DEATH IS A CEREMONY BY LEE KOK LIANG

In the early 1950s, LEE KOK LIANG, a Malaysian of Straits-Chinese heritage who was to
become one of Malaysia's most accomplished writers of fiction in English, spent two years at Lincoln's
Inn in London completing a law degree that he had begun at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Lee recorded his European observations in a journal-cum-diary entitled Sketches, Vignettes & Brush
Strokes (also given a second working title of Ramblings and Remembrances), written in London and
Paris between January 1952 and February 1954, and they form, in part, the basis for his first novel,
the unpublished London Does Not Belong To Me which is due in 2003. Death is a Ceremony and
Other Stories was his second collection of short stories, published in 1992.

Overall, “Death is a Ceremony” is a story of a boy – Baba, who had grown up to a man, is
recollecting the memories of his late grandmother’s death, at the moment of his mother’s funeral
ceremony. In this story, culture is a strategy of survival, which depicts how culture signifies, or what is
signified by culture, a rather complex issue. As the eldest son, he is responsible to be the head of the
funeral procession, whereas makes he noticed the absence of something – the sense of lost respect
towards his own culture. As a consequence, the conflicting styles are in a reflection of the cultural and
historical discourses, battling to be heard within the story that lies beneath Malaysian’s Chinese
community. Through his memory recalls, he is in search of his own identity and yet realizes what he
already dismissed – the value of a family that he left out many years ago for the modern lifestyle in the
city. There were lots of cultural issues discussed in the story which support that the writer celebrates
the Malaysian culture in more specific term, a Chinese culture.

In this story, he used the flashback literary technique profusely to depict the past and the
present concurrently, wherefore make it more interesting to see how certain things being presented in
this story and thus, makes the story stands out. Here, within the framework, the story is written from
the third person, omniscient point of view which mean that the narrator sees all, reports all, knows and
explains the inner workings of the minds of any or all characters. For instance, sometimes the narrator
tells the readers about the main character – Baba, through the eyes of other minor characters in the
story. The used of some diction from two different races in the text – i.e sarong (Malay) and chi kee
(Chinese), were the portrayal of Malaysian multicultural lifestyle amongst the people take place.
Hence, the writer wants to deliver a message for the new generation; to put more appreciation
towards the culture in order to maintain the ancestral tradition. That’s the right way to keep on
celebrates the Malaysian culture throughout ongoing civilization in the future, although after the 50
years of nationhood.
 RONGGENG RONGGENG BY LEE KOK SIANG

Ronggeng-Ronggeng is a short story written by Lee Kok Liang, who lives on the island of Penang and
his family has been domiciled for four generations. Besides being active in writing, Lee was also
engaged in politics. As a well-known writer, many of his writings have been published in magazines
and anthologies. For example, his first collection of short stories is ‘The Mutes in the Sun and the
Other Stories’ in 1964 then, his novel, ‘Flowers in the Sky’ came out in 1981. After that, a second
collection of his short stories, ‘Death is a Ceremony and Other Stories’, was published in 1992, before
his death. His novel, ‘London Does Not Belong to Me’ is due in 2003. Although Lee was educated in
Chinese and English, his literary works still reflect his identity as a truly Malaysian in many of his short
stories such as, ‘Return to Malaya’. Lee proves that one’s language background will not affect his/her
identity. This work of his does contribute to the Malaysian Literature in English as it reveals the
importance of identity and attachment of one’s root.

Ronggeng-Ronggeng presents the story with rural and semi-urban backgrounds-villages and town
areas. All events in the story are in realistic tradition presenting the identity of Malaysian such as
cultural shows Ronggeng, Bangsawan, Hokkien Opera, and Westerns. The significant of the story can
be seen through their lifestyle including the way they dressed.

Our reading of this short story gives us a strong feeling that the writer is trying to present the
importance of not forgetting ones origin and to achieve that, Lee Kok Liang has created a protagonist
named Che Siti, who represents a very Malay character through the story and she has to sacrifice a
lot to earn a life. She has to work as a dancer at Ronggeng-Ronggeng in order to feed her mother and
younger brothers. She had gotten married once but, unfortunately her man left her for a richer woman.
Pity on her but, there is one man named Mat had taught her the rhythm and steps of the ronggeng.
Furthermore, she still had her beauty by the time. This package helps her to get a lot of customers
during the ronggeng. Here is where the issue of women exploitation comes up. It can be seen clearly
in this story when women had been use as an ‘entertainment’ for men. Women have to do the
‘Ronggeng’ to get the money even though, deep inside Che Siti’s heart, she doesn’t want to work like
that.

Therefore, in order to achieve the outcome of making the story to stand out as a prominent figure as
well as to make the central theme speaks for itself, the narrator has chosen to present the story from
an omniscient point of view. Through the utilization of this perspective, the narrator is able to give us
the highlights the inner feelings of the characters. Consequently, this leads the readers to obtain a
deep understanding of the characters’ feelings, without having the narrator to intrude much because
the narrator has the freedom to move in and out of the characters’ minds. In other words, readers are
then allowed to have access to the perceptions and thoughts of all the characters in the story. Other
than that, the narrator uses him omniscience to trek deeper into a character that we otherwise do not
really come close to understanding. For example, there are plenty of inner monologues throughout the
story, especially the main character of the story, Che Siti . Here are some examples:

~ She loved gold- a beautiful anklet on her foot would bring out the texture of her skin. And how the
other girls would be so jealous. And the men would look at her foot instead of her breasts.
~ Siti looked at the men closely and saw that he was young. And he was not bad-looking at all,
despite the gold tooth. He had a high nose, unlike most Chinese and very kind eyes. They said the
Chinese worked hard and saved a lot of money. Was this one rich?
~ As he lifted his arms, blond hairs stuck out like coconut fibers from his armpits, and he smelt. Are
white women like that too? But how could they? They had looked so pretty in the pictures and in their
pretty shoes, with such slim straps and very sharp heels, just the stems of flowers.

Apart from that, the writer utilized the sacrificed of a woman by explaining about what is the hardship
that Che Siti had to go through. For example, every night, her feet hurt and her legs ache because of
the dancing. In fact, according to Mat, she was the most serious girl of the lot and saved most of her
earnings. She had the idea that if she tapped lightly her shoes would last twice as long. It is then
strengthen again by Che Aminah, who is Che Siti’s friend when Che Aminah asks her to get a new
shoes but she refused and said, she still can use it instead of buying a new expensive one. In this
part, it is very clear about the physical restriction according to the gender. As in this story, women
have to wear high heels to look beautiful in the eyes of men even they have no money and ‘ronggeng’
women have to wear tight and short kebaya to make the men glanced at them during the dance. The
issue of sexual harassment also appeared while Che Siti dancing with the drunken white soldier,
Johnnie.

The value of having identity is portrayed throughout this story. Lee nativizes the text by including the
local slang and the national language in the story to create a sense of origin that still slightly remains
in the protagonist and other characters in this story such as “-lah”, “ronggeng”, “sarong”, “kebaya”,
“songkok”, “pondok”, and “bangsawan”.