COMMENT One of the first sins committed by the early orientalists upon their arrival in South-East Asia was the assumption that the natives merely adopt external influences as the crux of their culture. The natives, it was said, possess no culture of their own. Not unlike onions, it was said, the natives possess multiple layers but are void of a strong core.

But such a simplistic and condescending view of the natives is now passe, albeit its prevalence among many urban Malaysians today. It is as if our society is still wrapped in Victorian weltanschauung.