Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T08:39:59.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2017

By
Catherine Gomes
Edited by
Catherine Gomes
Catherine Gomes
Affiliation:
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University)
Get access

Summary

In his graphic memoir The Kampong Boy (1979), Mohammad Noor Khalid – otherwise better known as Lat, Malaysia's most popular cartoonist – features his experiences growing up in a Malay- Muslim kampong (village) in the rural state of Perak on the Peninsular Malaysia in the 1950s. Lat's memoir is a whimsical ride through the misadventures of a young Muslim boy as he gets into trouble at school, plays with friends in the forbidden tin mines near his kampong, and faces circumcision as part of his religious obligation. Besides being highly entertaining and humorous, Lat's memoir also provides us with a nostalgic account of the strong ties that exist within a kampong community, where people minded each other's business and provided communal support when needed. The Kampong Boy highlights the significance that community has in determining an individual's everyday life. The impact of the kampong communal identity on Lat the protagonist and Lat the author is also present in the sequels, Town Boy (1981) and Kampong Boy: Yesterday and Today (1993). Community, and identifying with community, are very much part of a person's life but there are limits to this, too, as Graham Day articulates in his book Community and Everyday Life:

[Community] refers to those things which people have in common, which bind them together, and give them a sense of belonging with one another. […] But as soon as one tries to specify more firmly what these common bonds are, how they arise, and how they can be sustained, the problems begin. We would not be social beings if we did not feel some sense of identification and solidarity with others around us and share in their experiences and expectations; yet there are limits to how far we can empathize with every one of them, or feel obligated towards them, or look to them for succour and support. As humans, we are boundary- drawing animals, and we erect barriers between ourselves and others, quite as much as we identify with them. The idea of community captures these elements of inclusion and exclusion, pointing towards those who belong together and those who are held apart.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Asia-Pacific in the Age of Transnational Mobility
The Search for Community and Identity on and through Social Media
 , pp. 1 - 16
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×