My Heritage

I thought it'd be interesting to shed some light about my heritage. My lineage. My descent.

I find that my family history has quite a story behind it. It's unique compared to most, because though my family has gone so far from what happened back then, we still managed to keep the history alive. Knowing the past makes future referencing so much easier.

We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.

- Shirley Abbott

I find that the generation before mine, which is my dad and his siblings... out of all of them, only my dad was the one who continued telling us the story of what my grand-dad told him. I suppose that's because compared to my other cousins, we're quite close to my dad and that he actually had the chance to hear such stories from my Grand-dad.

So here, not only do I wish for our family history to not disappear, I hope that in some way, a piece of me -- however small, can be immortalized within this weblog. No misconceptions of where we came from, no more ambiguity on why people wonder certain things about this family, just the truth and in the process, I'll be able to make everyone learn that despite life being so complex and so interesting, people think that it's all mundane, when actually, they just didn't take time to realise what lies beneath all the times that have passed.

Okay, well decades ago, the very core of my roots would have to come from Indonesia. Yes, I have Indonesian blood in me, so no jokes about how I say "maaf ya" okay my dear litto friends? :p It just comes naturally to me to say maaf ya instead of minta maaf! xP hahaha.

Well anyway, Dad told us about this story when I was 10 years old. Surprisingly, I remember quite a lot, almost very detailed! hahaha see, I must've been quite taken with it. I honestly treated other ethnicity much much better after I learned about my family history :P It taught me a few good things.

Before I begin in detail, I'll just explain that I have Dutch, Indonesian and Chinese in me (from my dad's side) and Arabic blood (from mom's side). So, I guess that's why my dad's side of the family, we aren't dark-skinned~

The root of it all, is that I am a descendant of the West Sumatra part of Indonesia... or was it the East? I'm pretty sure it was the west though, because I vaguely remembered doing the west-side hand gesture that black people do, when my dad told us and my siblings looked at me weirdly..... *cough* awkward~

So they're pretty fair as well, the Sumatran people. More specifically, we came from a certain clan; called the Minangkabau. A remarkable story behind the name and I ain't making this shit up~

There was a dispute between our people with these other bunch of people (a.k.a. BAD GUYS) who wanted to take over our lands. So like, my dad said, since we have such kind hearts (I think that was an impromptu thing... he might've made that bit up XD hehehe) we wanted to avoid any casualties or bloods spilling. So instead of going to war with each other, we proposed a battle of animals to decide our fate.

So like, I suppose the bad guys thought they were being all smart and they were all pumped up and confident, because they had like this bad ass bull on their side. Little did they know, our side has brains. HAH! While they were busy preparing (or training) a mean fighting machine (the bull), we starved a lil baby bull for days until the fight would commence.

When the day of the bull fight (literally) came, we attached knives to the little bull's horns, like razor sharp ones! Then ta-dah~ they were let loose on an open field to fight with each other. I suppose the little bull was delirious from lack of food/milk, because it charged full speed ahead to the bad ass bull and felt for the (non-existing) udders of the bad ass bull's tummy. Little bull was damn hungry lah... you can't blame it :p

AND YES, WE WERE VICTORIOUS! KAMI MANANG! WITH OUR KERBAU! lol... thus.. the name Minang-Kabau. Get it? get it? menang with kerbau? :p Yeah... I toldja it was an awesomely interesting story! :D That's how the name 'Minangkabau' was dubbed.

So a few years later, marriages happened and my ancestor married a Dutch woman. This happened in the late 1800's. Another interesting fact about this marriage is that, my great (x18) grandfather married a DUTCH. Well, that really isn't a big thing, just another whitey, kidding! love u great(x18) grandma! :p hahaha~ but what makes it interesting is that, my dad said we've been having wars and they occupied our lands and what not, basically we didn't have that much of a friendly with them. Pay attention to this bit of information because this is vital for what's coming next.

Remember my great(x18) grandfather? well, I find this to be somewhat of a betrayal because for one thing, not only is he Indonesian marrying the enemy (but I suppose it's okay - I kinda find that awesome and romantic) but what makes it a big thing is because... he was of Indonesian royalty. Yep, he was the king =__=); See? Isn't that like wtf? BUT yeah, it's like forbidden love... lol I gotta stop watching movies like that.

Well whatever, it was after over more than half a century from all the wars when he got hitched with my great (x18) grandmother. x) Then they had three sons together~! My great (x17) grand dad was the 2nd child. He was called 'Raja Putih' -- well that was his nick name~ because he had blond hair. Lol! LIKE OMG! Doesn't that explain why you people think I can be so blonde sometimes? :p Well obviously, our little family life didn't last very long or happily~ because, the 2nd son and 3rd son had to flee the country... and sort of go into hiding, because people were out to get them... for what reason? I can't really recall, don't think my dad shared that bit of information.

Well, so that's why having those horn things have been our identity, it's all etched in our family history. Plus, if you see buildings like these...

that's minangkabau-inspired or minangkabau-related. That is also why, when my sister got married last time, she had this very elaborate head-piece. That's part of tradition. Though some Bruneians -- my dad said, just took it up because they think it's also part of theirs. Though maybe it is, but yeah, we did it because of our Indonesian ancestry :)

that's my sister btw...

So anyways, the two Princes ran away from their homeland and they found themselves on a little country called Brunei Darussalam in the 1900's! :) We practically lived and bred like rabbits here. Marrying Bruneian-Malays, quite a few Chinese people and Arabs and one or two Brits... BUT, that's boring and normal, you get a lot of half-chinese/Brits/Arabs in Brunei :p lol... but yes! that is how u got WONDERFUL ANIS! But fuck man, I am so Bruneian now~ lol. I've always denied that I am nothing but Malay :)

Wow, that actually took a LOT of time to type up. hahaha~ oh well.

I find that our heritage is like scriptures to our soul, we should at least know where we came from to understand more about ourselves. How many of us actually know stuff about our own family history? I mean, most of us have probably been nosy about people's businesses at least once in our lifetime. So how come we never try to nosy around our own business? Try getting back to your roots! You might find something interesting :P