave him of her time.

"When Juan's father died, he destroyed all his father's things. There was a picture left of his father, but he burned it, not wishing to remember anything of his true parent. He wanted to be fully the son of his adopted father. From then on he was the son of Rizal.

"And that," concluded my friend, "is the story of Juan Sira. The children have misnamed him: it is cruel, unjust. He who can dream of beautiful things, and live in them, surely he is great -- and wise."

"Take me to Juan Rizal," I said.

* * *

I presented my gift to Juan Rizal in his shabby, little nipa home.

Juan Rizal was exultant when he opened the package containing Rizal's bust. "I have always wanted one, but I could not afford it," he said with tremulous lips and adoring eyes.

And when I was to leave, he kissed my hands fervently and told his children to do the same. His eyes were wet but happy.

"God will reward you," he said, as I descended the narrow, rickety bamboo steps

ARRIVING by K.S Maniam

When Krishnan left the coffeeshop, where he had been drinking Chinese tea with his friends, he was unsteady on his feet. The Familiar building he walked past came tilting at him. A crow, scavenging at a pile of garbage, squawked and flew to shelter in a nearby rain tree.
He didn’t mean that, he told himself. We’ve known each other for too long. Pendatang! Only politicians campaigning for votes used that word. Not always. Some minister had gone up to the platform to discourage its use. These people are not pendatangs. Their great grandfathers were pendatangs. Some of their grandfathers were pendatangs. Their fathers were not pendatangs. They’re not pendatangs. The minister had spoken angrily, heatedly. Krishnan remembered. Newspapers hardly used the word after that. Or only in special cases. Krishnan remembered that.
As he neared his house, he hesitated. He looked at the corner terrace house he had bought thirty years ago, drawing out his meager savings for its down payment. You’ll become bankruptlah, his friends had told him. Twenty thousand dollars! Lot of money, man! But he had managed. The house stood as he had bought it; no extensions or renovations jutted out and distorted the kitchen or the porch.
He pushed open the outer gate-always unlocked-and went up the short, cemented driveway. His wife appeared at the grille-doors and let him into the house. (She had insisted that the iron grilles be fitted saying, ‘I’m the one who’s always at home!’)
“Something the matter?” she said.
“No,” he said, lying down on the sofa.
“Sure? Any palpitations?” she asked.
She had picked up the word ‘palpitations’ from a pamphlet on stress and heart diseases, hearing that men in their forties onwards had to be careful.
“Any pain?”
“Maybe,” he said. “ I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Who’s going to talk? We’ve to do something,” she said.
“Not that kind of pain,” he said.
His wife let him be. The occasions he withdrew into himself, to be alone, were rare and he always came out of these spells refreshed and cheerful. And he always ate with renewed appetite. But not that evening. He still lay, not stirring, on the sofa at dinner time.
“The food’s ready,” his wife said.
“I’m not hungry,” he said.
“Too much Chinese tea?”
“I just don’t feel like eating,” he said, surprised by this anger at his wife.
“Something’s really wrong,” she said, sitting down in an armchair, watching him.
He turned his head-something he had never done-away from his wife, towards the clutch of darkness in the corner. Mat’s face crowded in on him, large cynical, angry. What had he said to make him so furious? He wondered.
“If you get hungry, the food’s on the table,” his wife said and went to fold and put away the day’s laundry.
Krishnan hardly heard her. Had they been talking about imports and exports? Computer technology? The breaking up of the East European bloc? He couldn’t decide. He only remembered Mat’s many faces: Mat puffing up his cheeks, Mat’s blinking and yawning, Mat pursing his lips in indignation. Then the shattering accusation: ‘You pendatang!’ And mat had walked away.
What did it mean, pendatang? Arrivals? Illegals?
Pendatang. He had heard the word used on the Vietnamese people coming to the east coast of the country by the boatloads. Soon they became the boat-people. The courage of these people had astonished Krishnan. He thought of the long cramped, hazardous voyage. He read in the newspapers of their being attacked by pirates; the young women raped and the men flung overboard to drawn and the flesh on their bodies sucked away by horny fish lips. They belonged nowhere; their feet could never touch firm land. He was horrified at the defacing done to a people by violence and ideology. In his dreams he was haunted by a face floating in the sea, ravaged beyond recognition by the greed for power and possessions.
Pendatang. He had seen these other people, the Indonesians, at constructions sties. Building the Tudor-Spanish-Moorish houses in the suburbs. They themselves camped in makeshift shacks and bathed in the open, at the common tap. The women’s sarongs, knotted at their breasts, clung to their bodies like dried, brown blood. The children skins were covered with the soil their parents had dug up to lay the foundations for the houses. In the evenings, having nowhere to go, they sat under dim bulbs, and quarrelled. Men fought over women, over the soft touch of love on the labour-caloused flesh. Or something had gone wrong in the conversation of the ringgit into rupiah and the relatives back home forced to starve?
Krishnan stiffened against the sudden, engulfing darkness that threatened to blank out everything he had known about himself. He was the vagrant blotted-out face bobbing to the hidden currents in the sea of dissolution. He clutched at memory, clawed at familiarity. But he only floated, set adrift by this new uncertainty, towards an unfamiliar landfall.
“The ship stank of human dung,’ his father’s words come to him, ‘and we, the human cattle, floated above that odour, towards our new land.”
He tried hard to recall his father’s memories of his voyage out to Malaysia but his mind was chocked with some strange obstruction. Krishnan lay in that region between water and land trying to pull away from the matted, dark intrusion, but his determination seemed to fail. Yes, it has been his determination that had kept him innocent of his father’s experiences. He had decided, when he became aware of his budding consciousness, not to be influenced by other people’s memories and nostalgia. He clawed at familiarity. But he only floated, set adrift by this new uncertainty, towards an unfamiliar landfall.
His wife shook him by the shoulder, startling away the thin, forming line of submerged recollections.
“ At least come to bed,” she said and stood, waiting.
He followed her to their bedroom and changed into a sarong and t-shirt, his arm flailing as if against some wave of the unknown, and lay down beside her. In the dark he saw her shoulder rise and fall like the faint outline of a land he had never known. His son and daughter — expecting her first child — were out there, absorbed by the land rocking on its own, unfathomable centre.
He struggled against the dark waters of uncertainty for a long time. Many times he was sucked into a fathomless fear but, finally, he rose to the surface, strengthened. He lay watching the rest of the night crumble away into a new torment.
The morning, when he sat near the door with his cup of tea, did not come up at him with its dew-and-soil soaked grass, did not come with its soft and unimposing light. Instead he caught a whiff of rotten sewage being carried down the monsoon drain from across the road. The light falling across the doorway ran points of harshness into his awakened flesh.
Pendatang. One who arrives. One who goes through different experience o reach the most enlightening knowledge, he thought. How like my father’s thinking! How foolishly I thought I didn’t come from his loins!
In the evening he bathed, the water slapping against a new grittiness on his skin, and put on the pants he had worn to work. He felt he was getting into anther struggle, different from the one Mat and he had gone through with Mr.Cuthbert, their British boss, before independence.
As he passed, on his way to the coffeshop, the houses he had accepted as solid and unshakeable for more than thirty years, he thought he detected cracks here and there. No, they were not just splits in the concrete work. They were more than that: the Chinese sundry shop at the corner seemed to wobble on its isolation. He had heard a lot about that shop when he came to live in the neighborhood. But, at that time they had only been stories for him. A string of words from different mouths, adding colour to the place. Now these stories became sinister episodes in a life that had remained inaccessible.
They smacked of the agony of a private history: they all spoke of the attempt of a man to shape himself after his own dreams. Ah Ho, he no good, they had said. Running away, hiding from things he done before. Now thinking he only shopkeeper. But he bring the money from bad deeds he done before. Now dress simple, looking like he never cut people up or kill them maybe. Didn’t run far. Can’t hide from past too long. These things catch up, you know. On day a gang come, beat him up, smash up his shop. But the man still stubborn. Next day he pretend nothing happen. Built up his shop again. Another time the gang come again. Do bad things to his daughter. Still the man pretend nothing happen. If me, my spirit will rise. Will smash up the faces of those thugs!
But when Krishnan passed the old man, Ah Ho, standing behind the counter, the old man smiled at him as if life had been, so far, an untroubled one.
The street beyond Ah Ho’s shop curved into a beckoning distance as each shop thrust its own past at Krishnan. Getting to the coffeshop was like traveling against a slope. Each patch of the road intruded upon him, wanting to be known.
At last he sighted, in the interior of the coffeshop, the people he had no difficulty in remembering. They were connected, web-like, to a round marble that reflected the turning fan and the still glaze of the tea pot. Even as he approached them, he saw their hands weave into hair-thin fragility their solidarity.
“ Here at last!” Wong said.
“ What happened to you, man?” Teng said. “ Not yet retired from your wife?”
Their laughter brightened the table like the shine of unreal gold.
“ You can’t retire from anything,” Krishnan said.
“Wah, how the man change!” Teng said.
Wong, the more serious among them, looked at Krishnan as if seeing him for the first time.
“ All words. Nothing comes from that,” he said.
“ Only when you’re innocent,” Krishnan said. “ To be innocent is to be stupid.”
“ You’ve known Mat Long for a long time,” Wong said. “ You should know better.”
“ I don’t know anything.” Krishnan said, “ But it isn’t too late.”
“ Not late!” Teng said. “ Look who’s talking! We’re all late. One foot already in grave.”
“ We must go in peace, man,” Francis Lim, a Christian but who had not abandoned his Chinese habits, said.
“ As if we were never awake,” Krishnan said, almost to himself. “ But where’s he?”
“ He come once or twice,” Wong said “ Maybe won’t come again.”
“ Something there deep inside..” Krishnan said.
“ Nothing deep there, man,” Francis Lim said. “Just jetsam, flotsam words.”
Listening to them, Krishnan felt he was cut adrift again and was floating away to those grasping lips that would tear him to shreds.
He sat there, not listening waiting, recollecting. He had once seen Wong strike, with lightning fury, at the waiter who had not com with his pot of tea on time. Wong had lashed out with an energy that though lying hidden beneath the surface came exploding through with instinct-charged aggression. His hand went for the bread knife with practiced sureness. The proprietor had stepped in, pacified him by reviling the worker and led Wong, who still trembled with the uncompleted assault, back to the table.
Beneath Francis Lim’s Christian sense of charity, Krishnan remembered seeing a violent self-possessiveness. They had been talking about the individual rights of the citizens in the country.
“ What individual rights?” he had almost thundered. “ You take what you can and don’t let go. Those are the only rights you have.”
“ Chop-chop,” Teng had said. “ You fist, you knife, you gun. That give you what you want.You stand up somebody kick you down some more.”
And he laughed, saying, “ You know who that somebody.” He was looking at Mat. But they had all laughed, including Mat, as if they all accepted the deceptions they practiced on each other.
“ This not like you, man,” Teng now said. “Think. Think. What for think?”
Krishnan came out of his musings; he stared, disoriented, at Teng. The man’s humour-jowled face was also laced with a trace of viciousness. His jokes seemed to bite, cling and make vulnerable Krishnan’s distress. Their rugged edges sawed and dismembered the fragile reassurances he floated upon.
“ For you, all right,” Krishnan said, “No need to think. I have to. Didn’t think all my life.”
But no one said anything. They sat drinking their Chinese tea and ruminating on the fading evening light that made the table and chairs, shadows, and the men, ghosts.
The treacherous gloom of the dying day was thick with the betrayal of his friends. He staggered through the labyrinthian deceit, his earlier determination deserting as some fickle frailty. He saw no struggle ahead of him, only surrender. But the thought came to him, in the light of his new knowledge, that he had always been turning away from circumstances and people, to give in to himself. How right Mat was! He thought. He always coming into himself. Yes, he was a pendatang!
His wife received him again, her face reflecting the bitter staring on his own: they had lived close together without really knowing what went on inside each other. She glowed when he glowed; he was pleased when she was pleased. Had anything happened behind that glow and that pleasure?
He hugged this doubt to himself throughout the simple meal she had prepared and throughout the night as he lay beside the unquestioning heave of known and unknown flesh. He sweated and strange sounds caught in his throat as he waited for the man of the night before to reach out him.
Instead somebody else come. At first Krishnan could not recognize him. The flesh was so young, firm and unlined; the face was so rounded, placid and untouched. Could he have come from all that confidence? He wondered. Then he stilled his mind and watched as this young man move, worked, talked and fell into the snares of friendship.
There he was moving with Mat. They are in the office and Mat was just come out from Mr. Cuthbert’s office, after a dressing down. There is an expression on Mat’s face Krishnan does not understand.
“Upstart! Mat says. “ Who does he think he is? Coming here to teach me. To teach me!”
Krisnan is reminded of a freshwater fish taken out and put into a bucket of sea water. The scaly thing bucks and rebuffs, striking out, indignantly, at some substance in the water that threatens it with domination. Mat’s face is all bathed in a fine sweat of rejection. Then it changes, breaks out into playfulness.
“ A time will come,” Mat says. “Let’s go eat!”
The stairs leading into the sunshine and to the food stalls is covered with their daily stepping out. The ascent on their return – energy restored – is caked with relief and camaraderie. But Krishnan sees a shadow following them, in and out of the building, and sinking out of sight when they are at their desk, working.
As he watches, the shadow goes underground: it divides and submerged itself in Mat and in himself. Whenever they talked about Mr. Cuthbert, Krishnan can feel it straining against the tide of words. He watches Mat, he watches himself: the faces are flashed by a common sympathy, by a common fear. Now the door to Mr. Cuthbert’s room does not remain shut on some impenetrable world of authority. It swings outwards, beckoning, and draws Mat and Krishnan past it fearsome threshold.
Getting accustomed to its darkness, they see that there is no furniture in the room. The walls are maps; the floor is time moving without pause. When they try to steady themselves their bodies shiver. Mat and Krishnan look at each other, their skins sweating fear. Only their minds are alive, preparing to ward off the shadows detaching themselves from the maps from the time-floor.
Then, suddenly, their minds cannot repel anything, not the shadows, not the countries that come hurtling at them through time. The fear they have held on to leaves them. The boundaries of their self-centred consciousness, breaks, and releases them into the continuum of a new awareness. And the people come through the centuries, their clothes patchy with history but their faces aglow with abstraction, aglow with enigmatic wholeness. Krishnan and Mat are specks of fascination in the tide of wholeness.
And as specks of unenclosed awareness they flow along the banks of time, recognizing here a primeval adventurer, there and Alexander outdistancing their native lands; there is Buddha in his bubble of meditation and further down the Greek sages wrapped up in their own wisdom. Riding the time cells, they go past the cataclysm of nations at war, cultures in conflict and come to their own histories and see the conquistadors bringing their ships and their ways of living to the country`s shores. There is no stopping time and soon Mr. Cuthbert comes into their vision, puny and defeated, his personal history in tatters but his spirit shining through to the future. Then Mat and Krishnan come face-to-face with the figure of a man, historyless, moving on the current of discovery and when they look behind him there is nothing; when they look where he is looking there is a swirling mist of everything.
Then Krishnan stepped out and awakened into his own consciousness. His fear was gone, banished by a wide, ranging bewilderment. In the dark he sensed the contours of his wife`s body, enclosing emptiness. Their lives and had been a mere accumulation of days, the shell of a house, the husks of practical tasks. He had turned away and reduced to a comfortable dot all that he did not want to understand. That had been his reaction on being summoned to Mr. Cuthbert`s office: to shun that which made one man dominate another and turn inwards into his cocoon of assurances.
‘the loins of my father, the loins of history,’ he thought, wonderingly, as he got up quietly from the bed and went to the living room. He switched on the dim wall light and opening the front door, looked out on the quiet street.
“Pendatang,” he told himself as he observed the shadows of the trees, telephone and electric poles trail off into a deeper, richer blackness. He had the feeling that he was looking at what had happened before and what lay before him without dismay, without fear.
“Pendatang,” he said softly, gratefully. “Pendatang, Pendatang, Pendatang.”
The word went inside him, into something other than self-conciousness. It went beyond the clay-covered skins of the construction workers. It went beyond the pursed indignation of Mat`s lips, the puffed-up smugness of his cheeks. It did not take Krishnan into himself; it took him into the beyond.
Daylight and his wife found Krishnan seated beside the door, gazing soberly on the street that ran past the house.
“You didn`t sleep at all?” his wife asked.
“Sometimes you must be more awake than asleep,” he said, turning to look at her.
The smile that had been absent for a while returned to her lips. She went to the kitchen to make his coffee, wondering if he would have the ravenous appetite that marked his emergence from the occasional and self-imposed isolation.
When she served launch, he ate like someone about to begin endless journey, relishing every morsel and yet not overfilling himself. She thought she saw in his eyes a light that she had not seen before – a light that gathered whatever happened around him to the pinpoint of a large purpose. In the evening she watched him go out to meet his friends and though she barely understood what he had gone through in recent weeks, she could not help noticing a new dignity that carried the figure of her husband over puddle and drain, past hut and bungalow, round the corner to the unfamiliar.
Krishnan walked towards the coffeeshop, the calm unsteadiness inside him absorbing whatever he saw and heard along the way. As he approached the garbage can he saw the crow that had squawked that reached into the one inside him. he thought it looked like a conquistador pecking away the wastes of history, trying to salvage. ‘ As Ah Ho did,’ Krishnan thought as he passed the sundry shop.
When he entered the coffeeshop he saw Wong, Francis Lim and Teng seated at the usual table as if they had not left it since the last time he had been with them. The table still held in its glaze their gesticulating shadows, given, he thought, to surrender.
“ Look who here!” Teng said. “So fresh! So wife service you good, ah?”
“ Your wife given up already?” Krishnan said.
Wong and Francis Lim looked at him, coming up from their self-absorbed stillness.
“You friend hear lah , looking for you,” Teng said.
“That Mat,” Wong said. “Strange man.”
“We should try to understand him,” Krishnan said.
“ You wasted a lifetime doing that,” Francis Lim said. “Maybe I loooked from the wrong side,” Krishnan said.
“You can change your position as many times as you want,” Wong said, “But he won’t.”
“The change will be good for us,” Krishnan said.
Teng laughed and the others sniggered; Krishnan listened to the ripples of scepticism, undiscouraged. He saw before him many evenings, filled with light and filled with shadows. Unchanging, between light and shadow, Mat would say, “Pendatang!” Krishnan would say, “Yes, I’m always arriving, arriving. I’ll never reach. Reaching is dying. Reaching is not arriving. Arriving at what? I don’t know. Only arriving. Never getting there. Arriving.”

PATRIOTISM by Ee Tiang Hong

Surely by the time one reaches
The seventh generation,
The seventh heaven,
One is no longer subject
To all these?

The journey is over,
The conflicts, the strains, the trials
Resolved generations ago
In that choice, irrevocable,
To cross the seas.

And if there was gold
In the mines and in the jungles
There was also death, hunger and disease.

And surely after all these
The gates of heaven must open,
Unconditional, without question,
No question but that
All men are equal
Under the rain and sun.

Only, alas, who would have thought
Some heads have their reserve of cunning,
Rules will be broken,
Invisible henchmen will have their share
In assuring their security.

They demand
That we start all over again,
Prove our loyalty
(To God or Caesar?)
Or go back to where we came from,
They demand
That we accept the new order,
Stomach the reversal of our lot,
Hold our tongue, seal our lips,
Be grateful for what we have got
(The fruit of our toil),
They demand….

With all these, goodness,
How shall I breathe with dignity
What air of freedom there is
Here in my motherland?