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March 11, 2005

Comments

Lisa

fabulous story telling! I remember all of the stories - from my parents, my grandmother, from all the old hikayats and black-and white cathay keris movies!
Yesterday, I told Nabila the story of Hang Tuah serving long stemmed kangkung to the Chinese emperor as an excuse to see his face - so she can get on with eating her kangkung. And that was the same story that my dad told me (long stemmed kangkung withstanding) and what his mom, my nenek told me and told him when he was small too.
Now I just wish I have more hikayats and sejarah melayu with me.

KaiserSoze

Good to have you back fazu,

Just like it was told in the old days...

With passion and soul.

ngising

hmmm..interesting story. I've heard about the 'mangkat dijulang' thingy, but never knew it was a 'conspiracy' between the nobles.

epicurious

Fazu the panglipurlara,

I really enjoyed this particular entry and am looking forward to read more, especially the prince conceived from really dead king and concubine. But the three princes descended from Alexander the Great? Hmmmmm. Not at you, but history.

radnexus

malaysia boleh! we are indeed the melting pot of diverse keturunans ranging from alexander the great, nabi muhammad, kublai khan and persian kings. makes me proud to be a malaysian.


nyonya dudette

gua sangat suka lu punya cerita. lu banyak talent menulis dan berjaya membawa kami mengimbas kembali jejak-jejak sejarah bintan.

gua juga suka lu punya gambar-gambar yang lu ambil dekat bintan. banyak stylo.

fazu

Lisa: how cool of you to integrate bits and elements of your heritage in dealing with the telatah of Nabila. Hopefully she too will remember this story when she grows up and tell it to her chldren...

Btw. what language do you use with nabila? English, Dutch, German or Malay?

Kaiser: How are you doing, man? Still hanging on in there? It's good to be back too.

Ngising: The conspiracy theory seems to make more sense to me and provides a realistic twist to the well-known legend, though admittedly it is open to debate...

epi: i echo yr sentiments re descent from Alex. t. Great. At the end of the day it all boils down to politics innit? the melakan kings were descended from the srivijayan royal house, which was already a prestigious line. but to give themselves added "legitimacy" this story about Alex the Great was fabricated during melakan times in view of the increasing contact of the malay world with Islamic/Arabic/Persian writing and the increased dominance and popularity of characters from Islamic/Arabic/persian tales/history.

radnexus/nyonya dudette: kenapa you comment under different names? thanks for the kind words though!

I

Just to remind myself of the story. Where did Wan Empuk and Wan Malini come into the picture? I think when the princes appeared at Bukit Siguntang, and then two of the princes married the two girls.

Or was I wrong?

Lisa

Fazu,
aiyoh like that lor have to be very creative with children - especially with one who will tell her friend's mom - "this is not nasi goreng, this is rissotto" Hahaha now I have to teach her some manners but thank god we live in Holland where you can be direct with anyone including those older than you!
Nabila speaks English with me, Dutch with Terry and everyone else. She constantly laugh at my Dutch - my hopeless attempt at pronouncing *ui* and will say things like *it's difficult for you huh, mom?* But she also use a lot of Malay expressions like *lah* or *aiyoh* and *kampung-kampung*
She is fascinated with the fact that teng teng (or it is ting ting) is named such because of the sound. And yes, we do play teng teng and I have taught her to play 7 stones :-)

fazu

I: Wan Empuk and Wan Malini appeared right at the beginning i.e. when the three princes first appeared on the Bukit Siguntang (the two women lived at the foot of the hill). In fact, the terraced rice fields that were planted on Bukit Siguntang belonged to these two ladies. One morning they woke up and found that the rice they planted had been transformed: “buahnya menjadi emas, daunnya menjadi perak, dan batangnya suasa…” and then they saw three young men on a white bull. The three young men identified themselves as descendants of Alexander the Great and the rest, as the say, is (Malay) history.

And you are indeed correct: Wan Empuk and Wan Malini married the younger two of the three brothers. The eldest, Sang Sapurba Taramberi Tribuana, became king of Palembang, and would marry a total of 40 women, 39 of which suffered a skin disease called “kedal” on the morning following the wedding night (explanation: all these women were not good enough for one descended from Alex the Great, so “terkena tulah”). The 40th woman who broke the curse was the daughter of Demang Lebar Daun, with whom that ancient PACT between Malay ruler and subject (Malay ruler will respect the honour of subject etc etc and subject will not rebel) was made. Sang Sapurba later went to Bintan, where my story begins… ;)

Lisa: oh, how do you pronounce "ui" in dutch then? any english/french/german sound close to it?
And i thought terry was German? (and if he was) doesn't he speak german to nabila? and make sure you also teach her batu seremban using those pundi-pundi filled with pasir!

Lisa

Fazu,
no no Terry is Dutch - his maternal ancestors are Swiss but basically Dutch born and bred. He works in Germany now - that's why we live close to the German border. His dad remarried a German wife.
He does speak+read+write German like native because he was born and bred here (the town where we live) Nabila does speak a smattering of German (like her Malay - which she understands quite well) but I guess we don't practice much.
No the Dutch pronounciation and grammar are worse than German or French. You cannot be *lazy* with the Dutch tongue and their *r* is different from our *r* which they likened to spanish. And don't let me start on *g* and *j*
Dutch has the most vowels in all the languages I think - oo, oe, ui, ij etc etc

rara avis

excellent story fazu!
enjoyed it tremendously.
encore encore encore
(hands red by entusiastic clapping)

rara avis

oops misspelled. enthusiastic i meant

Anom

Ha ha you continue publishing this story, the next thing you know the current royal family of Johor (who descended from the Bendahara line) would curse you to vomit blood when you enter Johor.....

But I think it makes sense. But not so sure about the reproductive organ part.... can I claim to be the prince?

KaiserSoze

Am a bit okay now Fazu. Thanks. Just taking one day at a time.

Keep the stories rolling dude.

:)

fazu

Lisa: haha! but at least they have less cases in dutch than in german!

Rara: thanks!

Anom: hmm…actually, the current royal house of Johor is one notch LOWER in ranking compared to the Bendahara dynasty, because the current royals of Johor were descended from a line of Temenggung! So, as the Bendahara in 1699 “usurped” (for lack of a better word) the throne from the royal line, the Temenggung, in turn, usurped the throne from the Bendahara line when Temenggung Abu Bakar crowned himself (CROWNED, mind you, because being Temenggung, he of course inherited no nobat) to become Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor in 1885.

But considering that their ancestors didn’t miraculously appear on Bukit Siguntang and that they are not descended from Alexander the Great, I think whatever curse they may lay upon me I’d still be ok, sebab rasa-rasanya daulat diaorang tak cukup kuat ; )

Anom

I wasn't talking about that kind of curse laaa... it's more like the ones that Tengku Idris gave to his hockey coach way back in the 90s... but then you have taekwando, so should be OK....

*the Temenggong actually had the audacity to proclaim himself as an Emperor, if my memory serves me right. Wasn't he the Maharaja Sir Sultan Abu Bakar?

fazu

anom: oh, that kind of curse, tak ada taekwondo pun I'd be ok ;)

You are perfectly right, upon becoming Sultan, Sultan abu bakar requested the permission to use the title Maharaja from Queen Victoria. The permission was granted, giving us Maharaja Abu Bakar of Johor...

lita

Lovely, lovely story Fazu : ) More pls!!

 improve search engine rankings

bintang rocks. nice history there

brock lesnor

Wow! This is the most exotic story I have ever heard…But whatever said and done, I felt the myths of the past echo with the legends of ancient days as I relaxed in the lovely http://www.excitehotels.com/bintan_hotels.htm>Bintan hotel that overlooked the fine golden sands and the azure sea.

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