Scene : Me reading the above book, "More Fairy Tales from Asia".Amal (8 years old) : Nek Ngah, why are you reading that book? (Nek Ngah = Middle Grand- aunt)
Me : Uh . . . why not?
Amal : That is a book for children!
Me : Of course grown-ups too can read books meant for children. I read it so that I can tell you a fairy tale when you ask me later to tell you one. O.K?
Amal : O.K. then . . .
Ever since I can remember, I've always liked to read fairy tales. My favourites are :
1) Christian Hans Anderson
2) The Brothers Grimm
3) Aesop's Fables
4) Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
5) Greek Legends and Mythology - gods and goddesses
6) and this one - tales from Asia
to name a few. Maybe I love to be in a world of fantasy - happy-ever-after endings, the good guys always winning, an ugly duckling turning to be a beautiful swan or the wicked queen geting what she deserves in the end. Film-makers too produced stories on fantasy. Take for example our famous P.Ramlee in the 50's. His films like Nujum Pak Belalang, Pendekar Bujang Lapuk, Musang Berjanggut, Panca Delima and many more are all based on fantasies. Walt Disney and also the Bollywood movies all have fantasies. I think fantasies and fairy tales are good because they have moral values to pass on to the children especially. And sometimes it's good to escape from the daily stress of life. Long live Fairy Tales!
3 comments:
Fairy tales always end with ".....and they lived happily ever after."
and then you give a sigh of relief . . . ahhhh! But don't like it when they continue with e.g. Shrek ll, Shrek lll. Then the fairy tales loose it's magic kan?
Well, the present generation wants to know what happen during the 'lived happily ever after"
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