Sajakkini

“Tepuklah dada, tanyalah selera.”

I really, truly, honestly have no idea what this thing means. Yet I come across people saying it all the time. It makes me seriously wonder about its etymology - what does the chest/breast have anything to do with sussing out what you desire?

Asking the people who like to utter it is no help. They don’t even realise how silly it sounds until you bring it up. (You know how, when you were young, you’d say a word againandagainandagain endlessly and suddenly it turns into something completely alien? Same stark effect here.)

Now, if the line had said, “Squeeze your breast and ask what you desire”, then maybe there is a semblance of… I dunno… sixth sense reasoning or something. And if it was a man doing the squeezing to a woman’s breast, well, now we’re actually getting somewhere.

RUHAYAT X is a writer, publisher and co-founder of Neohikayat Publishing. He’s all bark and bite.

But it doesn’t say “squeeze”, it says “slap”. Maybe the chest is actually a tool, a method of tapping into the ether that surrounds us, in the same way a forked stick can be used to divine the presence of water. Maybe if you thumped your breasts repeatedly your nipples will act like some kind of divining rod to tell you what you should do. I mean, what do I know, right.

So, being naturally curious, I tried it out myself. I wasn’t sure whether to have tea or coffee one day so I stood in front of the mug, thumped my chest and waited.

Nothing.

Then I thumped again, three times (for good luck), and a little harder this time.

Nada.

So I whacked my chest several times. And all I got was a coughing fit.

It’s called karma

So what gives, yo? Why is it so damned popular when no one knows what the hell it means?

While we’re on the subject, how many times have you heard this one: “Dunia ini ibarat roda”?

The world is like a wheel. Meaning, yeah it’s bad now, but the good times will roll right back. It’s usually uttered as a word of advice to someone facing hard times, like losing a whole family to a car accident, for example. And it can come out like the most natural thing from the mouths of people who, just a minute ago, went all psycho on you for suggesting that maybe our interpretation of Islam is out of sync with our world.

That’s right: the concept of fate as turning like a wheel is not Islamic, it’s Buddhist.

It’s to do with the notion of karma: what comes around, goes around. And it’s closely related to the idea of reincarnation, which is at the core of Buddhism as we know it today. Which is why I’m always surprised to especially hear people who deem themselves to be oh so Islamic utter this phrase.

Do good unto others

Islam has no such concept, although the Quran does exhort - in the manner that the Bible did before it - that we do unto others as we would them do unto others. Islam’s concept of good and bad times is not circular; it is linear, like a rollercoaster ride.

It’s because in Islam this life is only one - there is no turning back. It’s to do with the idea of promoting self-responsibility - you’d better make sure you live your life properly, because you’re going to be judged for the eternal life based on this one.

I can’t be exactly sure, but it’s not too hard to guess that this term tagged along in our vernacular with our continued heritage. (Yes, we were Buddhists and Hindus before; please don’t faint.)

After all, we still have the word “sembahyang”. The original word was “Sembah Hyang”, meaning praying to the great spirit. It was in use when we were Hindu, but I’m quite sure it’s actually from our animistic past. (Yes, we used to make offerings to the Great Tree Spirit; please don’t faint again.)

And finally, my biggest beef of all: “Angkat topi.”

If all fails, there’s the Wonderbra

I mean, seriously, when was the last time you met a Malay man who wears a hat? In the case of smart-alecks, how many hat-wearing Malay men do you know?

Curiously for our climate, hats are just so alien to our culture that this phrase - obviously borrowed from the English “Tipping my hat off to…”, meaning to show respect for someone, or acknowledge their achievement - makes no sense in the Malay vernacular context.

Of course, you can argue that it doesn’t make sense in England, either, since very few men these days wear hats over there. But a lot of English people can still remember a time when people wore hats, and they tipped their hats as a sign of courtesy or friendliness. In Malaysia, on the other hand, hats were never prevalent.

Ah, you say, well, what if we change it to “Angkat songkok”? Which would only make it even worse: not only would you have borrowed an alien behavioural signifier, you then impose it on another distinct cultural construct in which such behaviour is unthinkable. I mean, look, the concept of tipping your songkok is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

I’m all for borrowing external words to colour our world, but preferably some form of thinking needs to take place also so that we don’t end up mouthing silly utterances that have no meaning whatsoever in our context.