Indonesians Claim That Miss Grand Malaysia’s National Costume Copied Their Culture

And soon, another fellow Malaysian will also be representing our country for the Miss Grand International 2019 competition in Caracas, Venezuela happening at the end of this month.

Mel Dequanne Abar from Penampang Sabah will be participating in the pageant against 64 other delegates from around the world.

Miss Grand Malaysia’s Facebook page recently shared the national costume Mel will be donning during the pageant which was inspired by the Malay Sanskrit Hikayat Seri Rama (Chronicles of The Great Rama).

“This story is widely popular adapted into shadow theatre in Malaysia including the state of Kedah and Kelantan, hence showcasing another beauty of Malaysia’s diversity in culture which shares similarity with neighboring regional countries in South East Asia,” Miss Grand Malaysia wrote.

But what caught out attention was the Indonesians who left comments on the photos claiming that we copied them.

“Kalau Malaysia sih ga usah kaget, mereka selalu mengklaim Seni, Budaya, dan apa saja yg bisa mereka biasa sadur dari Indonesia! (If it’s Malaysia, you don’t need to worry because they like to claim the arts, culture, and everything from Indonesia!)”

Another Indonesian chided Malaysia for copying Indonesia again and asked whether plagiarism was a trend in our country.

“Claim Again, Copy Again ?? You Copy My Style, You Copy Again. Apa Plagiat Di Negara Loe Lg Ng'trend??” the Facebook user wrote.

Naturally, many Malaysians came to Mel’s defense and tried to school our neighbours on the history of Ramayana and the differences of wayang kulit throughout Southeast Asia.

What’s even more interesting is that there are several Indonesians who are also doing us a favour by rebutting their fellow countrymen’s comments and helped explain to them the differences between our culture and theirs.

Well, our advice to Mel is just to ignore the haters and focus on the competition.