Rasa sayang, hey!
Rasa sayang sayang, hey!
Hey, lihat nona jauh,
Rasa sayang sayang, hey!
How could Malaysians ever forget this loveable, nostalgic song? This is one of the song that ruled our childhood and no one can ever escape its simple but cheerful tune, including Filipinos.
Recently, a video shared by Discover ASEAN on their Facebook page showed a class of Filipino students singing ‘Rasa Sayang’, garnering praise for their almost perfect delivery of the song.
According to the post, the Filipino 8th graders sang the song for their music class.
Watch the full video here:
Rasa Sayang belongs to who?
While many lauded the students’ pitch perfect singing, comments also saw Indonesians and Malaysians debating about where the tune originated from.
According to the caption in Discover ASEAN’s post, it wrote that ‘Rasa Sayang’ is a folk song from Maluku, Indonesia, and is also popular in Malaysia and Singapore.
However, this didn’t sit well with some Malaysian netizens, who quickly jumped in to claim ownership of the song.
‘Excuse me. It’s clearly (a) Malay song.’
‘Even the lyrics are in Malay. Wanna claim it’s from Indonesia for what?’
As for Indonesian netizens, they didn’t hesitate to stake their claim on the song and ‘politely’ told Malaysians to back off.
‘You misunderstood. This is indeed an Indonesian song that originates from the Maluku region and in the Philippines and Malaysia this song is famous. Come on, we have to respect each other.’
‘The song is from the country of eastern Indonesia, Malay Ambon, MALUKU! So don’t claim something that doesn’t come from that country. Find out the history (and) don’t make something made.’
Amid the fierce debate, it appears that ‘Rasa Sayang’ did originate from Indonesia, which was acknowledged by current prime minister Anwar Ibrahim while giving a talk back in 2008.
Detik quoted Anwar as saying that the origins of ‘Rasa Sayang’ can be verified through an online search and urged Malaysians not to be too emotional or express strong nationalism over the tune.
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