MY MOTHER S MILK (A Famous story in english)

I had seen a performance of Portuguese dance and music in Melaka. Almost all songs and dance were from Portugal. Minha Rosinha was one of them, the certainty of the Portuguese House COM was another (the titles mean respectively "My little Rose" and "certainly a Portuguese house"). Both are well-known songs. I am familiar with them to watch Portuguese folk music dances on television as a child. I remember that I usually changed channels after a minute or two because I sing and dance terribly sticky, and very inbrazilian.

The most famous Portuguese singer of Brazil at the time was Roberto Leal ("Loyal Robert"-it turns out to be an artistic name). He wore a folk costume while singing and dancing. The costumes were also completely Portuguese. (Oddly enough, although born in Portugal, he moved to Brazil as a child and lived there.) He was our own Portuguese folk dancer and singer. He was also the most famous Portuguese in Brazil. No one seems to care that he is Brazilian too.

This is what many anthropologists and historians call a clear case of the invention of tradition: namely, none of this was before the decade of the 1950. The young people who dance in Melaka seemed to do it right. One of the girls was very noticeable: she was tall, she had bright green eyes and a nice smile. (I learned that he died in a traffic accident last year.) I was invited to participate in one of the dances with several guests. The beauty of the green eyes came to me, but I hesitated to show my amazing lack of skill in Portuguese folk dance. Anyway, an Italian colleague asked me to get up and dance. I was a Brazilian after all, and the imagination of a Brazilian was not able to dance. Almost as rare as an Italian non-attitude!

Some of the students-Malaysians were Portuguese-language students-also danced. The group did not indeed in the community, but a large group of students and employees of the University of Malaysia. The place was the Papa Joe's Restaurant, which announces Portuguese and Nyonya cuisine, as well as the Chinese crabs (Pope Joe himself was one of the singers). I find the combination of Portuguese, Nyonya and Chinese seafood revealing: I found local cuisine often linked, no matter what ethnic origin or labels attached. Instead of being in opposition, the three were part of the same culinary continuum.

During a break I noticed that the young men and women who danced in Malay spoke to each other. Noel (My Portuguese friend and teacher) deeply regrets that the government and the non-Portuguese local society are undermining the community's cultural heritage; It is the community itself. Traditional festivities are not carried out in an appropriate manner; The traditions are abandoned, and the language is slow but safe to decay.

I muse that maybe everything changed, and very quickly. Noel is very religious, like all the elders in the community that I have spoken so far. It's easy to get a long rant about morality and religion. I wonder how attractive it is for the younger generation. Moreover, the Portuguese community was always an open group: The descendants of the Dutch people of Melaka, for example, also speak Portuguese and are often regarded as members of the community. (I don't think anyone speaks Dutch to Melaka anymore). Noel still inveighs against naming "Eurasia" from time to time: his point is that it is not root-people in a particular country, but it is vague and general. It was a British colonial name used by the community before being re-established as a Portuguese in the last colonial period. Noel must have been a teenager when the identity change has taken place. I don't know anyone in Melaka who is carving in Eurasia. The Christmas point of the house hammers over and over again is that the community Portuguese and therefore Portuguese (ie) Portuguese.