Anda Bersyair, Aku Berpantun

When we were in high school, the official language used in our textbooks were in Malay. The government has been trying to push the use of English in Mathematics and Science subjects in order to make Malaysians more competitive in the global market. Which I think is fair enough, when potassium for example, is still kalium in our language and the salt sodium is natrium to us, which can be a little confusing.

I love the Malay language, however, and I was lucky enough to be in a school where they encouraged the holistic development of our students, and the Science students all had to do a literature subject, be it English Lit or Sastera Melayu (Malay Literature) since we were thirteen.

Some of the things that I remember doing was listening to my Malay friends sing out the syairs - their lilting voices singing out the words to the poem that contained a story or words for living wisely. I mean, how cool is that - it's combining my two favoritest things in the world - music and poetry!

(I doubt that they would make a crossover movie, though. Like all those crossover dance movies you see nowadays.

*begin announcer voice sequence* This Summer. Two dance forms will collide on your screen. Like Never Before. Hip-hop, and Ballet. We call it BallHopping.*end announcer voice sequence*

*begin announcer voice sequence* This Summer. Two art forms will collide on your screens to Blow. Your. Minds. Music and Poetry. Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts are - the Pusicians. *end announcer voice sequence* )

What brought about all this nostalgia, though, was the fact that I somehow dug up an old Malay four-line stanza, or the standard pantun, which I concluded a friend's e-mail with recently, and I just realised how much beauty there was in the language.

The standard pantun consists of four lines, the first two being introductory, almost nonsensical lines, just to introduce the heart of the poem, which is in the last two lines - which can either be a word of advice, or a request, or even a riddle.


Berakit-rakit ke hulu,
      Berenang-renang ke tepian,
Bersakit-sakit dahulu,
      Bersenang-senang kemudian.


(Row, row to the start,
       Then swim, swim to the banks,
Suffer, suffer at the start,
       Then later you can relax.)

The earliest pantun that stays in my mind as a favourite till today was one we read as seven-year-olds:

Buah cempedak di luar pagar,
       Ambil galah tolong jolokkan,
Saya budak baru belajar,
       Kalau salah tolong tunjukkan.

(A jackfruit sits outside the gate,
       Grab a long stick and let's go get it!
I am a new student at this subject,
       If I'm wrong, help correct it!)

Okay, please forgive how badly I translate the pantun into English. I am, after all, not a Pusician.


(P.S. Can anyone else remember anymore pantuns?)

Mellowdramatic Turns 30

Remember how I said that Karen's special gift for my thirtieth birthday was my very own book?

Well, we've finally sent it to be printed, and you can view the preview here!

If you're crazy enough, you can buy a copy too ! It makes for gripping toilet reading, and is also the right size for making origami cranes!

Thank you, Karen, again for this wonderful, thoughtful gift. I love you!

In the Mooood For A Birthday

I had just come over to Australia, and was living the life of a squalid student. There was no television at home, so we often just watched the oven, we had a dinosaur of an iMac with no internet connection, and we didn't even have a telephone.

We would brave the dark winter nights in the dangerous suburb of NM where we were at the time just to call home from a payphone booth.

It was in that payphone booth that I spoke to my family, the brief fifteen or so minutes spent trying to summarise what had been going on in our lives throughout the week.

"So, Grace took her driving exam today," Mum says.

[open folder_Grace]


[open folder_ Driving Lessons]

"You know, ah," my sister said, complaining, "My driving instructor was damn bad ah, today!"

"Why?" I asked, remembering my painful driving lessons and how my brother had to take the test five times, and I had to take it twice, and just luckily passed. Driving instructors could be a nasty lot.

You would be too, I suppose, if your whole life was spent letting novice drivers gamble with your life daily so that they could finally drive the car that Daddy bought them.

"Yeah, he said my clutch work was damn bad!" she frowned, recalling the day.

"We were driving around the taman, you know," she said, a smile creeping over her face, "and then when we stopped at the traffic lights, I was having trouble with the clutch lah, you know, so the car was shaking like mad the whole time."

"You know what that bah-gger say to me ah? He said, 'Chan, chan chan, chan to see te chut lei ah!' (Shake, shake, shake, shake until my sh!t also come out ah!)"

At this point she bursts out into her trademark laughter, and brushes the day off her shoulders. I can't help but laugh, too, imagining the driver in incontinence pads as a result of one too many clutch-related vibrations.

[Close folder_Driving Lessons]


[Close folder_Grace]

"So, how did she do?" I braced myself for the worst.

"She passed!" came my mother's excited voice.

"Sure or not?" I say. "Got pay kopi money (bribe) is it?"

"No lah," Mum said. "She's very goood...."

My little sister has trumped us on so many occasions I've lost count. She had done really well in her SPM (O Level equivalent) as well that year, and although the road of medicine has been tough, she battled it with the passion of someone on a mission.

She remains one of my favourite storytellers as well, giving stories the life they deserve.

So here's to you, my little sister, who is bigger than us in so many ways. Happy birthday!

Happy Mother's Day!

I think that parenting is one of the hardest skills in the world. It's not like parents figured out how to be parents right from the word go - in a way, it's almost a process of trial and error. Yes, we can read guide books and yes, we can attend seminars or even watch Super Nanny to try and figure out how best to raise a child, but in the end, both the parent and child are unique individuals trying to live out life the best way they know how.

I think about my Mum, and how she is a great mother right now - a good friend who sees us for the adults that we are, and allows us to choose for ourselves our own paths in life, as long as we are happy. She does not make demands of us, or guilt us into anything, and we can speak like friends rather than parent-to-child now.

*****************************************

In the midst of trying to love us by providing for us (and we were fairly well provided for), Mum had to take on the many roles of mother, career woman, teacher and wife. I cannot begin to imagine how she managed to balance the four roles.

I remember how when we were younger, she would call home from work to check that we were okay, and she also handwrote mathematics assignments fo us, which she later marked. I think that was quite instrumental in us doing well at school.

I'm not saying that she was perfect in all her roles. Yes, we argued a lot when we were younger, and we got Asian kid-appropriate doses of "Somebody's-Going-To-Get Hurt-Real-Bad" when we were out of line at home. Let's just say that when things weren't going well at work, things weren't going well at home as well.

Every Asian kid wants to believe that they had it tough. In some ways, so do I.

I want to regale stories about the various caning instruments that we had at home, the times when promises were broken, or the explosive arguments we had that used to carry across into the neighbour's houses.

But then I met a good friend not too long ago, and her mother used to literally almost drown her in the water cistern in the backyard used for collecting water, whenever she was naughty.

My friend would call out in between the times her head went underwater - "Mrs W___! Help! Helpblurbblurbblurbblurb!!... *GASP* MRS W___!MRS W___blurbblurbblurb!" and then her neighbour would come out, and try to gently talk her mother -

"Eh, Mrs C___ ah, enough already lah... She learnt her lesson already... Hah... Stop punishing your daughter already lah!" while Mrs C___ continued the dunking treatments.

My mouth went agape as my friend recounted stories of her Mum throwing things at her in her anger, including erm... kitchen knives - and here was I, thinking that I had had it rough!

My friend has turned out really well, though, and has a good relationship with her mother today. Looking at her today, you wouldn't have guessed that she spent her childhood dodging knives or fighting water cisterns.

So who knows what the secret is to parenting? Who knows why some children turn out well despite a difficult growing-up while some don't?

I look back at my life, and I thank God for the many good things that my Mum has taught me - to forgive quickly and to never bear grudges, to value family, to have sympathy for the disadvantaged, to look after our health, not to take life too seriously, and to laugh easily at things.

And then I think about all of Enid Blyton's books, whose children never got caned, whose mothers stayed at home and baked cookies for them and was only occasionally 'cross' with them.

I think Mrs. Blyton can take her plastic ideal mothers and choke on them, because, as far as I am concerned, I would rather have my Mum, in all her humanity, any time of the day.

Mother's Day is a wonderful celebration of mothers everywhere, in all their imperfections, because we recognise above all, that although not everything was perfect, they loved us in a way that only mothers can. Pure and simple.

I remember how Mum would say after scolding us, "You think that I would scold any random children on the street, ah, hah? I scold you because you are my children and I want you to grow up well, okay?"

I would like to believe that the three of us have grown up well.

Happy Mother's Day, Mum. We love you!