By Syakir Nizam
Malaysia has 30 million population  of various ethnicity living together in peace and harmony. Unlike South Africa, which applied Apartheid Policy that differentiate between white-skin from black-skin people, Malaysians believe in the concept of unity and harmony among races.
According to Merriam Webster Online (2015), race is defined as a class of people that unified and shared interest, habits or characteristics. There are different types of main races in Malaysia such as Malay, Chinese and Indian and generally categorised according to their respective cuisines, religious belief and language used.
1. Malay
The Malay race is the majority population in Malaysia occupying 50.1 percent out of 28.5 million people in this country . For cuisines, a study showed that “Malaysia’s diversity has blessed country with the most exquisite cuisine in the world“(Edwin &Edwin,2001). Because of this, Malays have a variety of delicious cuisine for example, Nasi Lemak , Laksa and  Sambal Udang. Other than that, most Malays practice Islam as their religious belief. Islam is the monotheism religion and mosque as their place for prayer and also they celebrated Eid fitr and Eid Adha every year. For the language aspect, Malays used Malay language as their main language. However, the language has different accent depending on the state. For example, in northern state, they used Malay north accent as their communication language and it shows that the characteristics of Malay race.
2. Chinese
Chinese is the second largest race in Malaysia with 22.6 percent. Unlike Malays, “Chinese-Malaysian dishes are similar to those found in Southern China, with some modification “(http://traveltips.usatoday.com), for instance, Loh Mee. They are  also using chopsticks  to eat. Furthermore, most Chinese are followers of different religions and it called “Chinese Religion”.  Chinese Religion can be defined as ” part and parcel of Chinese way of life” (TAN, n.d). For example, Buddhist and Taoism. Other than that, the language of Chinese, most Chinese in Malaysia using Mandarin accent as their main dialect. However, some Chinese also like to use other dialect such as Hokkien and Hakka. It depends on the dialect they want to use in their daily life.
3. Indian
Finally, Indians who are the third majority race in Malaysia. The cuisine of the Indians usually based on chillies to provide spicy taste. For example, chicken curry. Most of Indians also like to eat sweets as their daily dessert. For the religious belief of the Indians, most of them practises Hinduism and Sikhism. For Hinduism, they pray at a Hindu temple and For Sikhism believers, they pray at Gurdwara Sahib. The difference in terms of their religion is in the way of their practice of the worship and their religious celebration. For example, Hinduism believers celebrate Deepavalli, the festival of light. The language that the Indians used in their daily life is Tamil. Most Malaysia Indians used Tamil as their main dialect to communicate with each other in their daily life. Tamil is the language originated from “Tamil diaspora to Malaysia”. (Time of India, 2014).
To sum up, although Malays, Chinese and Indians are different, they are generally categorised by the different types of cuisine, religious belief and language. However, they still can live peacefully and in harmony and Malaysian culture can be inherited for the next generation.***