"Kadazan Celup"

This is the traditional costume for Kadazan from Papar district. Ehem!! Hehe

Familiar with the term Kadazan Celup? Hehehe. Celup is a Malay word for dipped. They often use the term Celup to describe a person who appear to belong to a race but not really belong to the race. Like, they just admit or show it in a way that they belong to a certain race but the fact is, they don’t. They just want to be known as one who belong to the race.

Usually, Language is the main indicator of one’s race. When you hear someone talks in Kadazan language, automatically you guess that the person belong to Kadazan race. How about the Kadazans who don’t know how to speak the language?

I can say that I am one of the Kadazans who doesn’t speak Kadazan language. The reason for that is because my parents never really make it compulsory for us to learn the language. We are the City kids who don’t mingle with our cousins and relatives who speak the language everyday. My parents very much speaking the language to each other but they speak Malay to us. As a result, all of us in the siblings are very odd with our own mother tongue but we do understand the common phrases. Even how hard I try to speak, I could only end up getting laughed at because I could not even make the words sound right. Like I don’t belong to this race to be sounding like “an outsider who is trying to be friendly”… hehe.

Because of my language, strangers can’t always guess my race. According to one customer, I sounded anything but a Kadazan because I don’t have that distinct Kadazan “sound”. But I do have that slanted eyes that most Kadazans have. But we know that people don’t rely so much on looks to guess one’s race, especially in Sabah where people are mostly from mixed races. I also received very odd comments from my customers. After talking for a while, this customer told me, “You must be married to a white guy, right?” And I was like, “What? What makes you say that?”. She said something about my English. No no no… I am a Kadazan who doesn’t speak Kadazan but proud to become one. What do you call this category?

So everytime when I shocked people by telling them my race, I was not surprised because my mother tongue skill is very bad so I just jokingly told them, “Biasalah…Kadazan Celup”. I live with that because I’ve been this way forever. But I know it’s not good when we speak about the mission to preserve culture and traits of my race. We need more people who can speak the mother tongue and hopefully to pass it to the younger generations. I am not proud of myself for this. I have seen it long ago that I could be one of the Kadazan people who could not help to preserve the uniqueness of my race, especially if I marry a guy from a different race. I don’t speak the language, I don’t eat the traditional foods, I don’t follow their customs and traditional lifestyle – so now you understand why I just surrender to “Kadazan Celup” and admits my weaknesses.

But after all said and done, I do still wear the traditional conservative thinking about keeping the good names of the family, where quite a number of distinct Kadazans (who live at the village and who speak the mother tongue fluently) have stopped doing. I do care about becoming a talkabout of a village because of my misconducts so maybe that explains why I am very careful in my steps. Despite being a Kadazan Celup, I am not at all urban with lifestyle and thinking.

Celup or not, I am proud to be born as a Kadazan.

NOTE:I put one Kadazan/dusun number at the playlist upon the posting of this post. Hehe