Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

126 WENDY A.SMITH
1993:108), he did not have a science background and struggled with the basic on-thejob
tuition he received in chemistry and maths from the Japanese technical
manager.
Nevertheless, as Ridzuan’s supervisory responsibilities increased, his
relationship to the Japanese technical manager became closer. Sometimes the two
of them went to dinner together, and in this way Ridzuan started to participate in
middle-class activities. After his promotion to assistant unit chief, he was sent to
Japan for three months’ training in July 1976. In the main factory, he worked with
operators on shift duty and was surprised to find that they owned cars, and that
some of them had been on overseas trips to Hawaii or the Philippines, perhaps, he
thought, for their honeymoon. Their living standards were obviously different to
those that he was familiar with: ‘Here we have our honeymoon in the kampung’, he
said.
Ridzuan went on to be a popular junior manager, and his career was nurtured
by Sanusi (case one, above). When it became clear that he was not technically
competent to be promoted to section chief level in production–these roles were
being given to newly recruited Malay science graduates–Ridzuan was shifted to
administration and given the role of section chief of security. Later he was moved
to public relations, under another new manager, Othman, who for a time became
Ridzuan’s patron: the two used to play golf together at a budget nine-hole golf club.
Ridzuan aspired to a comfortable, high-status middle-class lifestyle, but his income
was not sufficient to participate in the truly middle-class activities of shopping at
supermarkets for imported goods, and having membership of the more exclusive
golf clubs. Like other senior workers and senior managers, he could afford to take
his family to fast-food outlets, like Long John Silver or McDonald’s. But Ridzuan
complained that the food at Long John Silver was expensive and not at all nice.
According to him, they ‘were eating status rather than food’ by patronising these
establishments.
Ridzuan was caught between the generations, a phenomenon experienced by all
educated Malays in the NEP era. He had respect for the opinions of his family
regarding his career, and he had the simplicity of life values of the pious, but not
fundamentalist, Malays of old kampung society. Yet he was touched by new
middle-class consumerist values, and he had internalised the Japanese ethos of
working hard for the company.
Ridzuan continued to live in the private housing estate on the fringe of Kuala
Lumpur, where all the houses were free-standing single-storey residences. He
renovated and expanded the house to accommodate his wife, three children and
several relatives, all of whom could be supported on his salary from Iroha (M). He
was also able to invest in real estate for his future security.
The Japanese system of lifetime job security and horizontal transferring away
from an employee’s original section guaranteed Ridzuan a stable career in the firm
and the financial security to consolidate his membership of the middle class,
despite his lack of tertiary education. Other companies, regarding his technical
ability as limited, may have kept him in a lower supervisory role in the production