I was interested to find out more about the Malays. I pose myself this question always. "Where do I come from? or what is my calling in life". Only when you know your past and take a closer look at the events of the past call history we may find the answers It's intriguing after hours of reading and research I might add. So there might be parts to this entries. I'll just start with the basic of the Malays, their origin Malays are seafaring people For the clueless, I hope you can differentiate Malays and Melayus.
Malays is in English language while Melayu is in Malay language. We're 99% entirely Islam with Malaysia with the most bulk of Malays around with 12 millions in population. Singapore has about 600,000 Malays in total. In fact our Malay roots are hotly contested and questioned these days as experts believe there's no such race as Malays but we're a new race that includes various ethnicity such as Thai, Orang Asli, Sabah and Sarawak indigenous people, Indian Muslims, Bugis, Bawean, Javanese, Thai and Achehnese. Our roots can be traced back to Yunnan, China. The Jakun are seafaring people.
These sea tribes people probably expanded to coastal Borneo (Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei), then into Sumatra (Indonesia) and then the Malay Penisula (Malaysia, Singapore) The modern Singapore, Indons and Malaysians you see nowadays are infact the descendants of these Jakun mixed with modern Indian, Thai, Arab and Chinese blood. How cool is that. This is due to the Jakun nature of life trading and seafaring way of life throughout from China to Malay Penisula.
So basically we've a upward migratory route from south to north, although our roots are traced back to Yunnan, China Shocking truth Well it does not matter we're not a race of rich in history such as the Arabs or English, but we're still a race. A new modern race trying to better oneself. It's an interesting journey so far for me finding out about my race, the Malays.
Uncle Sha is a prominent author on Asian studies. You can reach his website at www.sha.tc or www.malayblogger.com.