A Woman's Weekly

There’s one thing about my family’s heritage that’s been on my thoughts for a while now that I want to pass on to the Children. That of being a Kadazandusun.

If there’s one thing I learned about roots, is that it is given. I can’t choose not being born a Kadazandusun any more than I can choose being born a girl. Yet for many of my years here on earth, I turned a blind eye on the fact that I am one simply because I didn’t agree with many of its customs and practices.

I’ve heard people comment that you could always spot a Kadazandusun because they could drink (alcohol) at any given time of the day for any old reason. Usually also, Kadazandusuns tend to be ‘tentative’. Never expressing a firm opinion and take instead a ‘Buleh bah kalu kau’ (paraphrase: I guess it’s ok…) approach. Thus, for years, I didn’t want to be associated with nor defined as such. I will inform others of my ethnicity purely for the sake of formality.

Life tends to teach us many things though. One of it is knowing where we came from to know where we’re headed. I’ve come to a stage in life where it’s important to be aware of the legacy we leave behind for our Children. They need to know their roots. They need to discover how they came to be who they are. (My Eldest daughter has started asking about how she got to be inside Mommy’s belly so she could be born. That, for another post.) They need to learn how to navigate the future with what they know about their beginnings.

And its important that as their parent, to start the process by revisiting my own origins and begin an ongoing conversation about it with my Kids.

Perhaps there is a way to speak to the Child how indulgent drinking came to be associated with being a Native. I know I could tell my Girls that the beauty of being a Sino-Native as they are is that they have the best of both worlds. Their Chinese culture will teach them about respect for their Elders, and the Native practice of preferring others above themselves is what usually results in the colloquial ‘buleh bah…’ I could even introduce to them the Hinava, (love this!) the local ’sashimi’ that’s not unlike the well-known Japanese delicacy.

Ultimately, I believe in a life lived with a destiny in Christ and will teach my Children as such.

And then I will teach them that one’s Ethnicity colors the journey.