Ongkor and Anakanak revisited

(source: finaltouchproofreadingandediting.com)

As I write materials for the KD level 2 course, I suddenly think of the KD infamous folktale character, Ongkor aka Bongkoron, and his opposite all-perfect hero Anakanak. Indeed, it is typical in any culture (at least the ones I've heard of) that there must be some black and white characters, and I wonder, could it be because underlying the society is the moral belief that virtue will be rewarded while vice punished?

In the Dusun stories I've heard, Ongkor is always painted as:

1. the lazy one
2. the liar
3. the gluttonous one
4. the envious one
5. the one who couldn't bear difficulties
and the long list of vices goes on. (A Christian can easily identify Ongkor's vices with the seven deadly sins)

Anakanak on the other hand is the angelic one. He is:

1. the hardworking one
2. the honest one
3. the one who respects his mother [parents](often, in the stories I heard, the mother is mentioned as a poor single mother)
4. the one who's grateful
5. the one who bears any difficulties with a grin
and of course, everything that is good.

But unfortunately in real life I don't think there is a single person that is really 100% Anakanak. Nor is there one that is 100% Ongkor (please tell me no one is totally bad). It must have been the people's desire for perfection that painted these two opposite characters the way they are. Maybe deep in every man's heart is that desire.

Anyway, I am using quite a few folktales in my teaching materials this time around. I am having fun doing them, although it is so time-consuming and quite taxing.

Downplaying emotion/events

The Dusuns are really good at downplaying emotions/events. It is not considered good to say something as it really is. It's even worst if someone makes a mountain out of a molehill. There is a word, 'ronob' that means exaggerate, that connotes something negative in the society. A person who is 'koronob' or 'momuronob' (exaggerating) is scowled upon by the people.

I didn't really appreciate the value of downplaying emotions until the day my grandfather died. Being far away, my family members had to break the news over the phone. They did it as emotionless as they could using the standard idiom to explain death: "aa no nakatahan do toruol dau" (he couldn't bear his pain any longer), (except that my dad said it in Malay, the language we use to communicate to each other).

Giving the news in such a way, I realized later, is very considerate. The person hearing it has the time to slowly digest the information, before the big boulder that is grief hits. At least one is given the time to delay one's reaction. I didn't get into shock (perhaps partly because I knew he had been really ill for a few months), and at least I managed to get myself to a private place before the waves of emotions crushed me.

And so I really do appreciate their knack of downplaying emotions. It does make me wonder though, whether something is worst than it is made to sound each time I hear the news that a family member or a person I know is not well...