Menyusur laluan Ayam Den Lapeh.....

Jam Gadang

Selalu juga kita mendengar di corong-corong radio Anita Sarawak menyanyikan lagi Ayam Den Lapeh dengan bahasa Minangnya. Kalau bukanlah kerana lidah penyanyinya yang serba boleh tu, susah juga dia nak sebut senikata lagu itu dengan hampir betul. As for me, I can only sing with a terribble pronounciation and most of the words...I just don't understand. Some, I do but using my own common sense which now I'm very sure the meaning is something else......hahaha, kesian aku.

My husband can speak the language because both his parents come form Kampar, Sumatera and Minang is their mother's tounge. Lucky him! But still, there are words that is different from what he was taught. It must me the dialect...telornya(not egg ok) berbeza! But, IMY loves singing the song and somehow rather, I enjoyed listening and humming the song myself.

I should thank the person who wrote this song. The song tells us about a simple story of a person whose chicken got lose and flew away into the jungle...well that is the core of the story but the way the lyrics was written makes the song sounds nice. It was very brilliant of him! Because of this song, I am here today.

Right now, I'm at the lobby of Pusako Hotel in Padang. Arrived this morning in Padang and was driven to Bukit Tinggi which is 800 metre above sea level. On the way, we passed Pandai Sikek. This small kampung is not even a town but it was mentioned in the song. Pandai Sikek means good at combing. Good at combing doesn't mean something to do with combing ones hair but it is more to Good at Weaving

Pandai Sikek

Perusahaan utama orang kampung ini ialah menenun kain songket. To them, every young girl in Pandai Sikek must know how to weave. It's the tradition. I can tell you now that their songket is the best that I've ever seen. We are so used to our local songket, which is of cause nice and beautiful, colorful and costly. I've been Palembang. No doubt, theirs is also good,colorful and cheaper but I much prefer the later. After my visit to Pandai Sikek, I have to tell you honestly, it's everything that you want, like and afford!

Tomorrow we are planning to visit Tasek Maninjau(hope my spelling is correct) to Pak Hamka's home which is now a tourist attraction. This is one great writer who wrote beautifully. I love his writings and already read some of his novels. To me his way of writing is simple to understand and the language is almost like ours....not like the present which was mixed with some of their local dialects, English, Dutch and so on and they seem to shorten two or three words to make into one new word. Sayang sekali bahasa asal yang begitu cantik hampir pupus di telan zaman! Please do not let this happen to ours.

Tasek Maninjau

Gone were the days where we share the same wave of thinking and understanding. That is what will happen to our mother's tounge if our new generation keep on writing in short message style and simplified everything. Janganlah merosakkan bahasa kita kerana hendak setanding dengan arus kemodenan kini.

Without our language, what are we? Janganlah kita terlalu mendewakan bahasa orang lain sehingga lupa siapa kita sebenarnya. The more languages you know, makes you a better person. I can say this because I am a trained English teacher but I love my Bahasa most. I love pantun, syair,gurindam and I write in both languages. You must be good at both because English is the lingua franca but our language tells us who we are! Cintailah bahasa kita. Jadilah seperti orang Arab, Korea dn Jepun yang sentiasa menggunakan bahasa mereka sendiri walaupun mereka juga tahu berbahasa dunia.