A Special Look into Malaysia’s Arts and Culture
Written by Ainul Nabilah Asri
Arts and culture are two things that are ultimately intertwined with each other. Culture and tradition are the aspects that make every race and ethnics unique and differ from each other since every race has its own traditions. Culture is defined as the ideas and social customs of a particular group of humans. Meanwhile, arts usually come from the creativity of an ethnic to express their skills and imagination into crafty outcomes. Visual arts, literature art and performance art are some of the common art branches that is generally known.
Malaysia, as a diverse country with various races and ethnicity is the epitome of a harmonious country with infinite source of arts and cultures. Before modernization hit Tanah Melayu hundred years ago, the locals are well sourced and creative enough to include arts in their daily life. With different cultures for different races. To this day, the effects of arts that started to evolve more during the well known Kesultanan Melayu Melaka can still be seen until now. Appreciation of art most of time starts with the enjoyable pleasure of seeing the aesthetics offered by the visual arts, hence the reason why it is one of the prominent field of art. Ever since hundred years ago, arts have been playing the major role that symbolizes some of cultural traditions for different races.
Firstly, the prime example for our country’s pride of arts is the Batik and Songket. The extricate patterns on the textile materials symbolizes everything, from the life lessons and principles to creative patterns of life elements. The making process of the art itself teaches the makers of patience since the tedious process really requires delicate steps and original ideas to bloom from their own crafty hands.
Colors in the Songket also plays the role of signifying social status of locals such as yellow for the royalties, green and blue Songket for noblemen, white for Islam scholars and black for warriors. Meanwhile abstract motives of living elements on the fabrics sometimes signifies the cultures and traditions of ethnics, hence the mixture of Malay elements for Malay domain areas.
Next, the performance art which mainly is highlighted by the well-known festive dance of Lion Dance by the Chinese ethnic. This performance is usually seen during the Lunar New Year season. With bright and flagrant colors of the lion’s heads and tails accompanied with loud music, this performance can be seen usually in the malls during the festive days for free. The centuries-old dance which is originated from Han Dynasty were before performed by dancers from martial arts schools. Nowadays, in Malaysia it has evolved into an art performance rather than martial arts. The noise during the dancing was said to be loud as it is to deflect the evil spirits and garner more good luck and fortunes during the festive. Digging more into art creation, the lion’s head masks for the dance are mostly created and designed by the locals themselves. This is because of the expensive costs of importing the masks from China were affecting their business, hence, the locals initiated the self-making lion head masks with their own crafty hands.
The third largest population by race in Malaysia are Indians. Being among the three largest races in the state, Indian arts are never out of date here, always evolving and spreading its creative taste to the whole nation. One of most related arts that are generally known from the Indian cultural art is the art of Kolam. Kolam is an art of drawing using colorful rice flour, chalk, chalk powder or rock powder. It usually is drawn on the ground, most can be seen during Deepavali festive season at malls. Kolam is drawn with purpose of welcoming the Goddess of Prosperity, Lakshmi, alongside warding off the evil spirits, with the side purpose of aesthetics of arts. Drawing the Kolam also fulfills the physical, philosophical and spiritual aims. From the physical acts of stretching on the floor to decorate the Kolam, which signifies humility, to the focus and concentration in drawing the Kolam which will ensure the creativity running in the mind of the painters.
Malaysia, as a diverse country with various races and ethnicity is the epitome of a harmonious country with infinite source of arts and cultures.
Understanding the meaning behind every arts and crafts of any culture and traditions can never have an ultimate ending as it goes deep into the history itself. Eyes wide open to the knowledge from these aspects, arts in cultures can be the stepping-stone to know and understand more about an ethnic. As in Malaysia, there are so many cultural arts that are yet to be promoted openly for public appreciations, hence we should strive more towards a more open ‘cultural art-minded’ country as this treasure should never be erased from us.
