Same Root, Different Branches: The Story Behind “Rasa Sayang”
“Rasa Sayang” is a folk song caught in a family feud between Malaysia and Indonesia.
- "Rasa Sayang" is a traditional Malay folk song predating modern nations, making ownership claims by either Malaysia or Indonesia genuinely complicated.
- Both countries have historical evidence supporting their claims, suggesting the song is best viewed as shared Malay cultural heritage.
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Malaysian and Indonesian folks online are no strangers to “ownership” arguments. Most recently, they were arguing about QR payments and which country had it first.
Someone then dredged up an old fight over the song ‘’Rasa Sayang” when certain quarters claimed that Malaysia’s Upin Ipin used Indonesia’s intellectual property when the studio included the song in the animation series.
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So, where is “Rasa Sayang” from?
“Rasa Sayang” is a traditional folk song from the Malay Archipelago, and its exact origin is hard to pinpoint. The title of the song loosely translates to “loving feeling.”
Most Malaysian kids know it as one of the many nursery rhymes we’ve sung in school. The song’s infectious, singable melody comes from its roots in pantun, the quatrain-based oral poetic tradition at the heart of Malay culture, with roots going back to at least the 15th-century Melaka Sultanate. However, oral precedents likely stretch further into pre-Islamic Malay communities.
There are two competing origin claims, which explains why it fueled the arguments online time and again.
Some believe the song originated from Maluku, Indonesia. Many Indonesian sources trace it to “Rasa Sayange”, an Ambonese Malay folk song. Ambonese Malay is a Malay-based creole language spoken in Ambon, in the Maluku Islands. This version of the song has lyrics referring to Ambon directly.
In Indonesia, the first gramophone recording of “Rasa Sayange” was recorded in 1962 by Lokananta studio in Solo, along with other Indonesian folksongs. The audio disc was distributed as a souvenir for the 1962 Asian Games.
Meanwhile, Malaysian sources and researchers point to the song’s long history across the wider Malay Archipelago. The earliest verifiable recording appears in a 1938 British travelogue film titled Five Faces of Malaya, sung in Malay. The song also turned up in Japanese wartime propaganda films during the Malayan occupation in the 1940s, evidence that it was already well established in Malay communities before Malaysia existed as a nation.
The ownership debate of the “Rasa Sayang” song came to a head in 2007 when Malaysia used the song in a tourism campaign, and Indonesia protested. Indonesia’s Copyright Association argued that the song originated in Maluku, and it should be used with the country’s permission under copyright law.
Why is the song’s origin still disputed? The song predates modern nation-states, so it can’t be really pinned to one country’s ownership. “Rasa Sayang” is best understood as a traditional Malay folk song shared across Indonesian and Malaysian cultures, including the Malay communities in Singapore and Brunei, too. Folk songs feature regional variants rather than one national origin.
So where does that leave Malaysia and Indonesia? Perhaps it’s best to see “Rasa Sayang” not as something to be owned by one side, but as a shared Malay folk heritage with genuine historical evidence on both sides. It’s a fitting echo of the phrase “kita serumpun,” indicating that we come from the same root.
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