Rojak Culture
By Khoo Gaik Cheng
Rojak Day was coming up and all the vegetables and fruits of the land were supposed to be busy preparing for the nation's fiftieth year of independence. The National Stadium was crowded with cucumbers, sengkuang, jambu air, pineapples and sour mangoes all lining up in their respective groups and colours in the field. Little ones were being herded by their teachers into special penned areas with pompoms and painted faces, screaming in shrill excited voices. But not everyone felt like celebrating. First of all, there was much uneasy whispering among the adult fruits, especially the sour mango and pineapple which were upset by the derogatory statements made about their contributions to the national culture.
"You can't have too much sour mango in one rojak, or it just spoils the whole taste!" insisted an ostensibly bland-looking cucumber to her husband as they were preparing to dip their toes into the peanut and shrimp paste sauce at The Big Bowl.
"Yeah, too many of those and they take up enough sugar resources to compensate for us all!" another cucumber chirped in. She was standing under one of the sugar showers, transforming herself into a diabetic concoction during the dress rehearsal for the national parade in a week's time.
"My dear, have no fear, I'm here to balance all those sourpusses out!" a delectable bright yellow pineapple cried confidently to her neighbour, the sour mango who was close to tears. "After all," she proclaimed loud enough to chill the cucumbers' ears, "isn't that what Rojak Day is all about? Fusion harmony?" The cucumbers gave her the cold shoulder and went back to their own activities.
"Thanks for that, Piney, but, but, but, you didn't have to..." The sour mango blushed in the presence of mixed company. Really, he was quite upset by this seemingly petty incident which was actually the culmination of a series of attacks on fruits launched by the majority vegetable elite in the land. Sour mango began to take more seriously his cousin's call last month for him to attend a secret meeting of all sour mangoes. It was to plan for a possible boycott of Rojak Day.
"Hartal, dear boy, remember 1947?" his cousin, a History lecturer, had reminded him as if he had any idea what that date meant. "For fifty years, we've given them the tang they all take for granted as the basis of our very collective constitution. And what have we to show for it? Nothing! Instead, they have taken us for granted only to dismiss us and continue to denigrade us. Those damn cucumbers and sengkuang are the worst! One just dispels seeds and water everywhere diluting the national sauce, and the other just makes our pathways slippery and slimy. It's time we show them that we are a force to be reckoned with. It's time we demand our rights. Mango Sour!"
His cousin had raised his fist in the air and squeezed his most astringent expression out as possible. "Mango Sour!" he repeated with passion, grabbing his cousin's hand and raising it with his.
"SM" who preferred to go with his acronyms as his full name was too long and complicated for the other fruits and vegetables to manage without mangling, was a rather timid and apolitical fellow. But in this matter, he followed his cousin's activities with keen interest. He had even attended a few seminars on the rights of sour mangoes in community halls throughout the nation, which were jam-packed with sour mangoes who became radicalized about their marginalised conditions. He could hear the rumble of dissent as mangoes big and small came rolling out, perturbed by what they heard, anxious to regain some say in what goes into the sauce and rojak in general. They were sick of their trees being shaken and their not being allowed to grow to a larger size in comparison to the cucumbers and fat sengkuang. Those bland types only knew how to absorb the contributions of the hardworking fruits, the sweet and sour sweat that made the rojak taste so good. What about them? Yet, they demanded that the rojak be dominated by their interests and that the original recipe had insisted on 65 per cent cucumbers and sengkuang, 25 per cent pineapple and 10 per cent sour mangoes. This even further isolated the jambu air who felt half vegetable half fruit but weren't sure which category to assert their claim in without betraying their minority fruit allies or their own interests. What a dilemma!
Rojak Day definitely sounded like it was in trouble this year. Even pineapples were not happy and were emigrating by the tinloads since the sengkuang heads proclaimed their 'special rights' and paraded publicly with their brown peelings trailing obscenely, desecrating the streets and scaring little fruits into staying indoors that day. The cucumber politicians arrogantly encouraged such emigration, boasting that there was more than enough white sugar in the country to make up for the loss of pineapple contributions to the rojak. But only the fruits knew that when it came to the taste test, culture wasn't something to mess around with. You couldn't really substitute the sour-sweet of pineapples with industrial sugar. Neither could you replace the texture and taste of fresh sour mangoes with lime, vinegar or preserved rubber. It had to be organic, spontaneous; all the various elements valued each by all and balanced with judicious amounts of roasted crushed peanuts, white sugar, petis, chili, Chinese sweet sauce and sesame seeds. That blend - of textures, tastes and colours, of vegetables and fruits and those in between - defined the very nature and culture of the Rojak Nation. Yet it was a dish that was threatening to some who preferred a more homogenous taste and eschewed diversity.
Looking around, SM wondered if Piney would accompany him to a Sour Mango demonstration on Rojak Day. The time had come, he decided, to assert Mango Sour for all fruits in the mix, not just sour mangoes. He stole a glance at her attractive yellow skirt and thought to himself, it's a date. But would she accept?
Khoo Gaik Cheng lectures in cultural studies, gender, and Southeast Asian Cinema at the Australian National University. Her research focuses on cosmopolitan spaces such as independent filmmaking, kopitiam and mamak stalls. She is interested in everyday spaces, instant noodles, and the overlaps between secular and Islamic discourses. Her publications include Reclaiming Adat: Contemporary Malaysian Film and Literature (UBC Press, 2006), she has edited special issues on SEAsian cinema in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (2007), Asian Cinema (2007, with co-editor Sophia Siddique Harvey) and and she is one of the co-editors of Race and Multiculturalism in Malaysia and Singapore (Routledge, forthcoming).