366 folk tales from Malaysia !! (pictorial )







THis is the  fisrt of the new batch of book on malaysia  this year .and this book is the reason for buying it  .

Here is some background  on how I decided to buy this book and also look after for more related. earlier this year desperate in adding  some stories (tales myths etc ) for my daughter i also googled  for Malaysian  tales across the intenet (say: googling ). But as googling just 'Malaysian  tales'  yielded only a few lemmas . And also the book 365 folk tales from Malaysia .AS i could not   find something more i decided to buy this book .  After  2 emails to Utusan the producer i have not received any reply from them . After  chatting with a malaysian frind in facebook he suggested me several online bookstores.

The book together  3 other books books has been  very properly received here  in 4 weeks after dispatching . Cost of the book is standard of RM 50 (as noticed on the  rear of the book )or 11 Eu  plus 4.5 Eu  shipping. I think that this price  is quite cheap  for such as book considering that  is 300 pages A4 size with coloured in tho most of the book with many illustrations !


Now back to the book as it has too much interest : 
-Its size  is A4  with ca 320 pages wiih plastic front & rear  page
There are  about 378 stotuies in the book , one for each day

The design is as  follows :
-A listing of the  stories  each month including the region , inside a  nice frame

- a bonus story  for every month - this is 2 pages with a nice illustration (the man eating  story ie batu belah is shown  here )


- One story  each day  . 3- 4 stories  in the two page format and depending on the size of the story





- glossary on the end of each month with some english terms explained


For me this book is very simple  though  I found some unowwn lemmas  to me Here is an example on how i did: (with the hope that this small excerpt  does not have any c'l'opyright violations as we call it in Greece clopi means steal )



In order to do the translation  work faster i used  my tablet as  translator instead of using two dictionaries (Malay and Greek ) . I have previously installed  both  these dictionaries in the google translator for offline use. AS yo see below   in the picture here is also a mirror .This mirror reflects  the solar rays back to the book so hat the   shadow caused by my hand is illuminated . a pen of 0.3 mm  is usd for writing above te  unknown words.




It was  the first book of reading immediately after   receiving the bundle . Meanwhile there are some others (that  will be reviewed later ) that made made me  temporarily  stop reading it but aftert checking them  i returned reading it under a different  aspect as  it will be shown late in this article  .


I made several interesting statistical data on this  book: 

1. There are  some stores that seem  nearly identical . I found  one or two with  2-3 vesions
2. Ther are  nearly direct or indirect  vesions of Grimm's Aesop's  and Hodja's tales. These are  the stries: mawar merah (the known versio of cinderela G ), the geesekeeper (G), the jugde (H), Fox & Hen (E), 7 goats (G), rapunzel - this is just a vesio of version  (G), Clever wife (G), Wind and sun (A thought  is story is rather fake ), Liar shepherd (A), golden axe (?), and & cricket

3. Some of the stories as for eg man eating stone seem  somehow different fro what i already knew from internet search
4.  There are many tales  with direct or indirect  magic. We dont like to tell stories top our daughter . For this reason in  my  second reading session  i tried first  to filter out these stories  by marking them out .


As in result  i have stamped  with short comments over the book which storie are :

1.passing  ie clear from  magic  a total of ca 230 stories
2. so so stories   abt 30
3 negative  or  magic stories abt 50
4 not to rate stories  , remain
also  theer was  another 'tagging' as :
1 . intelligent stories   abt 45
2. animal stories ca 55  with 2-3 not passing the  filter
3. funny stories only 10?? tis includes  pak pandir the 'well known'   stupiid  of malaysia !
notice : although Siti  as i  call  my daughter has watched  nearly magic series from her only 2 and also from the TV there is Nick and ben ten are also aired , we try to  get rid  of them (i removed Nick from the TV channel list )


In this  huge story list i have found the  well knonw stories of Santubong , Si Tangang , Putih & merah , batu belah
........but i have not fond these: Ulik Mayang , Raja bersiong (there is a  illustrated book version ), MAhsuri, GUnung ledang , Si pelawak [the man who fought  the dragon without fighting him! ], Mayang sari  ,Hang Nadim (the swordfish attack ), Hang Lipoh  as examples !!  (and many stories with the mouse-deer missing )


This book can be previewed here in google books : (many pages deliberately missing)
http://books.google.gr/books?id=3eJeLEJ1f_MC&lpg=PA53&hl=el&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
I  like this idea Malaysians  do . You can test the book  before you buy . I found also many other Malaysian books this way


MY verdict : Although the book  is nearly perfect as a huge repository of Malaysian stories it lacks of some important  legends or tales . MY daughter  has a  special  interest  in this book as  it is designed  with nice colors . i use it in parallel  with ancient greek  stories .

Feel  writing  your comments here !



Comments

  1. I have had a intense look and read into this 366: A Collection Of Malaysian Folk Tales with the preview at Google Books and I must say I am very impressed with this book. It is large, the colors are outstanding on the covers and illustrations inside, the plain print is in easy to read black ink and the stories are extremely interesting, involving and engaging regardless if you are a child or an adult. The way it has been written it is very easy to follow which is essential for children to understand and to keep their attention span for longer. For me as an adult, I just love reading the stories and tales and I would highly recommend it for children and for adults alike and it is also an excellent lesson and insight into Malaysian culture!

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