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ARTICLES:
Eurasian Experience
Playing
the Princess By Renata Sandivita June 2003 I was born in Indonesia on November 10, 1983 and was raised there for five years until we had to follow my father to return to Malaysia. I never thought about how I was any different from the others. Of course when I was a kid, adults would stare at me and smile then tell the next person to look at me; it was a common scene when I was 5 to 10 years old. I'd ask my mother and she would reply that maybe others find me cute and adorable that I'm fairer than the average Malaysian kid. I had reddish brown hair, I had brown eyes and I had pink cheeks. It was funny when I were young that I used to join the other kids in our neighborhood to play and I'd always play as the princess because they said I was prettier and fairer than them, but it had never made sense to me at that time that I was a Eurasian kid and I was supposed to look like that. Like the other Malay kids, I didn't speak English. (My mother is of Indonesian-Dutch and German parentage so she doesn't speak English that well either.) But teachers would ask me to read English stories and speak in English, assuming that when you're a Eurasian you're supposed to be fluent in English. But of course I couldn't! My English was just as bad as the others! When I got to secondary school, boys suddenly existed for me. I began to get wolf-whistles when I walked down the school corridor and got loads of phone calls from boys I didn't even know. I remembered having five different boys calling me up every night from seven to midnight each day after school. They'd start saying sick things like "you're beautiful, what are you? Do you have orang putih (white) blood? Are you a Pakistani?" At the time I could think nothing more of the remarks except for being embarrassed! It only hit me about being Eurasian when I met two of my classmates who were Eurasians themselves. The thing was that they were really proud of their mixes. One of my classmates Douglas, who's half Chinese and half Australian, used to say to me "hey, you're Eurasian and I'm Eurasian; why don't we go out together sometime?" I hated that term "Eurasian" and when we were asked to write a bio of ourselves I'd always say that I was a pure Kadazan, but I guess I don't look so much like a Kadazan and people kept asking me what I were. I became friends with a girl called Michelle who unlike me, would always seize the chance to give a lecture about her mixes every time anyone asked her about her race. She used to say "Hey, we are cool! We are Eurasians, we've got the best of both worlds, we've got the looks, blah, blah, blah..." to me. Only then I realized that being different is not always about being funny or stupid. It can be beautiful and advantageous to be a little different. Until now I still get the "you're not a pure Kadazan are you?" questions, but instead of saying "Of course I am!" with blushing cheeks, I have learnt to embrace the word "no, I'm a Eurasian.." perfectly rehearsed with a smug expression on my face! What did you think? Discuss this article. About
the Author Being very mixed, she is most keen of her ethnic roots and she loves to experience new cultures especially the cultures of a part of her that she hasn't had a chance to discover. Living in Malaysia for almost fifteen years now, she's lucky to have lived in a country which is a melting pot of rich traditional and ethnic backgrounds. She's fluent in her father's mother tongue. She is a second year undergrad in a local university; she aspires to be a successful dietician when she finishes her studies and then wishes to come back to Indonesia to experience the culture and lifestyle of a part of her she's been missing out. Being about 75% Asian, she admits that being mixed gives her the opportunity to get the best of both worlds. After catching up with her hidden Indonesian roots, she hopes that she can go to Europe to experience the European culture which is also a part of her. |
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