I found this ads in you tube while browsing around looking for Malaysian Ads. This is an ads from Malaysian Tourism for Promotions of Visit Malaysia 50 years of Independence.
The song that is sang in this ads is called ‘Rasa Sayang Eh! ‘ which means ‘Feeling of loves’. However the meaning is more that the feeling of love, this song has a strong connection with construction of Malaysian National Identity. This song has been taught from kindergarten to University since Malaysian Independence.
It is a popular Malaysian song that most of the Malaysian knows how to sing it. It is very easy, just the ‘Pantun’ part is a bit hard because it needs a knowledge of creating ‘Pantun’ like making rhymes, that can be anything. ‘Pantun’ is an old idioms that is use for teasing people in the olden days. Nowadays ‘Pantun’ is used in mainly Malay festive and wedding, as an introduction before the function starts.
Here are the original lyrics of this song.
Rasa Sayang Eh!
Rasa Sayang Sayang Eh!
Hey! Lihat Nona Jauh,
Rasa Sayang, Sayang Eh!
In between of this paragraph is ‘Pantun’ which is a Malay quatrains with a stanza of four lines.
Now back to the ads. In this ads, 4 main ethnic in Malaysia are used to sing the ‘Rasa Sayang’ song. Together with it, different cultural practices is projected to distinguish the cultural differences in Malaysia such as food, national dresses, nature, modernity, cultural behavior etc.. At the same time, the images of Malaysian living in harmony with happy faces is shown. The part that each ethics is singing the same song but in their own language, with the similar meaning shows that Malaysia is united with multi-ethnics. Notice that the song begins with ‘Bahasa Melayu’ Malay language, then English, followed by Chinese, Indigenous and Indian. It is follow by the percentage of the ethnics in Malaysia. The Malays is the dominant ethnic in Malaysia. Hmmm! Interesting… but why? Is it deliberately or just a coincidently?
Only recently in Malaysian ads images of indigenous people started to appear, event better their language is now been used as one of the strategies to promote Malaysia. This kind of ads is fairly new, projecting the Indigenous where else in 70’s and 80’s it is hardly seen in any Malaysian ads. Why and how does this happen in Malaysia where this images was dissolve in our past life? Why now?