Sport and Society in Colonial Malaya Janice N
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This article was downloaded by: [University of Malaya] On: 20 July 2014, At: 06:08 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The International Journal of the History of Sport Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fhsp20 'Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds': Sport and Society in Colonial Malaya Janice N. Brownfoot Published online: 08 Sep 2010. To cite this article: Janice N. Brownfoot (2002) 'Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds': Sport and Society in Colonial Malaya, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 19:2-3, 129-156, DOI: 10.1080/714001761 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/714001761 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions 192sh06.qxd 04/12/2002 10:55 Page 129 5 ‘Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds’: Sport and Society in Colonial Malaya JANICE N. BROWNFOOT Whatever else Britain may have contributed to the world as an imperial power, western sport was one of the most enduring achievements. The British took with them to the Empire a plethora of sports for both men and women, from football and cricket to tennis and swimming, indoor and outdoor, played on field, track, court and in water, in teams and by individuals. Malaya was no exception.1 Writing in Singapore in March 1908, Edwin Dingle, founder editor and publisher of the Motor Car and Athletic Journal, summed up a general truth: Wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has established itself – and that is well nigh everywhere – there it has carried its sports. The outstanding characteristic of the race is that it must find an outlet for its energies in some form of outdoor sport or exercise, and nowhere has our national games a larger proportion of votaries than in the Straits Settlements [SS] and Federated Malay States [FMS]. Colony is linked to States and State to State by sport.2 Twenty years later the Malayan Sports Annual for 1928 agreed, making Downloaded by [University of Malaya] at 06:08 20 July 2014 the not uncommon observation that ‘The secret of British success in colonisation is sometimes a matter of wonder. Part of it is certainly to be found in the games that, like trade, ever “follow the flag”.’3 So what games had ‘followed the flag’ to colonial Malaya and when; what role did they play in the reputed British success there; and how were they able to achieve it? How did sport affect the local communities and how did those communities respond? This contribution considers these questions with particular reference to sport and the Asian and Eurasian populations of Malaya in the inter-war period.4 It is not a definitive study, but reflects work in progress. Before considering in 192sh06.qxd 04/12/2002 10:55 Page 130 130 Sport in Asian Society more detail what was new about the sporting innovations introduced through colonialism and the dramatic changes that resulted, an outline of Malay sports prior to the colonial period will provide a useful comparison and benchmark. SPORT AND GAMES IN PRE-COLONIAL MALAYA Until the introduction of the western concept of team sports, Malays5 admired the sporting talent of individuals such as hunters (especially elite males), elephant tamers and trainers of champion cocks for cock-fighting. Malay sports requiring craft skills and manual dexterity were also popular, including kite flying (wau), top spinning, sepak bola tangkis (also known as sepak raga and sepak takraw, played with a rattan ball), finger- and arm-wrestling, silat (a form of self-defence) and races on bamboo stilts. Boat-racing, fishing and diving were also greatly enjoyed since Malay kampungs (villages) were usually located near rivers or by the sea.6 Malay women spent their leisure time in gentle activity, gathering seashells and flowers to string into garlands, boating and picnics on river banks. They also played congkak, a board game requiring skill and patience. Fundamentally, in traditional Malay games and recreations, team sports were largely unfamiliar, apart from the popular sepak bola tangkis.7 SPORT AND THE WHITE COMMUNITY Imperialism, Health and the Importance of Sport British colonialism in Malaya consisted of paternalistic but dominant white rule based on the aura of superiority. Imperialism, the imperial Downloaded by [University of Malaya] at 06:08 20 July 2014 ethos and the British Empire were the creations of men mostly educated and trained in British public schools and universities. Sport, athleticism and ‘muscular Christianity’8 all played their part in the imperial culture that British men formulated during the Victorian era as essential to doing their duty, forming bonds, transmitting morality and maintaining white prestige.9 White men from other nations – America, Australia and various European countries – similarly espoused the British philosophy.10 British and other white women were necessary too. But they had to fit in and play their roles as helpmates, wives and mothers and as 192sh06.qxd 04/12/2002 10:55 Page 131 Sport and Society in Colonial Malaya 131 working women (for some), exerting also a civilizing influence. In many ways they were the ‘civilizing’ face of colonialism and in Malaya, according to a leader in the Straits Times in 1911, were essential if colonization in the tropics was to continue ‘without destruction of the superior race characteristics which are supposed to be possessed by the people of temperate climates’.11 Sport was similarly essential in helping to promote and uphold successful colonial rule, racial superiority and white solidarity: it was an integral part of imperialism. A universal belief of the British in the tropics was that regular exercise was mandatory for maintaining health and morale, as well as personal and public control. Physically energetic games were considered beneficial because they helped westerners to keep fit, build team spirit, form friendships, limit the negative effects of work, maintain white prestige, and offset any tendency to ‘nerves’ or mental breakdown due to alienation, isolation and loneliness. Sport enabled vital social contact amid the widely dispersed communities of the Malay Peninsula and the Borneo states. It also reputedly helped sublimate sexual urges, especially in young men. Sport, in essence, was advantageous to the individual, the group, the wider community and the Empire.12 As Edwin Dingle writing in 1908, largely for men about men, argued: It is generally conceded that nothing has a more beneficial or permanent effect in the formation of character than participation in health giving sports. … The youth is taught self-reliance and self-restraint, alertness and quickness of decision, the spirit of healthy rivalry and the more generous instincts of a true sportsman, ready to admit defeat from a better man.13 If sport and exercise were beneficial, indeed essential, to white men Downloaded by [University of Malaya] at 06:08 20 July 2014 in the enervating tropical climate, then surely white women needed to participate in sport too? The issue aroused debate in Malaya which polarized between those women who argued in favour and some men, especially among medical doctors, who inveighed against. Despite the barriers white women faced, most of them played whatever games they chose.14 The Introduction of Western Sports in the Nineteenth Century Western sport was introduced as soon as whites settled in Malaya, in Penang from 1786 and Singapore from 1819. Initially, horse riding and 192sh06.qxd 04/12/2002 10:55 Page 132 132 Sport in Asian Society racing, driving out in horse-drawn carriages, walking and parlour games such as chess and billiards were the most popular. By the 1830s the first ball, team and field games – fives in 1836 and cricket by 1837 – had been introduced. More and more sports were introduced progressively, often soon after their innovation, adoption and development in the home country. By the latter half of the century these included croquet and rifle shooting.15 Initially sport was organized collectively, through groups of men and then in clubs based on British public-school models. During the 1830s and 1840s cricket enthusiasts, who met at the Hotel de l’Europe in Singapore to play cricket and then socialize over drinks, established a tradition of combining sports with social intercourse in clubs. In 1852 they set up the first sporting institution in Malaya, the Singapore Cricket Club (SCC), which over the decades offered facilities for hockey, lawn tennis and football as well as cricket, and for billiards, pool and card games in the clubhouse. The SCC quickly became a whites-only membership club, although it played against other ethnic groups too.16 From the late 1870s, westerners rapidly introduced modern sports to the Malay States17 through clubs that combined sporting and social activities, the most famous being the Selangor Club in 1884 and the Lake Club in 1890, both in Kuala Lumpur (KL).