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Description
By Simon Soon

What troubles this optimism is the racialised realpolitik of the present day. Gan Chin Lee’s portrayal of street life takes us into the mamak restaurant portraying a coterie of nonchalant youths from non-Malay backgrounds. What seethes beneath what would normally be considered a portrait of hapless youth is hinted in the title, ‘Balik! Atau Membalas Budi (Go Home, or return our kindness!)’. Racialist undercurrents that have labeled non-Malays as ‘pendatangs’ or ‘newcomers’ shape a discourse that see these as parasitic communities that only have economic rather than national interests at heart. The mamak restaurant thus becomes the space of foreignness. Moreover, mamak refers to a mercantile class of Indian Tamil Muslims who arrived in the Malay peninsular during British colonialism and have since carved an economic niche for themselves as restaurateurs serving a selection of street food. Gan’s painting is ironic in summoning these tensions to the surface of an otherwise banal portrait, compelling us to acknowledge the future of Malaysia’s multiculturalism.

Description
By Simon Soon

What troubles this optimism is the racialised realpolitik of the present day. Gan Chin Lee’s portrayal of street life takes us into the mamak restaurant portraying a coterie of nonchalant youths from non-Malay backgrounds. What seethes beneath what would normally be considered a portrait of hapless youth is hinted in the title, ‘Balik! Atau Membalas Budi (Go Home, or return our kindness!)’. Racialist undercurrents that have labeled non-Malays as ‘pendatangs’ or ‘newcomers’ shape a discourse that see these as parasitic communities that only have economic rather than national interests at heart. The mamak restaurant thus becomes the space of foreignness. Moreover, mamak refers to a mercantile class of Indian Tamil Muslims who arrived in the Malay peninsular during British colonialism and have since carved an economic niche for themselves as restaurateurs serving a selection of street food. Gan’s painting is ironic in summoning these tensions to the surface of an otherwise banal portrait, compelling us to acknowledge the future of Malaysia’s multiculturalism.