Cherish Our Treasure.

I really love my part time job working with kids. Actually, I am supposed to be attached at every different section but if you asked me, I won't be interested. Because the real reason I choose to work there is so I can mingle with kids.

They have such innocence mind, at times it is cute but there is time when they are really getting on your nerves. But our actual duty is just to monitor their activity within an hour and make sure they would never hurt or injure themselves. But with these hyperactive kids, we can never guarantee but has to be alert and pray nothing serious would happen.

There are kids who love coloring. Last evening, I met this cute kid; actually I met many of them. But this little girl did not want to do herself, instead she asked me to color for her. Since there were not too many kids last evening, I can entertain her. Normally, we let them do their own coloring as we are not kinder garden neither nursery. Nowadays, some parents want to ensure their kids master English very well. It would start with the nursery or kinder garden where they are taught to learn basic things such as body parts, color and activities in English. Or maybe at home too. One thing though, oh well, I know my grammar is not perfect too but I always cringe whenever the adults using wrong grammar speaking with the kids. The kids may end up using improper English in a formal situation. 

So, this adorable girl asked me to color for her. I asked her to choose the color. She told me to use green and red coloring pens. Then I said in Malay, can I use hijau and merah? She said no. I show her the green coloring pen. I said this is hijau. And she shook her head. It is so funny. She knows green but not hijau and goes on for others. My nephews and nieces like that. But if I was around, I would always tell them it is green in English and hijau in Malay. And so on.

I believe whatever it is, whether how proficient we want the kids to learn English, we should never forget about our mother tongue. It would be a sham if Malay could not speak Malay well, and the same goes to Chinese. Their kids should be able to speak Chinese and read the character. Hence for other races too. It is important for all Malaysian to be able to speak our national language as a we should be proud of our own language. If we are proud of our country, then never think of our language as hindering factor to our success.

Food for thoughts, those in entertainment industry always say that Malaysians focus more on foreign movies etc but are where are their part in promoting our traditional clothes. During the award, we can see all these artists clad in western dress and some of them are really proud to show off their bare back or cleavage. If you are that westernised, then you should be ready to compete with foreign artist. Do not beg us to support you but you never do for our culture. Some people make such fuss about dressing up for work and interview. For them, baju kurung portray a backward person but look at our Bank Negara Governor. She is wearing baju kurung but still doing very well in her job. It is the thinking. I love wearing baju kurung to work because I want to uphold our traditional costume. I am shouting to people, traditional costume is not meant just for culture show but for formal ocassions too.