Part 2: Singapore-Malay Bawean - self-actualisation.

PART 2

My older brothers, Ariff and Ismail, with uncles Cik Yusof and Cik At-at, who are of the same age as my elder brothers respectively. At Joon Tong Road, off Old Jurong Road; circa 1970s.

My family spent many weekends at either the paternal or maternal grandparent’s place. However the weekend before the beginning of school after a long semester break would be particularly special. For example, my father’s siblings would gather with their kids at his parent’s place at Teban. After Maghrib, we would have kenduri, or prayer feast, to celebrate the achievements of the previous year and welcome the new one. The eldest family member, my grand uncle, would recite verses from the Quran over a cup of water. This “blessed” cup would be passed around to the kids for good grades and overall performance in school, and to shield us from accidents and bad luck. 

Nonetheless with a reminder the ultimate blessing comes from Allah. We seek His grace.

On other days, such blessed water would be prepared for a family member starting a new job, going for an interview, enlisting in National Service, after a job promotion, getting married, traveling overseas, or moving to a new house. Occasionally, there was blessed water for the sick or for those recovering from severe or chronic illness.

My family was also present for my uncles’ and aunties’ khatam Quran milestones. My older siblings had their khatams too. During childhood, it was common for the head of the household, usually the father, to teach the children basic Iqra, often in the “Bawean style.” My father’s flawless recitation of Quran was captivating. During Ramadan, my grandparent’s living room hosted congregational Tarawih prayers after breaking fast without fail, although my cousins and I would be excused. We watched from the sidelines, often bored by the second rakaath, or prayer cycle, and played our own games in the background.

For early Baweans being a perantau or traveller meant that every chance to connect with a fellow Bawean overseas was a chance to rekindle relationships. Thus everyone was family. At the turn of the century, the Ponthuk that dotted many parts of urban Singapore was the point of call for most single travellers who left Bawean. Each Pondok was linked to a respective province at home. Upon arrival a Pak Lurah, the head of the Pondok, welcomed the traveller. He subsequently took care of the new arrival’s welfare until he settled down with a job or ready to move out. This tradition of kinship and hospitality maintained even when the Pondok ceased to exist. Maintaining family foundations and practising kindness were also part of being good Sunni Muslims.

On very rare occasions when I tagged along my father to visit my elderly grand relatives, the conversations trailed to unwell acquaintances or victims of suspected hexes. The language was coded and matter-of-fact, making it sound like something that happened in Bawean Island to my untrained child ears. Upon reflection, I noticed my father never brought my older brothers to such meetings, perhaps because the unspoken rule was to be respectful and not ask too many questions. Perhaps my father liked to take me because I was well behaved and not being disruptive when the elders spoke. Or perhaps it could also be I did not have any homework to complete.

I would hear about entities, spells, special compounds, significant energies, and anecdotes warning children like me not to trivialize Taoist roadside offerings during the Hungry Ghost Festival or to maintain integrity in daily dealings because karma is real. 

This early exposure to such conversations ingrained in me a scientific approach to the entities of the sixth sense in Bawean lore. Having insider knowledge allows one to form effective perspectives and drive positive change naturally embedded in the culture.

My father emphasised secular education for his children as a means to move up beyond the blue-collar system that most of the Baweans came from. Thus, even when I was attending Anglo-Chinese School, a Methodist mission school, I was concurrently attending Madrasah classes in the morning or afternoon, depending on my secular school sessions. I was listening to the ustazah talked on fitrah in the morning and then listened as the pastor led the hymns in the afternoon. As I moved on to junior college, I met more Malay friends of other ethnicities besides Baweanese, such as the Javanese and Bugis. It was also here that I discovered the stereotypes leading to the discrimination the early Baweans faced within the Malay community. 

The most common was how the Baweans were deemed to be unchaste due to stereotypes of the community’s attribution to black magic and the community’s love of the bloody tuna, no pun intended. Thus it was impossible for a Bawean boy or girl to marry a Javanese, for example, because of the prejudice that sprang from these stereotypes.

In 1997, I was working on a television documentary about the Bawean diaspora in Singapore. During the filming trip to Bawean Island, we stayed in a Pesantren. Guarded by the spoken and unspoken rules of the Baweanese, I confronted my heritage full-on. There were many questions, and being on the island where my grandparents came from was the best way to confront them.

Observing the culturally conservative and very religious Bawean islanders, I asked the head of the Pesantren, a soft-spoken Haji, if it was true that Baweans practiced black magic, given the community’s notorious reputation in Singapore. Silence. It was as if the Haji was trying to figure out the context of my question. His body language at that point reminded me of the elders who spoke to my father when someone asked an awkward question.

He calmly explained that one cannot blame the people, the family, the community, beliefs or religion for the deed of the individual. God is almighty, He provides guidance, and fate brings us where we are. At that point I could not seem to comprehend his loaded and complex response. Out of respect to the host, I left it as that.

Back in Singapore, while filming the documentary, I met an elderly Bawean with a road named after him at Caldecott Hill. He was rumoured to be a spiritual advisor to a very prominent figure in Singapore. A first-generation migrant, slight in size and non-assuming, he had a special gaze typical of learned elderly Baweans. It was the same gaze of the elders that spoke to my father when I was little. It is complex to describe the gaze but one that I can identify when I see it. I asked him the same question about black magic. He simply smiled and did not respond.

I remember when I was little, when an elderly Bawean responded with no response, that was a code to mean you are being “kurang ajar”. In Phebien, being confrontational was seen as rudeness of a higher degree. In Bawean speak, kurang ajar means your parents, grandparents, and guardians failed to teach you well in graces and manners. It was like having your whole family clan spat at. At the end of the interview, I took the man’s hand and kissed it as a sign of quiet apology.

Being exposed to the mechanics of the sixth sense and its entities as a child, and confronting these experiences professionally while making the documentary about Bawean diaspora in Singapore, led me to embrace my history. Dwelling on something unfairly attributed to my heritage and attempting to find reason in its mechanisms meant I had to make peace with it. There are good people and some, on the contrary, just as there is good and bad in everyone, every culture, every community. Eventually, what brings closure is acknowledging and making peace with it.

"..Yeah, you better be careful, or I will send the spirits down your way to kick your a**!"

I used to joke in response to every unfair snide remark about Baweans and the sixth sense. 

Little did I know.

[Read PART 1, read PART 3]

Part 1: Singapore-Malay Bawean - growing up within.

PART 1

My elder brother, Ismail, and I. At Joon Tong Road, off Old Jurong Road; circa 1970s.

I never thought a longstanding, unfair attribution to the Phebien, aka my Bawean culture - one that the elders dispute and I grew up underestimating - would rear its sinister head. Notwithstanding, I acknowledged the existence of the sixth sense and all matters in that world, my day-to-day life had never been hampered or tinged by these things.

I was more of a Scully than a Mulder from the science fiction series, The X-Files. However, something manifested in my life and aggravated my health in late 2016, enlarging my perspective. It resulted in me being hospitalized for close to a month and requiring therapy which I am still undergoing to this day.

This is a 3-part blog on my journey navigating the dark experience.

Let me begin. I was born and raised in a traditional Singapore-Malay Baweanese household. My maternal and paternal grandparents left Bawean Island (off the coast of Surabaya, Indonesia) after World War II. They arrived in colonial Singapore and eventually took residence here. That makes me a third-generation Singaporean. I served my National Service in one of the three elite units of the Singapore Armed Forces as a pioneering Malay-Singaporean enlistee. I hold the Singapore pink identity card, sealing my allegiance to Singapore. I even made a short film, The Usual, commissioned by MINDEF, based on my years growing up at Jalan Majapahit, off Old Jurong Road.

I think I had a remarkably interesting childhood. Many would agree and even see it as challenging and uniquely formative.

I spent much of my early years with my maternal grandmother in a quaint Baweanese community at Joon Tong Road, off Old Jurong Road, in the early 70s. My parents dropped me off in the morning before work and picked me up in the evening when they returned. On weekends and occasionally during the weekdays, when my parents were too tired, I would sleep over at my grandparent’s. These stays were most enjoyable because I immersed myself in a distinct cultural space. My grandparents and the neighbours still held much of the traditional customs and ways they brought from Bawean.

Two aspects of Baweanese culture have fascinated me, even today - the spoken language and its cultural beliefs and practices.

I inevitably picked up the Baweanese language at a very young age. At my grandparent’s house, conversations were predominantly in Baweanese. Even my secular school-going aunties and uncles spoke Bawean 90% of the time, among themselves at home and with neighbours. I remember, as a toddler, perhaps when I was three years old, I could already understand the conversations between my mother and grandmother as they shared stories about my day’s mischief, thinking I wouldn’t understand. Later, I could comprehend the refined conversations between my grandfather and grandmother - they spoke in a higher level of Bawean language. As I picked up its intonations and nuances, I also absorbed the non-verbal aspects of Baweanese culture.

These days, I do not speak the language. However, when I hear a phrase being spoken or Malay spoken with a Bawean accent, it takes me back to those sublime moments when I lay on a traditional Bawean handwoven mat made from palm fronds on my grandmother’s outdoor verandah. It evokes the wonderfully familiar comfort of drinking from my milk bottle and listening quietly while Nenek Aishah exchanged quaint stories about Bawean life before migration to Singapore with the neighbours.

When it comes to culture and tradition, the Bawean community I grew up in loved a kenduri and would find any excuse to celebrate family milestones. My father often took my brothers and me to kenduris on weekends. A kenduri is a feast where the community comes together. The male family members, along with neighbors, would sit in a circle (depending on the space) and recite verses from the Quran as a form of thanksgiving, followed by a feast. Before the kenduri itself, families and neighbours would gather voluntarily to prepare dishes, the feasting space, and other necessities in a practice called gotong royong. Food was served in a dulang, or tray, and immediate families, distant cousins, in-laws, and friends ate communally in groups of 3-5, depending on the size of the dulang. It was fun to see so many people in one space, as I made many new friends with “cousins” or young “uncles/aunties.” It was not uncommon to find an aunt or uncle the same age as your sibling. I have two uncles who are the same age as my older brothers.

After feasting, the men would sit together through the night, sharing stories. Normally, I would be too tired to stay awake, falling asleep on my father’s lap while he continued talking with elderly male relatives or neighbours.

Reflecting now on how early Baweans loved to commemorate milestones and used this as an excuse to gather, I realize it was their way to maintain close family ties. The elders always emphasized keeping immediate relatives close, as they are the ones we can depend to carry us into the grave when we die because only family can ensure that we have proper Muslim burial.

For them, these gatherings were a way to keep up with one another before the telephone and internet era.

[Read PART 2, read PART 3]