About Me
- Dr. Yee Bee Choo
- Dr. Yee Bee Choo is an excellent lecturer, PC48 (2017) and PC52 (2021), from the Institute of Teacher Education Tun Hussein Onn Campus (IPGKTHO), Johor, Malaysia. She has more than 25 years of teaching English language to school students and pre-service teachers. She is also a teacher trainer for in-service teachers. Her areas of interest include English language teaching and learning, teacher education, and literature.
The two children’s storybooks written by Malaysian writers which I have read are ‘The Mooncake Mystery’ by Camilla Goh Cheah Mi and ‘A Python in the House’ by Constance Chi. The genre of both stories is reaslistic fiction. ‘The Mooncake Mystery’ tells the story of Ah Meng who tried to find the missing box of mooncakes with the help of his family and friends. ‘A Python in the House’ revolves around Zul who found a python in his house and tried to tell his family about it, but no one believed him.
ReplyDeleteThe themes of ‘The Mooncake Mystery’ are greed, forgiveness and sharing, whereas the themes of ‘A Python in the House’ are the environment and family. In ‘The Mooncake Mystery’, Ah Meng’s sister, Mei Ling was so greedy that she hid the box of mooncakes in her room and ate all of them. When Ah Meng caught her red-handed, he forgave her because she was genuinely sorry for what she did. In the end, they all enjoyed the new box of mooncakes together. In ‘A Python in the House’, Zul found a python which had somehow slithered into his house. His grandmother told him that it had probably lost its home since forests are being cut down. Zul’s parents did not believe him when he tried to tell them about it. They regretted not taking his words seriously after he was almost killed by the python.
The main character in ‘The Mooncake Mystery’ is Ah Meng, a Malaysian Chinese boy. Ah Meng’s parents, his sister, Mei Ling and his friends, Ahmad and Muthu are the supporting characters in the story. The main character in ‘A Python in the House’ is Zul, a young Malay boy. The supporting characters are Zul’s parents and grandmother.
Both stories are set in an unspecified urban residential area in Malaysia. The main action in both stories took place in a house. In ‘The Mooncake Mystery’, Ah Meng looked for the mooncakes in the kitchen, living room and Mei Ling’s bedroom. In ‘A Python in the House’, Zul found the python at the back of his house and he was rushed to the hospital after being rescued by his grandmother.
Both ‘The Mooncake Mystery’ and ‘A Python in the House’ have a simple writing style which is easy to read, especially for children. There are no difficult words used in either story. The sentences used are also short and simple. Most of the stories consist of dialogues. Figures of speech are rarely used in both stories.
The issues which are highlighted in ‘The Mooncake Mystery’ are the consequences of greed, the willingness to forgive and the happiness in sharing. Mei Ling’s greed deprived others of the joy of eating mooncakes. Ah Meng is willing to forgive his sister. Everyone was happy at the end of the story when they shared the box of mooncakes with each other. The issue which I have found in ‘A Python in the House’ is trusting the words of a child. Zul’s parents should have believed him when he told them about the python.
There are two selected texts that I have chosen to be analysed in terms of the intercultural similarities and differences. The first story entitled “The Mooncake Mystery” written by young and talented Malaysian writer, Camilla Goh Cheah Mi. Next story is entitled “My Friend Mei Jing” written by Anna McQuinn,
ReplyDeleteBoth stories have similarities. One of the similarities are interculturalism. To justify the statement, both stories occur in a society where people from different cultures, nationalities, ethnic, and religious groups live in the same area and keep an open and impartial relationship with one another. Within an intercultural society, people recognise each other’s way of life and accept these differences with respect and appreciation, and live together in order to encourage a healthy balance of interest, tolerance and self–achievement. This is a process that makes it possible for all members of the society to be treated equally and fairly. For example in “The Mooncake Mystery” by Camilla Goh Cheah Mi. There is evidence where people of different cultures, ethnic, and religious live together in a society even celebrating festival together for example Ahmad is a Muslim while Muthu is an Indian. Both of them join Ah Meng to celebrate Moon Cake festival. This clearly shows that the writer wants to show the interculturalism situation in Malaysia through her story.
In the story “My Friend Mei Jing” also shows different people of different cultures and nationalities live together in the same area without prejudice and tolerance. To justify this, Mei Jing is a Chinese who migrates to Canada and manages to be friend with Monifa who is a Nigerian. Despite with their nationalities, they can still play at each other’s houses and do things together. In conclusion, both stories show similarity by portraying the interculturalism in their society. Another evidence for tolerance in this story is during the Chinese New Year celebration where Monifa learns the Dragon Dance, and Mei Jing’s parents give her a red envelope, she’s surprised and happy to discover it has real money in it. This shows that Monifa is comfortable with Mei Jing’s culture and she does not oppose it. This has shown a good moral value example and should be implemented among the children to accept people’s culture with tolerance.
In both stories, there is prominent difference and strength in each stories. “The Mooncake Mystery” by Camilla Goh Cheah Mi shows interculturalism society in Malaysia while “My Friend Mei Jing” written by Anna McQuinn shows the multicultural society in Canada. There is also distinct strength in each stories. “The Mooncake Mystery” by Camilla Goh Cheah Mi shows the unity in diversity where the people of different backgrounds join together to celebrate The Mooncake Festival. “My Friend Mei Jing” by Anna McQuinn shows the strength of tolerance between people from different backgrounds. For example, Monifa can easily adapt to the Chinese culture when she visits to Mei Jing’s house during the Chinese New Year celebration. In conclusion, both stories show their difference and strength.
In conclusion, both stories portray the intercultural similarities and differences through justification of evidences. Teachers act as an agent of change should use effective strategies to teach diverse students from different backgrounds through literature. Suitable books from different genres should be used in order to conduct an effective Malaysian primary ESL classroom.
Reading literature about people from diversity of cultures were proved to have positive affect on children’s development of all backgrounds. When children from the group of majority culture read stories about other cultures rise their sensitivity level to those who are different from themselves, improve their knowledge of the world and help them realise that even though people have many differences, they also share many similarities. For example, stories like Mooncake Mystery by Camilla Goh and Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah, a traditional Malaysian folklore. Both of the stories had portrayed the intercultural values in this country, Malaysia. Basically, Mooncake Mystery shows the culture of Chinese people celebrating a festival called the mooncake festival. The main character of the story is a Chinese boy named Ah Meng that befriend with a Malay and Indian boys. Based on the character, it is clearly can be seen as the intercultural values among the friends. Meanwhile, the other story is mainly about Malay’s culture. It is shown by Bawang Putih, how she treated her parents, her step sisters and many more. Both of the stories have strong culture practice inside them. Therefore, the children can learn about the specific culture and make them feel part of a larger society.
ReplyDeleteThe selected texts from the children’s book ‘Malaysian Festivals’ are ‘The Joy Of Hari Raya Puasa’ and ‘Merdeka Day’. The first selected text which is ‘The Joy Of Hari Raya Puasa’ is chosen as it displays the gathering of different races for a celebration which meant that the element of intercultural is shown. In the text, Musa was celebrating the festival of Hari Raya Puasa. Musa had carried out the tradition of fasting for a month for the first time. On the first day of Hari Raya, he went to the mosque with his family to pray and then he followed his family to visit the graves of his great grandparents. They also cleaned the graves before heading back to home. When they got ready to receive their guests, Musa’s friends who were Chong, Ranjit, James and Ramu arrived. Musa’s relatives also visited his family. Musa showed them around the house and explained that the lamps will look beautiful when they are lighted at night. When Chong, Ranjit, James and Ramu sat down in the living room, Musa served them soft drinks and traditional Malay delicacies such as cookies, cakes, lemang, ketupat with chicken rendang, satay and Malay desserts. After tasting the food, Chong exclaimed that the food were delicious. They talked as they enjoyed themselves with the food. Later, they played with sparklers. Musa also mentioned that his father had bought a few types of sparklers for his cousins and him to play tomorrow at their village tomorrow. Musa’s father gave the boys ‘duit raya’ of five ringgit each before they head back home.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the second text is entitled ‘Merdeka Day and Malaysia Day’. Ramu and his father woke up early to attend the Merdeka Day celebration at Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur. Ramu’s father mentioned that all roads to the dataran was closed due to the celebration. That’s why they had to park the car somewhere further from the dataran and walk there. When they arrived at the dataran there was already a huge crowd. They squeezed their way to the front which was close to the marching ground to get a better view of the parade. The King and Queen escorted by the royal guards arrived soon and sat near the Prime Minister and his wife, local and foreign dignitaries facing the marching ground. Then, the King inspected a guard of honour mounted by the Royal Malay Regiment. After that, there were shouts of ‘Daulat Tuanku’ followed by the hoisting of the national flag accompanied by the playing of Negaraku by the Malaysian Armed Forces band. Everyone stood at attention when the Negaraku was played. When the parade was over, they had lunch. Ramu asked his father the reason Merdeka Day was not called as Malaysia Day. His father explained that Merdeka Day was called so because it was a celebration of Malaysia gaining its independence from the British colonisation while Malaysia Day was known so because it was a celebration for the formation of Malaysia which comprised of the Federation of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak.
The intercultural issue of the first text, ‘The Joy of Hari Raya Puasa’ is the harmony of the different races. This is obviously shown when different races gathered to celebrate a festival. Chong, Ranjit, James and Ramu are not Malays. According to their culture, they do not celebrate Hari Raya Puasa. However due to the value of intercultural in the society, they went to Musa’s house to celebrate the festival with him. In my opinion, this text should be used in the primary ELS classroom. This is because by teaching this text to the students, they are able to understand that different races can come together to celebrate a festival. Festivals are not limited to any races. The value of tolerance and appreciation towards different races can be instilled throughout the lesson. No bias or prejudice was shown in the story as Musa’s father gave ‘duit raya’ to all of them. He did not give it to only Chong because he was a Chinese. This shows that equality is given to all the races. Everyone is treated in the same way.
Children can learn more about other cultures or even their own culture by reading stories about culture. For example, stories like Mooncake Mystery by Camilla Goh and My Favourite Stories on Malaysian Festivals by A. Malvinder Singh. These two stories portray the intercultural values in our country, Malaysia. Mooncake Mystery shows the Chinese culture of celebrating the mooncake festival. The main character is Ah Meng, a Chinese boy. He has two friends which are Indian and Malay. They understood and somewhat accepted this culture into their own lives. They are willing to celebrate this festival together with Ah Meng. This shows the intercultural values among the friends. My Favourite Stories on Malaysian Festivals is a compilation of stories that explains various festivals that are celebrated by Malaysians. Through these two stories, students in the Malaysian ESL classroom can learn more about their own culture as well as the culture of other races and ethnic groups. They will also learn to accept and understand better the culture of others..
ReplyDeleteA story may be rich in moral values or culture. Even so, there is no doubt that there can be improvements in a story that is chosen as a literary text for primary students. If a story was perfect in all its aspects then there would be no need for any change. The two stories have its strengths but paired with them are its weaknesses.
Mooncake Mystery will be a very interesting story to use for teaching in the Malaysian primary ESL classroom. This story is very simple and easy for students to understand. The storyline is also interesting and can catch the attention of students. This story creates the element of suspense throughout the story. On the contrary, this story has its weaknesses. If it is made a story used for teaching, it may be quite vague. It is merely a story about a boy who is looking for a mooncake. This story does not explain much about the festival itself which may leave students still clueless about the festival. Even so, the students may absorb the value of unity which is shown through the friends in the story.
My Favourite Stories on Malaysian Festivals is a suitable book to use for teaching in the Malaysian primary ESL classroom. There are various stories from this book about the festivals celebrated in Malaysia. This educates the students about the multicultural citizens we have in Malaysia. They can learn about each festival with all the information they might need. The weakness of using this book for teaching in the Malaysian primary ESL classroom would be the amount of short stories in this book. This may be a burden for students to read all and study all of them. Making matters worse, the stories are purely informational and do not have much storyline to it which can be quite boring. If a story is not interesting, students may not be motivated to study and understand it. This is one of the downsides of this book. Nevertheless, I feel that it is a great book as it sums up the way our country is a cultural melting pot.
By comparing the two stories I have chosen, there are several similarities based on intercultural can be observed. For an instance, both of the children’s stories potrayed the differences between cultures. What can be seen through both of the stories was that, the values they brought about accepting other cultures and also embracing cultures of others without discriminating any other culture. Another similarity about both of the stories is that it tells readers to value friendship even with differences they have. Through it all, I could tell that the intercultural-based stories like both of the stories I have chosen is that they were trying to give a message to readers about the importance of understanding other culture and the importance of unity.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, there are also differences can be gained from these two children’s story that contains intercultural elements. One of the differences from these two stories is the main value of the story. ‘Babies’ by Gyo Fujikawa is telling readers to see that all babies or all of us are growing with the same way. When we were babies, we needed and did the same thing. So, the value from the story is to make us understands that we should be united as one despite the differences of our culture. In contrary, the story, ‘My Friend Mei Jing’ tells readers about the culture of another race or in other words, the value from the story is about understanding culture of others and accepting it. This can be proven as Monifa learnt many kinds of things about Chinese culture all throughout the story.
Essentially, I have viewed these two books and both have proven to be good examples on intercultural. The books that take us back to our cultural roots are always valuable. These books open up discussions about family ancestry and heritage. They also help children identify family traditions and find answers to why they eat specific foods or dress a certain way. Sadly, these books have their own intercultural issues and weaknesses if they were to be used in Malaysian primary ESL classroom.
In Malaysia, culture is something very important as we knew that our country is full of culture of different race. So, it is very important for every young learners to know the fact of our country which have many cultures. They have to understand, accept and know about culture during their young age to build up a generation that tolerates with other cultures.
The weakness or issue of these books are the settings of the stories. The settings of the stories are not local to Malaysia. This contradiction may bring problems for the understanding of young ESL learners because of the settings which are not familiar with them. Moreover, the problem is also about the small differences of the culture. For an example, from the story ‘My Friend Mei Jing’, we can understand that the story tells so many things about Chinese culture but it is the culture of Chinese who live in Canada, which is where the story takes place and it may differs the culture of Malaysian Chinese. This particular problem could bring contradiction and misunderstanding about culture in Malaysia. Thus, it might not be very suitable to use the story as a learning material for Malaysian primary ESL learners.
Likewise, if there is weakness there will also be strength. The strength for these two stories is how the stories are delivered and mentioned. The stories are undeniably very suitable for primary ESL learners because of the quality. The stories were well-written and easy to be understood. Consequently, children will understand the values and the contents easily. Which also means it is equivalent to the level for Malaysian primary ESL learners. Hence, it’s a strength for these stories which creates an advantage for the stories to be a learning material in Malaysian primary schools.
As a Malaysian, the word multicultural is no longer foreign to our ears because the people in Malaysia comprised of many different races which are Malays, Chinese, Indians, and many more ethnics who call Malaysia their home. From this unique blend of cultural diversities, there are many different literatures that we can enjoy and we can expose to our children in order to introduce them to the scenario of multicultural and diverse variety of ethnics in Malaysia. Multicultural literature refers to literature about racial or ethnic minority groups that are different from the majority, whose largely middle-class values and custom are most represented in literature. Intercultural literature is closely related to migrant and migration literature. Intercultural literature is written by authors whose points of view and/or subject matter are influenced by multiple cultural spaces just like the authors in Malaysia. Intercultural texts also circulate through, and are relevant to, more than one cultural space; they address multiple ethnicities and have several different cultural norms. The term intercultural implies that this is literature which may serve an intermediary or ambassadorial purpose, whether intentionally or not. Due to the importance intercultural understanding and competencies have in the increasingly complex and technological world, we must develop intercultural understanding and competencies in children through literature
ReplyDeleteIt has been proven that reading a multicultural literature somehow bring positive effects on the children and are very important in raising a child that is sensitive towards the differences between races and cultures. For the children of a specific ethnic minority, reading positive stories about their own ethnic group can increase self-esteem and make them feel part of a larger society for example, if a Bidayuh child who recently moved and lives in Kuala Lumpur read about Puteri Santubong and Puteri Sejinjang, who would feel very honoured because his beliefs and his culture is displayed through literature for everybody to read, and he would not feel alienated and could easily adapt to the new environment. For children of a "majority" group, reading stories about other cultures can increase their sensitivity to those who are different from themselves, improve their knowledge of the world, and help them realize that although people have many differences, they also share many similarities for example if a boy who lives in Langkawi read about Mahsuri, he would be very happy to know that his home soil once have had a prominent and magical event. He would spread the story and realized that there are many similarities between his culture and from the story of Mahsuri and Puteri Santubong and Puteri Sejinjang where the women are falsely accused and are punished unjustly. They would learn to be just and appreciate their differences.This clearly shows that both Mahsuri and Puteri Santubong and Puteri Sejinjang shares an intercultural norm and are great in teaching children.
Intercultural Literature is written by authors whose points of view and subject matter are influenced by multiple cultural spaces. Intercultural texts also circulate through, and are relevant to, more than one cultural space; they address multiple ethnicities.
ReplyDeleteThere were some intercultural elements from the story The Mooncake Mystery written by Camilla Goh. This story happens during the time of Mooncake Festival. The story revolved around Ah Meng who loved to eat Mooncakes. But it broke his heart when he found out that the mooncakes were gone and he did not have the chance to eat them. Because of that, he was determined to find the mooncake together with his friend Ahmad and Muthu. At the end they found out that it was Mei Ling who ate all the mooncake and she was sorry for her wrong doings and Ah Meng forgave her. Their parents bought another box of mooncake to replace the one which had already been eaten by Mei Ling. At the end they enjoyed eating the mooncakes together.
From the story, the intercultural that was pointed out is that the preservation of one’s culture. Preservation of the culture can be seen through the action of the character in the story. From the story, Ah Meng comes from a Chinese family celebrate his culture which is Mooncake Festival. The Mooncake Festival was actually Ah Meng’s favorite festival and they celebrate the festival with their family. The culture that they inherited was not forgotten but being celebrated as a festival. It is suitable to be taught in ESL because in Malaysia, we have many races and each of them has different culture. As a teacher of primary students, teacher can put the value of preserving and knowing one’s culture so that their own culture will not be lost in this modern era.
As the second story, “Mahsuri, Legend of Langkawi Island”, the culture that is portrayed in the story is the Malay culture. This story revolves around the Malay culture in Langkawi Island. This portrays how Malays live during that era. This story also mentions that the way they live and custom and culture that they follow is Malay culture. We can see that during this period of time, the setting of this place, the culture is used different from nowadays.
Then as in Malay culture, curses had been believed by others especially for Malays who still have this conservatism among themselves. From the story at Mahsuri’s deathbed, she cursed the whole Langkawi Island and the curses happened for 7 generations. Mahsuri died as she was killed by her own people by accusing her on committing adultery with other man which it was actually an accusation from the head villager’s wife. As story of curses being foretold in the Malay society, it is becoming the culture and believes.
Both these stories have more difference rather than similarities. First, in the first story, The Mooncake Mystery, element of intercultural can be seen throughout the story rather than in the second story, Mahsuri, Legend of Langkawi Island. From the first story, intercultural element can be detected when different races and origins unite and celebrate Moon Cake Festivals. Rather than the second story, only Malay culture can be identified from the story.
In a nutshell, stories that had been published and produced by Malaysian writers do have elements of intercultural and have many moral values so that as a teacher, we can use those stories in ESL. Moral values are important and so do the importance of different races and culture stick together and be as one.
Multicultural literature is about racial or ethics minority groups that are culturally and socially different from the white Anglo-Saxon majority in the United States, whose largely middle –class values and customs are most represented in American Literature. Violet Harris (1992) defines multicultural literature as “literature that focuses on the people of colour, on religious minorities on regional, cultures, on the disabled and on the aged. Therefore, according to Yokota (1993),literature that represents any distinct cultural group through accurate portrayal and rich detail. Reading literature also about the people from other cultures has been proven to have positive effects on children of all background.
ReplyDeleteIntercultural literature is shown clearly in my story which in title The Haughty Tomato. Tomato, Durian and Rambutan came from different cultures, but they keep an open impartial relationship with one another. For the example, Durian and Rambutan help Tomato when she was in troubled. When the children read my story, they will get the positive input which are they can improve their knowledge of the world. As instance, although the character in my story have many differences, but they have share many similarities. Therefore the children can implement the intercultural element in their daily life. Furthermore, through the intercultural using literature can increase cultural awareness. As the example literature portrays the history, customs values and language of a particular cultural groups (Sims,1982) .By that, the children can learn to understand and to appreciate a literary heritage that comes from many diverse background (Norton, 1990).
Intercultural also give benefits from literature that reflects their own ethics and cultural background. It will helping all students develop a healthy self-concept which is one that based on the knowledge of and a sense of pride in family background. Pride in their heritage helps students to improve their self-concepts and develop cultural identity. As instance, in story Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah shown the intercultural literature which is can help children to improve the self-concepts and develop cultural identity. Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah brought the Malay culture of Malaysian. Therefore, when the children read this book, they will know their culture which was passed through the aged.
[Nik Nurisya]
ReplyDeleteI have selected two short stories. The short story of Mooncake Festival by Camilla Goh Cheah Mi. This short story is about a Chinese boy who lost his mooncake which was bought by his father. Then came along his two friends, Malay and Indian. Through this short story the Chinese culture is obviously can be seen by Mooncake Festival. By reading this short story in a class, others culture like Malay and Indian can increase their knowledge about the Chinese culture. Using this kind of short story will create cultural awareness in students and they can learn to understand and to appreciate a literary heritage that comes from many diverse background.
Meanwhile, the other short story which is selected to portray cultural element is Pak Pandir which has a several of series. This short story is about Pak Pandir and banana. Pak Pandir is one of the characters whom well-known with his dumbness and zero about everything. However, this story also highlight the ability of a women to do task at home. The moral values and lesson are easy to be learnt through this story as it uses a simple plot and easy words to be understood. Through this story, the setting itself portrays the Malay culture. One will able to improve their self-concept in this matter. They will be able to reflect themselves about the real Malay culture. Through this story, the norms and beliefs are being highlighted to inform the readers about the Malay culture. The intercultural literature will help the diversity of students to understand each other. For the Malaysian, they will able to develop a sense of pride in family background. If we look closer, Mak Andir was a multitasking woman rather than Pak Pandir. This shows the woman in Malay culture are skilled in everything they do. They do know a lot about how to handle things. The pride in their heritage helps students to improve their self-concepts and develop cultural identity.