Sayang

“Though I rarely had occasion to use it, I know the word and its implications well. It was truly a Southeast Asian word, soft as its people and well-understood from Marang to Manila, Surabaya to Sulawesi, Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu. It describes a love bound to sadness, a tenderness trembling on the edge of tears, a passion from which pity could not be detached. It was hugging an infant and knowing that its happy, gurgling flesh could not escape suffering and death. If one paused, one could recognise it in the cries of lovemaking as bodies heaved and faces contorted. The Greeks with their division of love into Eros, Philos and Agape had no such word." — Gopal Baratham, Sayang, 1991