The Art in being a Minority

Aku, Kamase, dan AEDCEE 2015 #2 : 

The Art in being a Minority

Place to take a pray

A note from Ustadzah Oki in her website reminds me what a hard case to find a pray location for us (Ellena and Suci) in Thailand. In the conference days (May, 28-19), we stayed in Sheraton Grande Chikumvit Hotel in Siam start from 9.00 a.m. until 5.00 p.m. It means that we need to pray Dhuhur and Asar in the conference.

Siam station

After we met the other Muslims from Indonesia and Malaysia, we found a mosque together in the hotel. But yeah, we found nothing. What we can do was only ask the committee.

“Ok. Follow me.” A woman told us to follow her and we were going to Information Room. The woman was talking to the receptionist for a while.

“Ok. You can use this room to take a pray, I mean sholat, right? Yeah. I heve turn on the air conditioner.” Said the receptionist. This room was a meeting room. 

“I’ll move the chairs. Sorry.” The receptionist moved 2 chairs.

“Yeah. You can sholat here.”

“We’re so sorry because we don’t have praying service in this hotel.” Even there was no place to take a pray for Muslim, but I can feel the goodness from this service which is called tolerance.

One of us, ms. Nisa (scholar in Japan from ITB) said, “Yeah, in my campus I always take the wudu in restroom. I mean we need to raise our foot like this in the tube.” It is because the woman has something which is called aurat. Aurat means some parts of body that can not be seen by man so we need a closed place to take wudu. 

What about mas Didit? It was so easy for mas Didit because he can sholat in everywhere. But he also felt hard in Friday because he must take a Friday sholat together with the other Muslims. He cannot do it by him self. After he asked a lot of Indonesian people in Thailand, he walked for 30 minutes to take a pray in a mosque, place where Muslims in Thailand gathered to take Friday sholat.

Sholat schedules. You can see in the right about what is the true position in sholat.

“You’re lucky for living in Indonesia. It’s easy to hear adzan and you can find so many mosques there. You can feel that it’s so hard for us to find it all in Thailand”, said mbak Darti (LPDP Scholar).

The development of Islam in Thailand (specifically in South Thailand or Pattani) was begin in 9th century by the coming of Arabian merchant, before the formation of the Thai kingdoms. The name of the place was Siam, not Thailand. After a long struggle in Pattani, Islam got the freedom in Thailand. The government allows Muslim to pray, building a Muslim community, building a Muslim student center, building mosque, and allows the citizen to study Islam in Arab or Indonesia. One of the real development is there are Halal Science Center in Chulalongkorn University that was started by a son of Ahmad Dahlan, Prof. Dr. Winai Dahlan. See http://www.halalscience.org/en/main/index.php.

The Halal Science Center of Chulalongkorn University

The Muslim in South Thailand is aborigine people. In Center and North Thailand (Bangkok and Chiang Mai), most of the Muslim is immigrant. Actually, I can not find the relic of Islam in Bangkok because the relic is only tombstone in Pattani (South Thailand).

Halal food

The second case was halal food. In Thailand, you will find some foods that have so different taste with Indonesian food. In Indonesia, I usually eat food with sambal that is made from chilies, tomato, onion, and garlic drilled by using mortar and pestle. In Thailand, there is no sambal. They only have chili powder or some slices of chili with soy-sauce. How about the soup? The soup was only stock with coriander leaves. How about the rice? Well, the rice was so big. Maybe you can call it Bangkok rice like Bangkok Papaya hehehe. When I ate it for the first time, it was so strange. These are halal foods in Thailand. 

A halal restaurant in Phayattai from Malaysian people, near mbak Darti's dormitory, place where we were living in Thailand.

You can find halal food in some restaurants that have halal label. We were lucky because we live in Phayattai, a place that there are a lot of Indonesian and Malaysian student there so we can find halal food easy. If we go to Siam, it will be so hard to find halal food. If we go to supermarket, not all of halal food have halal label like candy, bread, and cracker because Thailand is a country which is not require halal qualification on the food production. That is the difference.

The other story is when we had gala dinner in the ship through Chao Phraya River. When I wanna take a cake, a man said, "Sorry, is this halal?". Actually I don't see a halal label there, but I believe that this cake is halal because it just a chocolate cake, no pig, no alcohol inside. "I believe that this is halal". "Ok. Thank you", said the man.

Gala dinner

The light in Chao Phraya River

The art in being a minority

Being a minority in Thailand is not only hard but also gives a great pleasure. This is the case:

When we meet other Muslim, she/he will say “Sorry, are you Muslim?”

When we say “Yes”

He/she will shake our hand and say “Assalaamu’alaikum.” He/she will asked more about us like where do we come from, for what reason we are going there, and what do our feeling in being minority.

It is the art in being a minority. Meet other Muslim is like meet our family. We will feel the goodness of Islam and ukhuwah. If we are staying in Indonesia, maybe the art in being a majority makes us feel with indifference.

Our team with Malaysian people (Muslim)

I wanna feel the art in being a minority again in other country, insya Allah :)
Wait another stories about Thailand from me in this blog, see you ^_^