You want it darker

I was always fascinated by fieldwork and before entering into my research, undoubtedly I have one or two questions in mind. During my days with Sciences Po, we were taught to analyze data carefully and always cross read from different sources, even so it is almost impossible to gain absolute knowledge of a culture, it is still a formidable challenge one decide to take on.

I remember Malinowski’s work and how I was captivated by the lives of the Trobiand Islanders, even the language he deployed is rather dry, but it does conveyed a sense of exoticism, something different than the life I live and naturally I am attracted to the hidden possibility of mysteriousness in fieldwork.

As a Malaysian, this interest naturally extended to wanting to observe the life of the indigenous people, to me almost a voyage to a terra incognita as I spent most of my life in Western parts of Malaysia & China. So I packed my backpack, and readied myself to live in the Iban longhouse with the natives and to gather enough information to accomplish my research. Little did I know this journey would be a rather painful experience for me to rethink the “Malaysia” I had in mind and also serve as a reflection of many topics concerning all aspects of human life.

Hence the title used is derived from the album by legendary Leonard Cohen, it was the last album released during his lifetime and often times, when I found myself stuck in paradoxes of life or impoverished from the lack of life experience, I find ease in this 4-minute space he created. During this trip, I felt a dividedness in conflict of the world the people choose to live versus the one they can live. I somehow felt a sense of weakness and a strong sense of self-doubt when I realized the tension between them both is not irreconcilable; what is lacking is the willingness to open a huge space to further survey the potential of living a life between conserving the ‘traditional’ while ‘progressing’.

Certainly, what I present is an accumulation of my surest personal observations, hence debate and further discussion is more than welcome. A revisit is in order too. I also recognize the multitude of problems underlying can never be fully addressed at once and certainly not through my flimsy effort in researching. But this journey of mine in pursuing a truer representation of my country can be confluence with many efforts done by people before me, and I am anticipating an opportunity to finally fit myself in a bigger picture in solving problems I witness institutionally.

There will be no ethnographic romance involved. The place I travelled to is ‘Batang Ai’, home to the Iban people and is one of Sarawak’s largest indigenous groups known for their traditional longhouses. They are very exposed to the modern life and their residence is frequented by visitors like me from everywhere in the world. During my stay, my roommate was a young lady from Sicily who aims to live a nomadic life compared to her peers. We conversed a lot during our stay together and expressed the same kind of disappointment which I will explain later. Having that said, with this degree of exposure to the outside world of the Iban community, there’s no sense of mystery and certainly, unnecessary exoticism is unwelcome.

I have no tendency in romanticizing my visit and intend to only lay out some thorny reality I witnessed. Harsh realities and awkwardness clashing with ‘preserving tradition’ for the sake of kitsch.

I do not deny the long haul to reach them but the difficulty in accessing them doesn’t add up to its mysteriousness or provide an excuse for the lack of effort to further explore the wherewithal to improve. I am no writer nor anthropologist, just a humble Malaysian who is observing her country with some degree of care for her people. So there will also be no truth to nature that needs to be sacrificed to literary effect. If you think I might be blunt in my language, it certainly comes from my own bitterness of witnessing the reality.

__________________________________________

‘The head hunters’ longhouse’, an exotic and attractive way to attract outsiders to Malaysian Borneo and to the longhouse. Since they have a ‘barbarian past’ which was outlawed by the noble savage from the West, their past still, likely to horrify and delight visitors who travel for the headhunting stories.

Fast forward today, I am slightly reluctant to buy this narrative that serves a soft colonial pat on the head. What exactly are we celebrating here? Within the particular community I am living with, I somehow sense a dissonant degree of assimilation (notice, I do not use the word integration).

Hereby attached is a conversation with Mas, a native who speaks fluent English and has brought in many groups of travellers in the past 10 years of his role as a tour guide.

Me: “So, people here believe in Jesus and there's a priest who preaches to them?”
Mas: “Yes, the people go to church every Sunday.”
Me: “They seems to be very serious believers. I’ve seen crucifixes and portraits of Jesus in their rooms. In what language does the priest preach? Because apart from you, almost none of the villagers seem to speak English.”
Mas: “The priest preaches in Iban.”
Me: “Oh, so there’s an Iban version of the Bible? Was it directly translated from English?”
Mas: “Maybe… I’m not sure.”
Me: “But they also worship the land god and other natural forces, right?”
Mas: “Yes, they do.”
Me: “But if they believe in Christianity, doesn’t that imply they should believe in one God and one God only?”

Mas was momentarily stunned and fell silent. After a pause, he awkwardly dismissed the conversation.

It felt a little ironic to me — in a house where a large picture of God hangs on the wall, the space was covered in cobwebs and dust, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in ages. I noticed the decaying body of a gecko stuck to the wall — a quiet but haunting reminder that this well-known longhouse, which has likely hosted countless visitors over the years, seems untouched by even the most basic ideas of cleanliness.

The hosts are an old couple, the husband is a boat man and a hunter, the wife performs housewife duties. Both of them are kind souls and welcoming. Witnessing this, deep in me I am shaking in slight anger: what exactly is being preserved here? For whose satisfaction is this spectacle really staged?

Yes, the longhouse is heritage and also an illustration of the concept of the tradition of the people. But tradition doesn’t mean backwardness; it is not ignorance nor a willful display of some anachronistic dullness. This should not be mistaken as culture, it was neglect, dressed in the costume of heritage.

Our anthropological and historical past is not a muddied version of romantic dilemma or a display as a ‘performing act’ to satisfy a colonial pat on the shoulder. To me, their living condition serves as a stark reminder of how our thirst for imagined realities often confuses inertia with authenticity.

I am fully aware that the longhouse is primarily an aggregation of independently owned family apartments, therefore I shall observe more to conclude if this is an individual or institutional pattern of behavior. But to my disappointment, within that community of 37 villagers, it is a common practice. With all due respect, I followed them for their daily rituals and routine. We ate, hiked, hunted, and slept together. Still, I sensed an impoverishment — not just material, but existential, and something more has to be done instead of making it a place for visitors to visit and go.

Yet, despite everything, I left not with a condescending eye, but with a lingering question: how can we rethink what it means to preserve, without patronizing? How can we empower without enforcing? How can we learn to see tradition not as a fossil to be dusted off for display, but as a living, breathing possibility to grow from?

This reflection is not a rejection of heritage, but an invitation to consider it more seriously, beyond the photo ops and souvenir culture.

It is also a plea to fellow travellers: what exactly are you looking for when you visit a place like this? Are you seeking to understand, or simply to consume?

Because I believe we owe more to the people who welcome us into their homes. And they deserve more than just being curated for spectacle.

If nothing else, may this journey plant the seed of new ways to think, and to act