Food and ethnic identity in the Cham refugee community in Malaysia
Abstract
The Cham refugee community in Malaysia consists primarily of refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam. While they recognize each other as sharing a common ethnic background, divisions based on their country they came from serve as an obstacle to unity and solidarity. Food bridges the gap between these two groups. Dishes identified as Cham combine the culinary tradition of the two countries of origin and create a community of gustation. By consuming these foods and being a part of a community of gustation, the Cham articulate their ethnic identity and become a more coherent group.
Summary
This article by Rie Nakamura investigates how food functions as a unifying ethnic marker among the Cham refugee community in Malaysia, a group drawn from two distinct national origins—Cambodia and Vietnam. The central historical problem is a paradox: despite sharing Islam, the Cham language, and parallel refugee experiences, the two national sub-groups maintain persistent social distance, living in separate residential areas with limited interaction. Nakamura demonstrates that Cham food markets and the shared consumption of dishes identified as “ours” constitute the primary space where these divisions dissolve, creating what she terms a “community of gustation” that bridges the national boundary.
The article argues that the Cham foods consumed in Malaysia are not authentic Cham cuisine from either home country but are rearticulated Khmer and Vietnamese dishes—modified for halal requirements and claimed collectively by the Cham diaspora. This reimagining of a hybrid culinary tradition serves a dual function: it differentiates the Cham from the surrounding Muslim Malay population (who cook with salt, oil, and coconut milk rather than fish sauce or fermented salted fish), and it forges a coherent Cham ethnic identity in a new national context where the government had already absorbed them into the Bumiputera category.
Nakamura’s analysis draws on semi-structured interviews, market observations, home dining, and wedding banquets conducted across Peninsular Malaysia. She shows that food proves a more reliable ethnic signifier than language, which is rapidly being lost among second-generation Cham who prefer Malay. The act of consuming Cham foods becomes a daily practice of ethnic articulation, particularly important for Malaysian-born Cham who may lack fluency in the Cham language but can still participate fully in the dietary culture.
Key Findings
- Approximately 50,000 Cham refugees arrived in Malaysia between 1975 and 1982, part of a broader exodus of roughly 250,000 Indochinese refugees; nearly one-third of Cambodia’s Cham population perished under the Pol Pot regime (p. 155).
- The Malaysian government covertly accepted Cham refugees—transferring them at night to remote camps—while actively attempting to turn away other Indochinese refugees, as documented in Terengganu state archives (p. 158).
- At the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, three separate Cham student associations exist: one for those associated with Cambodia, one for Vietnam, and one for Malaysian-born Cham, illustrating the persistence of national identity within the ethnic group (p. 159).
- Key Cham dishes in Malaysia include leas hal (sun-dried shellfish), banh chok (rice vermicelli noodle soup), nom kong (donut), ton lamo (beef sausage), and paynong (banana-filled glutinous rice cake); Vietnamese contributions include banh xeo (modified to replace pork with chicken) and cafe Yuon (p. 160).
- Fieldwork was conducted between May 2017 and March 2018 across all states of West Malaysia except Perlis and Negeri Sembilan, with approximately 40 semi-structured interviews and observations at sites including Kampung Bunga Mas (Kelantan), Chendering (Pahang), Che Lijah (Terengganu), Kubu Gajah (Selangor), Tanjung Minyak (Malacca), and Ulu Tiram (Johor) (p. 156).
- Cham cooking relies on fish sauce or fermented salted fish (bohok), distinguishing it from Malay cuisine which uses salt, more oil, and coconut milk—a distinction that made food a more reliable ethnic marker than the Cham language, which many second-generation speakers no longer use fluently (p. 155).
Conclusion
Nakamura concludes that the deliberate creation of a new hybrid Cham cuisine in Malaysia—combining dishes from both Cambodia and Vietnam—serves as the primary mechanism through which the Cham articulate a coherent ethnic identity in their adopted country. This culinary tradition differentiates them from the Muslim Malay population into which the state had sought to integrate them, while simultaneously uniting the two national sub-groups that otherwise maintain social distance. Food, rather than language or religion, has become the most durable and accessible marker of Cham ethnicity, particularly for Malaysian-born generations who may have lost linguistic fluency but retain full participation in the dietary culture.
Context
- The study is grounded in original ethnographic fieldwork (2017–2018) across Peninsular Malaysia, supplemented by Terengganu state archive documents on refugee processing; it contributes to the growing body of Cham diaspora scholarship (Wong 2008, 2013; Weber 2016; Yekti Maunati 2012) by foregrounding food as the operative mechanism of ethnic boundary-making in a context of state-driven assimilation.