Pertanika J. Soc. Sci. & Hum. 11(2): 157-163 (2003) ISSN: 0128-7702© Universiti Putra Malaysia Press

Neighbourliness and Community: A Study of Changing Social RelationshipPatterns in a Malay Rice Growing Village

ZAHID EMBYDepartment of Social and Development Science

Faculty of Human Ecology, Universiti Putra Malaysia43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Keywords: Social relationship, community, neighbourliness

ABSTRAK

Kampung Paya (nama samaran) adalah sebuah kampung dalam Skim Pengairan Muda (MADA)yang penduduknya terdiri daripada pesawah. Kampung ini pertama kali dikaji oleh penulis padatahun 1975 dengan menggunakan kaedah pemerhatian-ikutserta. Data tambahan te1ah dikumpulmelalui beberapa lawatan susulan sehingga kali terakhirnya pada bulan Mei 2002. Data tambahanini juga dikumpul dengan menggunakan kaedah yang sarna seperti yang digunakan dalam kajianterdahulu (1975) iaitu pemerhatian, penyertaan dan temu bual formal dan tidak formal. Kajianini adalah suatu penelitian mengenai pola perhubungan sosial yang telah muncul di dalamkampung ini sejak penerimaan penanaman padi dua kali setahun dan teknik-teknik penanamanmoden oleh penduduk kampung ini. Kajian ini mendapati bahawa teknik penanaman modenyang digunakan oleh penduduk kampung ini telah mengurangkan keperluan bagi pesawah untukberada di tempat kerja mereka (sawah) buat jangka masa yang lama. Ini pula mengurangkankuantiti dan kualiti perhubungan sosial di tempat kerja mereka. Walau bagaimanapun, peningkatanpendapatan telah membenarkan mereka berbelanja lebih banyak wang di kedai kopi danrestoran kampung tersebut yang telah bertambah dalam beberapa tahun yang lepas seperticendawan selepas hujan. Ini bermakna lokasi ini telah mengambil alih bukan sahaja daripadatempat kerja tetapijuga daripada masjid dan rumah mereka sebagai "pusat perjumpaan". Dalambeberapa tahun kebelakangan ini, telah muncul suatu pola yang menunjukkan kurangnya ziarah­menziarahi antara jiran dan rendahnya kehadiran semasa sembahyang berjemaah pada waktuzohor, asar, maghrib dan isya'. Ini bermakna tempat ini bukan lagi menjadi tempat tumpuan bagipenduduk untuk berhubung antara satu sarna lain. Walau bagaimanapun, pada keseluruhannya,perhubungan sosial yang terdapat di kampung ini pada masa kini walaupun berbeza dari segibentuk dan kualiti daripada pola yang wujud pada masa lepas, masih cukup rapat untukmeneruskan semangat kejiranan dan komuniti di kalangan penduduk.

ABSTRACT

Kampung Paya (a fictitious name) is a Malay rice growing village within the Muda IrrigationScheme (MADA). The village was first studied by the author in 1975 employing the participant­observation method. Additional data was collected through regular visits to the village, the lastvisit being in May 2002. Additional data was collected using the same method as previouslyemployed in the 1975 research project which was observation, participation and formal andinformal interviews. This is a study of the pattern of social relationships that has emerged in thevillage ever since its adoption of double-eropping of rice and the accompanying moderntechniques of cultivation. The study found that the modern cultivation techniques employed bythe villagers had reduced the need for the rice farmers to be at their work place (the rice fields)for long periods of time. This in turn reduced the quantity and quality of their social relationshipsat the work place. However, an increase in income had permitted them to spend more moneyin the village coffee shops and restaurants (food stalls) which had mushroomed in the last fewyears, thus turning these locations into "meeting centres" for the villagers, taking over this rolenot only from their work place but also from the mosque and their home. In recent years, a

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pattern has emerged showing that social visits to neighbours' homes were on the decline and thatattendance at the mosque for the noonday, afternoon, evening and night time prayers has alsodeclined. This means that these locations are no longer important foci for social relationships tooccur. However, on the whole, the fabric of social relationship that is in existence at present,though different in form and quality from the pattern that existed in the past, is close-knittedenough to maintain neighbourliness and a semblance of community among the villagers.

INTRODUCTION

The picture of village relationships andcommunity life painted by anthropologists overthe years has fluctuated from one extreme tothe other. At one extreme the villagers wereseen by anthropologists like Foster (1967) asindividualistic, suspicious and jealous of theirneighbours, uncaring and uncooperative,reminiscent of Marx's "sack of potatoes".However, others like Lewis (1966) saw the villagecommunity as close-knitted, characterised byclose and personal relationships and closecooperation among its members. Early writingson the rural society of Peninsular Malaysia tendedto lean more toward the latter description of thepeasant community. Anthropologists like Firth(1946), Swift (1965) and Wilson (1967) tendedto highlight the close-knitted nature of thevillage society though not ignoring altogetherthe friction and factions found in thesecommunities. However later scholars, writing inthe era of modernization and the GreenRevolution, began to dwell more on social andclass differentiation and the friction andcompetition among the villagers in the localeconomic and political spheres (S. Husin Ali1975; de Koninck 1993; Bailey 1983; ShamsuiAmri Baharuddin 1986; Wan Hashim Wan Teh1978; Scott 1985). One writer pointed out thateven in colonial and precolonial days frictionand resistance existed in the village (Cheah1988). An anthropologist, Zahid Emby (1977),interpreted villagers' emphasis on maintaininggood relations in economic terms seeing themaintenance of good relationships as essentialfor the much-needed exchange labour ("derau"and "pinjam") and even local wage labour torun smoothly. He argued that the institutions of"derau" and "pinjam", still important to theeconomic life of the villagers at that time wouldcollapse if there were no good relations amongthe villagers. Reasonably priced local wage labourwould also be threatened if relationships betweenvillagers became bad as strained relationsbetween employers and employees mightencourage employees to demand higher

wages (Zahid Emby 1977). Another writer, Scottwrote about "on-stage" and "off-stage" behaviour,where "on-stage" one would see good, closeinterpersonal relationship being maintained,while "off-stage", gossips and frictions wouldabound. Aggression, violence, anger andexpressions of class struggle were restricted tothe "off-stage" sphere (Scott 1985).

The pattern of social relationships in therural communities of Malaysia has been changingover the years. In more recent years, while themaintenance of good social relations andcommunity life "hidup bermasyarakat" continueto be emphasised outwardly by the villagers, "on­stage" strain, friction and competition are alsoappearing more regularly in their relationships.Contributing factors have been scarcity ofagricultural land, modernization and the GreenRevolution. Rice farmers in irrigation schemeshad to compete for land as well as for wagelabour as "derau" had disappeared from thescene. Mechanization and the use of chemicalfertilisers and pesticides had brought changes toland ownership and tenancy patterns and this intum brought changes to the village pattern ofsocial relationships (Scott 1985; de Koninck 1992;Muhamad Ikmal Said 1985). Another factor wasthe changing work process which reduced faceto face relationships. With the changing workprocess, villagers were fmding it increasinglydifficult to relate to each other daily as theamount of time they spent at their work placehad been reduced drastically. This means that alot of their social relationships had to be madeat home, in the village or at the mosque orprayer house (surau). Even relationships amongfamily members have changed over the years.Regular and frequent relationships among thevillagers have become rare.

The Challenge of Maintaining Community:The Case of Kampung Paya

The researcher began his study of KarnpungPaya (a fictitious name), a rice farming village inthe Muda Irrigation Scheme (MADA), in 1975,employing the participant-observation method.

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Since then, the researcher has visited the villageregularly and observed and participated in villageactivities and interviewed various key informants.Kampung Paya is a small village of 146households whose members earn their livingplanting rice twice a year on rice fields whosesizes range from 1 to 35 relong (1 relong equals0.71 acre). The household heads consist ofmainly owner-operators and tenants, with a fewwho are agricultural wage labourers "kerjakampung". Besides changes in the economiclife, the village social relationships pattern alsounderwent change. This article addresses thelatter issue. This is a description and an analysisof the pattern of social relationships that hasemerged in the village, a pattern that is in manyways different from the pattern that existed in1975, when the villagers hadjust begun adoptingdouble-cropping of irrigated rice. Socialrelationships in the past were frequent andclosely-knit. This was essential in an economyand culture that depended on the communityand communal labour "derau", "pinjam","gotong-royong") not only for community works(maintenance of the mosque and graveyard,village road and bridges, the "balai raya", etc)but also for rice production, house-building andhouse-moving, and the performance of importantrituals and ceremonies that accompany births,coming of age, marriages and deaths. An absenceof frequent and close social relationships wouldundermine communal labour and could threatentheir economic and cultural life. However withthe coming of double-eropping of rice andmodern techniques of rice farming, communallabour was replaced by machinery and wagelabour. Rice production was no longer dependenton communal labour, and thus the absence offrequent and close social relationships wouldnot threaten their economic life anymore. Butthe community and communal labour was stillneeded in their cultural life specifically in theperformance of rituals and ceremonies. Hencethe need to continue maintaining a pattern ofsocial relationships that was reasonably closely­knit, although not necessarily in the form that itexisted in the past. The following discussionexamines this altered pattern of socialrelationships which can be observed at the workplace and other locations in the village such ascoffee shops and restaurants, their homes andthe mosque.

Social Relationships at the Work Place

In Kampung Paya, the work place (the ricefields) had ceased being an important place forthe villagers to meet and socialise and exchangeinformation and gossip. In the rice-growingvillage of Kampung Paya, the rice-fields whichused to serve as the work place as well as animportant meeting point for the villagers, hadceased to be so. Rice-farming had changed innature. The farmers no longer worked the fieldsthemselves. Most of the work was done bymachines and wage labour. In preparing thefields, the farmers, be they owner-operators ortenants, hired workers to plough the fields usingtractors. They only dropped by on-and-off to seethat the work was properly carried out. At thisstage of the rice production process, a farmerwould spend at the most a total of an hour or soa day in the field, visiting it in the morning andthe evening. However, since each farmer wouldselect the time most suitable for him, the farmersmight not even see, let alone relate, with eachother during their brief visits to the field. Thiswas quite different from the time when thefarmers ploughed the fields themselves, eitherwith the buffalo or the tractor, and thus spendingpractically the whole day there. They would,throughout the day, take short breaks from theploughing and these breaks would normally bespent talking to each other, exchanging ideas,information, gossip and stories. Nowadays, onlythe tractor drivers spend the whole day in thefields. Thus at this stage of the productionprocess, the work place serves as a socialgathering point only for a limited number ofpeople, mainly the younger people of the villagewho are hired by the farmers as their tractordrivers. Some of these drivers are the sons of thericher farmers who own the tractors and usethem to plough their own land as well as hirethem out to the smaller owner-operators andthe tenants who cannot afford to buy tractors oftheir own. The farmers (owners or tenants)could no longer use the rice field as a place tomeet and socialise during the ploughing seasonas they do not spend much time in the fieldsduring this season.

The rice fields during the planting ortransplanting season were at one time equallyimportant as a work place as well as a place forvillagers to meet and interact. During breaks oreven while working, the women wouldcommunicate with each other. During this

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labour-intensive process of transplanting therewould be people working in various parts of thefield; everywhere, work and recreation seemedto merge.

However, in the last few years changes haveoccurred. Transplanting has been replaced bydirect seeding. Local village women whotraditionally used to transplant the rice seedlingsare no longer required to do the job. Thus,during this season farmer participation in thecultivation process has again been reduced tobrief visits to the field to check on the workerswho are hired to do the direct seeding. An houror so in the morning and an hour or so in theevening is all the time that farmers spend in thefield. As direct seeding requires only a limitednumber of people, the rice fields ceasedfunctioning not only as a work place but also asa place where villagers meet for interaction andrecreation.

The period between transplanting andharvesting used to be the period of least activityin the rice fields. However, after the introductionof irrigation, double-cropping, wage labour andmechanization, it has become the period thatthe farmers are at their most active in relation tothe other stages of the production process. Theneed for regular application of chemicalfertilisers and pesticides and the need to controlgrass and weeds meant that farmers had tospend more time in the field as compared to thedays of single-cropping (farmers tended to dothis work themselves rather than using wagelabourers). The high yielding variety (HW) ofrice grown in the irrigated areas including thevillage under study required that fertilisers andpesticides be applied at regular intervals whilethe rice plants were growing. This variety alsohad to be protected from grass and weeds whichgrew rapidly in the rice fields, especially duringthe off-season when low water levels in the fieldgave the grass and weeds an advantage over rice.In order to control them farmers had to sprayherbicides or use the mower regularly. Thus, thefarmers had to spend from three to four hoursper day for this work depending on the size oftheir land. It was only during this stage of theproduction process that farmers could be foundin late morning or in the evening interactingwith each other in the field.

The harvesting season in the past was themost popular season among the cultivators, bethey labourers, tenants or owner-operators.

Working in the daytime as well as on moonlitnights, labourers and farmers, men and women,adults and young teenagers, would be togetherin the fields, harvesting and threshing. Work,socialising and recreation became one.

However, with the introduction of double­cropping, the work pattern has undergonechanges and with this the patterns of socialrelationships at the work place, the rice field,have also been altered. The combine harvestermade its appearance in the village in the late1970s and since then has taken over harvestingcompletely. Manual harvesting and threshingand the transport of rice from the field to thefarmhouse by bicycle, motorbike and the "anok"(a sled pulled by a buffalo) have become thingsof the past. During the harvesting season onlythe harvester (with driver and assistant) wasseen in the field, with farmers appearing nowand then checking to make sure that their fieldswere properly harvested and all the rice harvestedloaded directly on to lorries waiting for theharvester by the road side. The farmers wouldonly spend more time in the field if problemscropped up. As only a few harvesters, owned anddriven by outsiders, would be working at onetime, this would mean that only a few farmerswould be in the field during that time. Socialrelationships among the farmers would thus beminimal during this season as even when a fewof them were in the field, they would be somedistance from each other and too occupied withtheir work of checking and supervising themechanised harvesting to have time to interactand communicate with each other. The patternof social relationships between farmers at theirwork place during the harvesting season wouldbe different in quality and quantity from that ofthe premechanised harvesting days. Wheneverinteractions occurred in the field, it was seldomrandom, unplanned or for socialising only. Theinteraction that they embarked on was normallyto discuss problems that had arisen in the courseof the harvesting. The social interaction washence professional rather than recreational.

The rice field in this village had thus becomea work place in the real sense of the word wheresocialising and recreation had been reduced toa minimum. Rice cultivation as work andrecreation combined had disappeared. Thegrowing of rice had became an income­generating occupation, separated fromrecreation. The recreation had to be sought

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elsewhere. As a farmer stated (confirmed byothers):

"Buat bendang dulu seronok. Meriah. Ramai orangkat padang. Tapi la ni malas rasa nak pi padang.Sunyi. Tak ramai orang".(Planting rice used to be fun. Great fun. There weremany people in the fields. But now I do not feellike going to the field. Quiet and lonely.Not many people around).

The farmers who owned rubbersmallholdings which they established some milesaway from the village by clearing the forest alsoexpressed the same view regarding work ontheir smallholdings. People were spending lesstime on their holding, the young preferringeasier work elsewhere, and the older farmers,due to their age, visiting their holding onlyirregularly. In the past they would be sure to seeother people working. But in the last few yearsthey could work the whole day without seeinganyone else. The term "sunyi" (lonely) was alsoused to describe working in their rubberholdings. In other words they could no longertake short breaks from their work to socialisewith others as they seldom met other people.Social interaction and communication in therubber smallholdings was thus minimal. Thepattern of social relationships at the work p~ace,

both the rice fields and the rubber smallholdmgs,had been reduced to irregular and infrequentcontacts.

The merging of work and recreation hadbeen charactristic of village life in the past in allthe communities studied. In fact the maintenanceof good relations among villagers owed a lot tosocial relationships embarked on at the workplace. However, with the advent of modernizationin agriculture, the introduction of cash cropsand the conversion of rice into a commercialcrop, work had become separated fromrecreation, and the work place ceased to be aplace where people met,. socialised a~d

exchanged news, information and gOSSIp.Regular, daily face-to-face social interaction atthe work place became irregular or ceased toexist altogether. Daily social relationships wereleft in the other spheres of village life only.When this occurred a large portion of dailysocial interaction which contributed toward themaintenance of good relations among villagersceased to exist as well.

Social Relationships at the Village Coffee Shaps/Food Stalls

Other than the work place, the village itself wasanother area in which interaction took place.Certain areas in the village, especially the villagecoffee shops, were "meeting centres" wherevillagers stopped to talk and while away theirfree time. These places were visited by variousvillagers throughout the day. The village coffeeshops were crowded early in the morning withvillagers buying breakfast to take home or to beconsumed on the premises. The afternoonswould normally be quiet in the village as villagerswould be staying home, out of the hot middaysun."Life" would return to the village in theevening as villagers would once again leavetheir homes to stop by the village "meetirIgcentres", to talk and relate with each other.Some would stop there briefly before going tothe fields or when returning from the fields.

In Kampung Paya, the seven coffee shopsand small restaurants or food stalls formedpopular meeting places for these villagers as wellas other residents of nearby villages. The threecoffee shops were only open in the morningwhile the four small restaurants would open inthe evening and remain open until late at night.It was to these shops that villagers would cometo spend some of their spare time interactirIgwith other villagers and catching up on localnews.

The three coffee shops opened for businessat about 7.00 every morning and closed three tofour hours later. Starting from opening time astream of villagers would visit the shops, stayawhile and then leave to be replaced by others.This went on until closing time. The villagerswho dropped by and stayed briefly were mainlyheads of households. These shops were notpopular "hang-outs" for the younger membersof the village who preferred the small restaurantswhich opened in the evening. The four smallrestaurants were only visited by the oldermembers of the village for a purpose, that is tobuy food. They might remain awhile if therewere other older villagers in the restaurant.Normally they would not. Thus, there were two"meeting centres" for the village, one for theyoung and the other for the older residents.They came to these places to socialise andinteract with village members of their own age.Thus, through their interaction at these shopsand restaurants villagers kept in touch with each

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other, maintain good relationships, andcontribute to maintaining the village as acommunity.

The socialising and the whiling away of freetime at these shops contributed greatly tomaintaining the community spirit. At thesegatherings, villagers conversed,joked, told storiesand exchanged news and experiences. Throughthese activities villagers kept in touch with eachother and obtained news of planned and pastvillage activities like "gotong-royong", weddingsand funerals. The village as a communityremained in the collective mind.

VISmNG FELLOW VILLAGERS

Regular visits of fellow villagers had become anactivity of the past in Kampung Paya. Visits ofone's neighbours were becoming rare as villagersgot more involved with meeting their personalneeds than community needs. In the past, visitingone's neighbours was recreational, but in recentyears visiting was becoming a chore andresponsibility. For the most part one would visitone's neighbours only when one was invited (toa wedding or a feast) or for a specific reason likevisiting a sick person or to discuss a problem.

In Kampung Paya, farmers recalled the daysof single-cropping and the early days of double­cropping, when television was rare and the mainform of entertainment at night was visiting friendsand neighbours when they would spend hourstalking. The author experienced a similarsituation during his short stay in the village in1975. The nights were for socialising and therewas a lot of movement at night even though atthat time the village had no electricity supply.The few houses that had television sets (poweredby generators) became the foci of socialgatherings. Visiting friends and neighbours wasindeed a form of entertainment and recreation.

However, after the introduction of double­cropping of rice and electricity, most people inthe village seemed to have lost interest in visitingfriends and relatives be it in the day or at night.When they did visit a friend or relative normallyit was for a reason. When a friend or relative wassick, when there was a problem to be discussedor when it had become too long since the lastvisit to an older relative's house, then the visitwould be undertaken. Visiting had become anobligation to these villagers. It is no longer forentertainment and recreation. The changingvalues and attitudes of the villagers had altered

their perceptions of the importance of visitingin maintaining good relations and a sense ofcommunity.

Social Relationships at the Mosque

The mosque did not playa very important rolein encouraging social relations among villagersin the village studied. This was demonstrated bythe fact that attendance at the mosque forafternoon (Zuhur and 'Asar) , evening (Maghrib)and night (Isyak) prayers was low. The mosquewas visited in the main by the older people ofthe village. Only a few of the younger memberscame. This low percentage of villagers visitingthe mosque regularly meant that widespreadinteraction among villagers did not occur atthese places.

In Kampun Paya, Maghrib and Isyak prayersat the mosque were attended by fewer thantwenty people, most of whom were fromneighbouring villages.

This was not the case in 1975 whenattendance was much higher and thus themosque played a more important role in bringingvillagers together.

CONCLUSION

Casual social interaction at the work place, inthe village and at the mosque, which had in thepast held the people together and knit theminto a community had become infrequent andirregular in recent years. The fabric of socialrelationships in the village were no longer closelywoven. This "loosening" of the fabric of socialrelationships in village society meant that theexisting pattern of social relationships would bequite different from the pattern found in thevillage in the days prior to modernization anddevelopment. The social relationships hadbecome "purposeful", undertaken in order toachieve a certain objective. For some, even theirvisits to the coffee shops were for a purpose - tokeep in touch with what was happening in thevillage and to "show their face" so that otherswould not accuse them of not being "friendly"and uninterested in village affairs. Thusneighbourliness and a semblance of communitystill exist. This "loosening" of the social fabric,which in the past would have undermined theireconomic life (rice production was dependenton communal labour), does not do so at presentas the production process is dependent onmachinery and wage labour, not communal

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labour. However, as villagers still need thecommunity in the performance of the importantrites of passage (birth, puberty, marriage anddeath) and community works, neighbourlinessand a semblance of community has to bemaintained. The fabric of social relationshipsthat exists in the village at present is sufficient toensure the participation of villagers inceremonies and rituals sponsored by fellowvillagers and to a lesser extent in communitywork. Their participation in these ceremoniesand community work in turn help to strengthenthe fabric of village social relationships.

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(Received: 10 July 2003)

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