A folktale is often intended to start building up a personality of a kid. The story of Malin Kundang is to teach a child not to hurt his parents let alone to insult them. The following story tells what happened to Malin when he spat on his mother’s face. He wouldn’t admit that the poor woman was his mother, because he was embarrassed to have a mother a poor woman clad in rags.
My grandma told me the story. “In a village hundred years ago”, she began, “lived a very poor family with a son named Malin Kundang. In the attempt to change his fate Malin traveled to a city very far away from the village. To earn his living he started working as a labor, helping a merchant packing and unpacking the goods to sell in the market. He saved his money and after a year he was able to start his own business. He traveled from one city to another and several years later he became a very successful merchant and married to a beautiful young woman. He even owned a sailing ship”.
“One day”, continued my grandma,” he came to his hometown for a business and one of his village people recognized him and told his mother that Malin was at the harbor with his ship. His mother went to the ship and to her surprise she was forced to get off the board and was spat to her face. His mother was very sad indeed and prayed to God to curse him. The storm came, the ship and Malin turned to stone, and you can see it now at Air Manis the wreckage of the ship in the form of rock.”
According to a friend of mine this was a true story not a legend. He said that a new evident had been found by an American scientist researching together with an Indonesian fellow counterpart. They dug the earth around the wreckage and found several empty bottles one of them still contained a few drops of liquid. On the label it was written UNTUK MALIN. The American scientist asked the Indonesian what it meant and he was told that the meaning was FOR MALIN. The researchers convinced that Malin corpse was preserved and not turned to stone as it was told.
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Comments
As if you don't know, perhaps, Zulkifli Sa'b, lock stock and barrel is an idiom meaning completely; including everything.
Best wishes and regards
Khalique
A nice masterpiece of prose that teaches respect of mother and humility .Thanks for sharing your country's folktale.
Thank you very much for your comment, Khaliqur Sahib!
Please explain to me what you meant by lock stock and barrel!
Surely it will improve my English.
Best regards!
They say greatness goes with humility. Your self-effacing demeanour has bowled me over lock stock and barrel, Zulkifli Sahib!
Nice blog!
Thank you Anele, I've corrected the title and the tags. They look OK now.
About the writer I thought the same way as you did too because it was colorful, but at the same I was thinking that it would make more interesting. I don't know why eventually I posted it.
What a marvelous mother you met. It remind me of an old proverb in Minangkabau saying that a son's love is not longer than a stick size but a mother's love is longer than a road you can travel. Yes, the mother restrained herself from uttering an oath in the hope that one day God would make the children realize how bad they had treated her and made them seek for His forgiveness. What a wonderful mother, for the sake of love she endured herself degraded.
Thanks a lot Anele for your comment.