When I was teaching primary children many many years ago, I used to tell stories ( i.e. apart from songs, games and other 'fun' activities), as a 'closure' to my lesson on that day. And always at the end of the story, there would be a short session to 'discuss' on the moral values of the stories; i.e. in line with the philosophy of education to develop 'holistic' individuals; i.e mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically. And what other better way to do this than to tell stories. Through my past experiences, I must say that I was impressed with these young innocent students who related well with the stories to the extent that they by themselves could actually 'extract' many embedded values within a single story without me having to tell them so.
I believe everyone of us grew up with stories at some point of our life. And I also believe every society has its own 'unique' stories aka 'folktales', where often the aims are to provide guidance for correct behavior be it in family relations or as members of a society as a whole. Come to think of it, it was creative of our forefathers back then, to use stories effectively to 'shape' our behavior. From oral tradition to written materials to the use of advanced technology, stories never cease to create a certain impact on how we perceive the world, which to a substantial extent psychologically influence our thoughts and behaviors.
Among the Malays, we are all familiar with "Si Tanggang"; i.e a story used to remind us to always be good to our mothers. It was widely told orally from one generation to another, which then through the sincere effort of those who had had a sense of great responsibility to preserve the good old stories to be passed to the next generation, had it transformed into a written form. And as modern technology enables a face-lift of a dull appearance to be done, so the 'uninteresting' form of the printed story had taken a new 'physical appearance', which is more entertaining and convincing since we are able to actually 'witness' the event with our own eyes. After all, "Seeing is Believing" they say.
At one time, during my school holidays spent with my late grandmother, I had had the opportunity of watching a Malay movie being shown on a very large screen. It was a public show and the venue was at the football field, some walk-away from my late grandmother's house. There were no street lights at that time, so, the only lights available were from the movie itself. So you could imagine the wonderful play of emotions among us created by the story throughout the viewing time, since being a 'scary' movie ( I think the title was "Mata Syaitan" or literally translated as "The Devil's Eyes") with lots of superstitious elements, the audience (in particular, me) sort of understood our 'cues' in making the movie more 'alive'.
And so, we 'screamed' hysterically ( and harmoniously too), and trembling with horror when being instigated by the 'so-loud' a sound effect, interlaced of course, with the spine-chilling laughter of the devil himself. We silently moved and sat very close with each other for fear that the devil would just pop-out from the screen and sat among us and stared menacingly at us with his eyes, with a clear intention of devouring us. When things became so unbearable to watch, some of us (especially me) closed our eyes with our hands, with the fingers spread apart though, as we were greatly torn in between wanting to watch and not wanting to watch the gory scenes. Thankfully, to our relief, the devil was defeated in the end, and we went home with a 'renewed' spiritual determination not to associate ourselves with the devil.
Such is the effect of a movie and because of that back then, it was a wonderful medium for the dissemination of religious beliefs; i.e. as an enhancement to the religious lessons at school . Do you believe me if I tell you that our mothers and fathers actually used these scary movies to their full advantage when trying to make us listen to them. They used some of the scenes in the movie to scare us, for example, from staying outside when dusk approaches. They threatened us with the consequences (by making us 'replayed' the extreme punishment scenes shown on the movies in our minds), should we fail to abide to religious teachings. We were made to clearly distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' behaviors based on religious teachings.
But, of course, I will never disagree should any of you think that the ways we were brought up back then reflect an orthodox kind of thinking. You are indeed entitled to your own opinion and beliefs, as I am to mine. And personally, I am of the view that being orthodox does not necessarily mean being wrong. What is more important to me is to always uphold the good values and true beliefs, regardless of the context that we are in.
Still, I am of the strong opinion that stories have more to teach us than just being stories used for entertainment purposes. However, as I had mentioned earlier in my other posts, interpretation of meanings of stories differ among individuals and from one context of experience to another. In fact, this was the reason why I took up on analyzing Jean Rhys' "Wide Sargasso Sea"( a post-colonial literature), as it is said as a 'reinterpretation' of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre";(i.e. for my masters' thesis). Suffice for me to explain here, that Rhys was attempted to rewrite the character of the Creole woman in 'Jane Eyre' in her novel because she felt that the character was 'unfairly' represented in the English novel. In her novel, therefore, she provided the 'missing' context in which the identity of a madwoman given to the Creole character in Bronte's novel, would be understood as not an 'inherit' traits from that particular race but rather was due to the oppressing condition caused by the act of colonization.
In our present context, I believe many are aware of the new creatively modified form of 'Si Tanggang' now being told to our younger generation, which also carries slightly modified themes. In comparison to the previous theme, where the aim was to secure good conduct among younger generation, the present one, I personally believe aims at inculcating a bold attitude among our youths especially in embracing new paradigm and for the older generation to be more 'open' towards the thinking of the younger generation. Frankly, I don't see any conflict of values between the old and the new beliefs, especially when both actually aim at inculcating positive values.
Yet, I do see the danger of values being 'misinterpreted' since the present form of the story is somewhat 'distorted' ( a shortened version), which utilizes only the first person point of view; i.e. that of Si Tanggang's. It is solely his 'voice' that is being presented to us. Well, to me, taken out of its original context, the meanings embedded in the story (both explicit and implicit), could easily be manipulated. This is why I strongly feel the importance of understanding past events or history or story to aid in making sense of present situations. Only then, could we draw a 'holistic' picture of events or happenings so that we could arrive at better conclusions and make informed decisions.
I would like to relate a Malay story I had had read many many years ago. But, I would like to offer my apology in advance for any 'distortion' that might occur as it was a story I vaguely remember. The story is about a couple ( with a baby and a 'faithful' cat) living far in the woods, who make ends meet doing 'traditional' work. Everyday they have to go into the jungle to earn their living. The 'faithful' cat will look after the baby when they are out. One day, upon returning home they saw the cat waiting on the front door with blood all over its face and body. Thinking of the worse, they hit the cat without mercy and killed it. It was only when they went into the house to check what had really happened that they found the baby was safe and sound, sleeping in the cot and not far from where the baby sleeps was a dead snake. So reactive indeed. Well, no use crying over spilt milk.
My point is that there is always a lesson to be learned from stories. In fact, if you ask me, personally I would say that, stories could and should be used if one wants to engage oneself in system thinking, for a better understanding of events so that a better course of action could be taken, be it in personal or professional domains. A holistic view of how essential discrete elements such as the people, the chronology of events, patterns/trends of activities/movements, cause and effects, etc. are intertwined as parts of a system, which are consequential to the occurrence of an event. Simply, in Drucker's words, it means that : "The 'whole' has to be seen and understood and the 'parts' exist only in contemplation of the whole".
Nevertheless, I am not suggesting that any or all stories could be used, especially in the present modern context that we live in today. In fact, I personally find that good stories are hard to come by nowadays; be it the movie, short story or any other forms that stories are being delivered. Not much of 'valuable' lessons to be learned, are they? Well, I guess, one way to ensure the 'worth' of the stories to be utilized in our decision making processes, for instance, is to analyze them for accurate 'facts' clearly presented or the hidden 'messages' subtly embedded in the stories. And only with good analysis that one could have a better perspective.....and then of course, 'to live happily ever after'- "The End".
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