A family photo with Maya (right) in her school uniform, her brother John (second from right), her grandmother Jovita, her brother Jacob (second from left) and her mother who is the author.
I have covered the crowning of several State-level Unduk Ngadau the last few years. I have witnessed the roar of the crowd after Hosiani Keewon was announced the winner in 2018, Kerinah Mah who was crowned in 2017 and Sherry Anne Laujang in 2016. The State-level Unduk Ngadau finale has always been, and perhaps, will always be an occasion that has the capacity to excite the entire State of Sabah.
Nevertheless, despite the excitement, the competition has always been just another job to cover for me because while everyone was at the Hongkod Koisaan in Penampang to enjoy the event, me and my fellow reporting peers were there to work.
However, this year’s finale was not just another event to cover. It had a much deeper meaning since my only daughter, Maya Hejnowska, was one of the 79th State Unduk Ngadau finalists, and continued to be in the running for the title as the contestants were trimmed to only 21, and then to the last top seven and subsequently, she made it to the top two before being announced the winner.
I was dismayed when she was asked about agriculture in the question-and-answer session. I saw her trying her best to get her points across in not one language but three – Kadazan, Malay and English. I realised now that if her command in the Polish language was just as good, she might have even added a fourth! It was awesome and yet frightening because I knew that many were critical of her joining the contest due to her European looks and were constantly judging her on social media from the colour of her skin, her eyes, her hair, her looks and even how she speaks.
But honestly speaking, I had always expected her to be among the top three contenders.
Hearing her name announced as the winner felt like the joy of having a hope that was hanging by a thread suddenly being realized. I have no other words for it. Tears were running down my cheeks when the seventh winner was announced. Those were happy tears. I cried similar tears when her brother survived an accident years ago. Our car was wrecked, but at least I had what was more important returned to me. It was a good reason to cry happy tears then, and it was a good reason to cry similar tears when Maya was crowned the Unduk Ngadau for Sabah this year.
Usually, when the winners are announced, all of us reporters would make a beeline towards the winners to interview them and quickly dispatch our reports to our editors. However, the most unusual thing happened – instead of making a beeline to the winners, my peers from other publications headed towards me since I was the mother of this year’s Sabah Unduk Ngadau.
And of course, I was asked if I expected Maya to win.
Did I? I expected her to be in the top three. I know that she possesses the sought-after winner’s attribute and I know for certain that she would be either at the top or near the top. Prior to the finals, I prayed incessantly for her victory. I think this is normal for all parents. I wanted her to win because it was her dream.
A year before joining the Unduk Ngadau competition, Maya had been trying her luck to help our family financially. She sold cookies, sewn pillowcases, hair bands, and later embarked into selling hair products.
She did all her promotional activities in her small room, using applications such as TikTok and Instagram.
And when she joined the contest, she began sharing with me her dreams of paying for her university fees herself when she “wins” as she did not want to burden me with more extra bills. Her joining was never intended to gain acclaim and glory. She did it so she did not have to look at her mother toiling from morning to night to put food on the table. Hence to me, her joining the competition was really an act of selflessness and love for her family. It did not matter how many people misjudged her on social media.
What was important was that I, her mother, knew her reasons for joining and I gave her my blessing.
Since Maya was crowned Sabah’s Unduk Ngadau, people have been congratulating me for raising an Unduk Ngadau. Thanking all my well-wishers, I wondered what I did to have raised my daughter for the crown – God knows I have only tried to do my utmost best to be as good a mother as my own mother had been to me.
Peering through some of Maya’s interviews prior to the finale where she spoke against the pay-per-vote so that all her peers in the Unduk Ngadau contest, rich or poor, would have a fairer deal under the scrutiny of professional judges, I realised that I have raised a fearless woman, one unafraid to say what she feels and thinks. Yet, despite her strong personality, as her mother, I can say that she is also a good listener, is helpful towards others and respects her elders. And before embarking into anything, both big and small, she would ask for my blessing. If I had said no, she would have stopped there. I would describe her as a strong, dignified and a very humble young woman.
Some people have also asked about my contribution to the heritage of the Kadazan people through the preservation of the Kadazan language by teaching it to my children.
The answer to that goes way before I had my children and when I was a child, myself.
Kadazan language was the only one used by my family while I was growing up. I was only exposed to English and Malay when I began my schooling years. When my sisters and brothers got married, naturally, I wanted the nephews and nieces to be Kadazan speakers and pestered everyone incessantly to speak only Kadazan. And when Maya’s brother was born, it was natural for me to speak to him in Kadazan even while we lived in Poland. I had aimed for us to be the only Kadazan speaking people in that country if we never returned home to Sabah.
Similarly, when Maya and her youngest brother were born, they were immediately immersed in the Kadazan language since everyone in my family, from my mother to my brothers and sisters and their children spoke Kadazan when together.
The family tradition is continuing with my nephews speaking to their children in Kadazan. And hopefully the Kadazan language will continue thriving in our family long after I am gone.
In this year’s contest, I have noticed that the number of Unduk Ngadau contestants who are versed in their mother tongue, be it Kadazan or Dusun or Murut or Rungus (KDMR), is growing. The pride of the KDMR people towards their own mother tongue is also becoming more obvious. In the past, many KDMR parents have opted to talk to their children in Malay and in English, because they feared their children would face unemployment if they only spoke their mother tongue; now many KDMR parents are returning to their roots and to their mother tongue.
And in a way, having children who look like Europeans but are fluent Kadazan speakers has proven to be an effective tool to get my Kadazan friends and relatives to return to the Kadazan language and teach it to their own children. I feel they do it because listening to a few ‘white’ children talking in Kadazan ignites a longing and allows them to see the beauty of their own mother tongue that they cannot help but want to have their own children be fluent in the language as well.
Hopefully, with Maya being the Unduk Ngadau this year, the network of KDMR people who teach their own children to speak their own mother tongue and take pride in it will grow when they hear her converse in Kadazan.