Young Malay boys showing certain inclination of indulgence in their early lives would be spoken of affectionately by the adults with equivalent monikers with prefix of 'Mat' - followed by his idiosyncrasy.
Among them would be 'Mat Bola' - footballer, 'Mat Berangan' - dreamer, 'Mat Trumpet' - trumpet musician, 'Mat Besi' - strong boy, and so on.
Most famous of all 'Mat Jenin' went on to become a proverbial household name - fabled story of a boy counting his eggs before they were hatched, with a fatal twist of the character in the end - a prevalent traits of the locals unfortunately.
Then the no-turning-back 'Mat' in the adult life. Even up to now the society seems to be at loss on how to contain such rampaging of these kind of Mat's.
Mat Gian - Male drug addict. Feminine - Minah Gian.
'Mat Gian ni suka curi barang, nak suap gian dia.'
These Mat Gian likes to steal things, to finance his addiction.
Mat Rempit - Male
illegal motorbike racer. Feminine - Minah Rempit.
'Mat Rempit ni
makin melampau - polis pun dibelasahnya.'
These Mat Rempits are
getting bold - even the policeman was beaten up by them.
Unlike the effervescence of 'Mat Salleh's' ever since first came to Malay shore in the 17th century in seeking spices. It must be an unbelievable sights of the puny locals gawking at these giant bearded sailors in their armored suites and silvery weapons - initially mistaken with the smaller Punjabi traders - they were called 'Benggali Putih' or White Benggali.
Surely they weren't called 'Mat Salleh' then. The most obvious reference to these humongous humanoids would be 'orang putih' - 'white people'. Well, one can't blame the Mat Salleh in retort calling the locals 'orang coklat'..!
Always a fallacy that the term 'Mat Salleh' coming from English words 'mad sailor' - as being the land-deprived English commercial and military sailors would let off their steam at the ports-of-call at local outlets with their tipsy antics would be easy enough.
However, in true sense of madness the more appropriate description of such frequent incidences would be 'orang putih giler...!' - apology to my Caucasian friends. That's not how we Malays would treat our guests, totally far from it...!
In friending with the locals, the sailors would boast of fascinating far-away tales or exciting adventures beyond the seventh seas that would be the envy of young Malay men. Everyone wants to associate and converse with these outstanding - physically of course, burly fun-loving, easy going and enchanting 'mat' sailors.
And with the thick English twang, the Malays could not match the deep-baritone cockney pronunciation of the word 'sailor' - nor do they understand the meaning of it in all fairness since the profession do not have an equivalent word in Malay! It's only when the Portuguese lent us the word 'kelasi kapal' as closest to the English's sailor.
As always, in all Malay good-humor demeanor, the best they can do is to mimic the word equivalent to our own familiar name that they can associate with - Salleh - a sophisticated Malay name for a upper society male.
That's what they want to be just like their new-found friends - a Mat Salleh - to visit and discover the exciting places far away around the world.
It has never been an ounce of derogatory to the moniker of Mat Salleh, au contraire it's the affection or fondness of the 'orang putih' that most of us dare not admit...! It even goes up a notch in the ever increasing acronyms of the digital world - 'omputih' ... well that's for another day..!
More so when one comes across the blue-eyed blonde 'Minah Omputih' ... glamour you.....!
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