Of Paddy and Coconut Husks

Star Q

i.  Sejarah Bacaan Yaasin Mingguan di SMKTAR

ii.  Prawns with Fermented Bamboo Shoots

Image sourced from Google

I read with interest the news about the proverbial paddy and coconut husks uttered by a well-respected person and which incidentally, has got almost every body jumping into the bandwagon and giving their two cents worth of brouhaha.  Many seem to oppose, however there are many though who seem to agree with the statement made.

On the one hand, I tend to agree with the idea behind the statement where you compare humans and animals.  Civilization has given us many proverbs comparing humans and animals.  There are so many examples; in English there is 'Let sleeping dogs like', in Chinese we have 'You can take the horse to the water, but you cannot force the horse to drink the water' and in Bahasa Melayu like 'Katak di bawah tempurung'.   In order not to be LIKE the proverbial frog under the coconut shell, I shall accept the statement mentioned earlier as something to be applicable in today's situations, albeit cautiously, like treading on thin ice.  

I can see that this situation can be aptly applied in the learning classroom in schools, where a teacher comes into class, ready to teach but, no matter what the teacher does, the students refuse to study.  Thus we can probably compare the students to monkeys like in the Malay proverb 'Seperti kera mendapat bunga'.  Or if during a double period, students get restless in class even after the teacher telling them to keep quiet or sit down countless number of times, they can be said to be like 'Seperti kera kena belacan'.  Or if a teacher spends too much time in school with students, and practically almost ignores his children, the situation can be compared to 'Seperti menyusukan kera di hutan, anak di rumah kelaparan'

Why so many comparisons with 'kera' you may ask.  This just got me thinking.  If there are so many 'legitimate' comparisons such as these made by our learned predecessors and which are still being 'lovingly' used till this day, can these group of students be happy if they are continuously compared to 'kera' all the time?  If the statement mentioned earlier is anything to go buy, we may end up with 'Kera menjadi monyet'.