Pride and prejudice Malaysian style
Character : Late 30s mother of three.
Mary : It started with the teacher. She used my youngest son as an example in English class. “ Your mother brings you food every day. You eat it at the canteen.” Some how after that his classmates started to tease him with words like ‘baby’. I do it basically because it is cheaper than to eat at the canteen.
He doesn’t like to walk with me now. He always walks a few steps behind or in front of me. The teasing has turned to my job. I am earning an honest living. I am a cleaner. I also wash toilets.
Now his friends tell him he is dirty because I am a cleaner. His school held a book exhibition recently. He bought a book for Rm2.95. I eyed the book suspiciously and asked him where he got the book. He doesn’t need the book. He already has an old copy given by my sister. He wanted a new copy. I give him 10 sen a day and he saved a month for it. He will ‘rasa malu’ if all his friends have a new book and he doesn’t have it.
I didn’t want to be a cleaner. Life just turned out that way. I tidak pandai sekolah. My pay of Rm380.00 ( ‘tak lumayan tapi sekadar cukup-ample’ ) helps out with the family finances. I need to feed all my children and buy books, clothes, shoes etc. They grow up so fast. Nothing is thrown away.
If I am a politician’s wife and my husband has an affair with a woman ( referring to a certain high profile case ) I wouldn’t mind. I would just enjoy my life of luxury. After all unless there is a divorce, the man always returns home. As a woman, that is all we can hope for.
Bengbeng | interesting characters
10 cents per day, he must be saving them all for a month only he can buy the book that he don’t need. I wonder this story is happened few years back cause nowadays, Rm380 hardly allows you to live in any part of the country.
hyperx - welcome to the real world. Wages can even go even as low as Rm1.00 to Rm2.00 per hour.
The story is recent. Very recent.
SAD!
That is how I feel.
money makes life easier. the mother is a great human being. i know her well
Sad but touching,that’s reality.
Went to Indrani and that Bayan tree looks so beautiful.
You mesti sudah tengok punya, but ours tidak dijaga dengan rapi maa.
Dekat Wisma Sanyan dulu ada pokok besar, selalu tempat pekerja SMC lepak2 tengah hari…….sama dengan Indrani punya.
Sorry to use this rojak language.
i was waiting for u to contact me. i tot u were coming to sibu?
I have read many similair stories before where children feel ashame with their parents. I think this is the product of peer pressure and materialism worldview.
I bet many kids get bling bling gadgets not because they really need it. They just want to impress their friends.
Wealth does not make a person happy.
wealth helps make it easier to b happy i think
That is sad. I think wealth cant make one happy but being poor definitely cannot bring happiness. At least thats wad i feel.
wealth oils a lot of wheels in life i am sorry to say.
i agree with Iris.
in today’s world, u can’t live without $$$, that’s why da phrase, no money, no talk.
but being poor doen’t make he/she to be at the lowest in the social hierarchy. or is it?
to me being poor makes no difference. in fact it is the poor who r the nicest people in society usually
humans are funny and irrational.
Poor people do not have the interest to learn how to be financially free and get out of the rat race.
They rather live a rotten live than learn something that might pull them out of poverty.
Anyways, I just blogged about poverty
i read yr post. i came from absolute poverty. poverty grinds people down and is like a stone around the neck.
So teachers must be sensitive and watch what they say. It’s so easy for the tongue to wag but others have to pay the price for it. Your post is a reminder for all of us.
the teacher was probably making sentences to teach sentence structure, grammar or something but kids received it differently
Very touching indeed. Poverty is a global problem and hopefully we can help people come out of it. Education is key(as mentioned by Relax in one of his post)
wow what a story. i guess its part of what a lot of ppl having to ‘fit’ into society.
If the mother is not so full of self-pity perhaps she can turn the child’s feelings into plus point.
One mother sent her kid to school each day with some bread for her lunch and no pocket money. Other kids teased her with taunts like “bread-face” or “roti”. When asked why she doesn’t get to eat canteen food, the mother said, ‘bread is more healthy than the canteen food and there is no need to rush or queue up’.
The kid used the same words to counter the others who taunted her again. It solved the problem.