"Rasa Sayang" (pronounced [ˈrasa saˈjaŋ], literally "loving feeling") or "Rasa Sayange" (in Indonesia) is a Malay folk song popular in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The basis of "Rasa Sayang" is similar to Dondang Sayang and other Malay folk songs, which take their form from the pantun, a traditional ethnic Malay poetic form.
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Some in Indonesia have claimed that the song originated in the Maluku Islands, but such claims are disputed, as the standard Malay language itself and the tradition of pantun exchange are unknown to the Maluku Islands. Some of the Indonesians and Malaysians have once fought because of this.
Lyrics
Because this song is in pantun form, for each quatrain, there is no relevance of the first two lines to the message conveyed by the last two except to provide the rhyming scheme. There are a number of versions of the lyrics of "Rasa Sayang", but it usually starts with this refrain:
Rasa sayang, hey! Rasa sayang-sayang hey, Lihat nona dari jauh, Rasa sayang-sayang, heyThe refrain is then followed by a wide variety of popular Malay pantun
Controversy
Controversy over the song's provenance came to a head in 2007 when the Malaysian Tourism Board released the Rasa Sayang Commercial, an advertisement used as part of Malaysia's "Truly Asia" tourism campaign. Some Indonesians have accused Malaysia of heritage theft. Malaysia in return claimed that the song belongs to people of Maritime Southeast Asia, Malaysians and Indonesians alike. Malaysian Tourism Minister Adnan Mansor stated, "It is a folk song from the Nusantara and we are part of the Nusantara."