Semai
Visitors to Orang Asli Villages
A group of 86 students from a pharmaceutical technology program recently visited three different Orang Asli communities in Tapah, Perak state, Malaysia. The communities consist mostly of Temiar and Semai people. According to a news report last week, the government of Perak state in Malaysia plus the Royal College of Medicine of the University of […]
Children’s Book Features a Semai Folk Tale
A 23-year old Semai graphic designer has written and illustrated a children’s book that shares a folk tale he first heard as a child. He hopes it will help preserve the traditions of his people. The book, written by Saluji Yeok So Alu in Malay and translated into Mandarin, was officially launched at the Selangor […]
Semai May Have Achieved their Goals
Peaceful Semai protests about a dam construction project that has caused destruction in their communities appear to be helping their cause. The Orang Asli people living along the Geruntum River in the town of Gopeng, in Malaysia’s Perak State, received a lot of news coverage when the contractors destroyed their crops plus some of their […]
Election Results in Orang Asli Villages
A news report two weeks ago indicated that the Semai were expressing strong disgust for the then-ruling party of Malaysia, the Barisan Nasional (BN), going into the national election on May 9. As it turned out, voters in the nation were so concerned about the wide-spread corruption of the BN government, which had been in […]
Semai Urged to Vote for Changes
An elderly leader of the Semai in Malaysia’s Perak State has advised all members of his society to vote against the ruling political party in important national elections. Gahrai Kadek, the 77-year old Tok Batin (leader) of the Semai in the state, advised the Orang Asli people to vote out the Barisan Nasional (BN) government […]
Semai Take the Government to Court
Protests by the Semai over the construction of a hydroelectric dam that is destroying their forests, waters, and livelihoods have been increasing over the past couple of months. Numerous news sources in Malaysia have been covering the developments in six Orang Asli villages located in the town of Gopeng, in Perak State. A news story […]
Semai Seek their Rights
Several Semai spoke up at a political convention in a major Malaysian city last week to complain about the lack of services provided by the state for their villages. A report in the news service The Malaysian Insight described the ways the state of Pahang has been ignoring its Semai communities. After 60 years of […]
Christmas in a Semai Community
Christmas is a special time of year for the Semai of Kampung Janggap, though the isolated community in Malaysia’s Pahang state lacks some trappings of the holiday found in other countries. An article in the Malay Mail Online on December 24 described the enthusiasm of the Semai, in that one village at least, for celebrating […]
Innovative Semai Learning Center
A community learning center in Malaysia serves to integrate, for some Semai children, formal academic classroom subjects with lessons about their traditional culture. A school day might begin with instruction in reading, writing, and math presented by their teacher, but it would be followed by the fun of learning to play the chentong, a musical […]
Semai Foods Help Keep the Peace
The fact that the Semai cherish the foods they prepare from the forest was the topic of a Malaysian TV program and, last week, a brief newspaper article. According to the newspaper report in The Star, chef and TV host Nurilkarim Razha, in his documentary series “The Local Kitchen,” showed viewers an obscure forest fruit […]
