A Kampung Segu Bunuk’s representative leads his contingent in the ‘Brarak & Bipajak Gawai Bisegu 2024’ parade at the Bidayuh village in Puncak Borneo, near Kuching. — Photo by Galileo Petingi AT the end of last month, as I was being driven along the Kuching-Samarahan Road, something moving on the screen of a billboard caught my eye. In blue was ‘Selamat Hari Gawai’.
No ‘Dayak’ there, I pointed out to the driver. “I see, no! I don’t,” he was reacting without really seeing the importance of the omission. Why did they omit the word, I wondered? In the evening, as I was looking into my handphone, I saw on the screen more such greetings worded in similar fashion – an undefined Gawai.
As I was flying via AirAsia from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching, I was expecting the pilot or the chief steward to extend the season’s greetings to the passengers, some of whom are from longhouses and villages. I had met a few of them. On May 31, 2024, a nephew shared, via the handphone, the picture of someone who looked like Donald Trump and sounded like Donald Trump, sending his message to ‘whoever you are – Selamat Gawai Day, Gayu Guru Gerai Nyamai’.
I did not think it was the real Trump, it was ‘just a joke’, and a poor joke at that. The real Trump is having real problems with the law. Cannot imagine him to have bothered to send Gawai greetings to the Dayaks.
The screengrab of the AI-manipulated video featuring Trump sending his Gawai message. – Screengrab via WhatsA.
