WEEK 4

Miss Syida gives brief explanation about History of Malaysian. Literature in Malaysia has several types such as legends, folktales, short stories, novels and poems. Legends are very close to historical which folktales tell about the nature, animals and moral values. Short stories and folktales are quite similar with each other, in order to give the reader some valuable moral value. Novels can be categorized in love, anthology, historical, or fiction. In addition, poem is piece of writing but it can be very compact, meaningful, and touching. There is 3 generation of literature writers in this country. Firstly, those who are above sixty. Secondly, for those who age between forty-five and sixty and lastly, those between thirty and forty-five. First generation is vividly remembered the era of the Second World War. They can be classifying as the golden group that rich with experienced. Then, second generation, the group of people that experienced the situation and condition through reading and listening to their parent stories. Third generation who are still too young. They’re not care much about the Colonial Era. The way of their writing is more to free writing and focusing on their surrounding. Other than reading short stories, we had been asked by our lecturer to watch a movie. The title is “Empire of the Sun”. This film conveys the situation in war. It takes place in Shanghai, China and the main character is a boy name Jamie. Jamie was there with his family, as his father work at this city. Japan conquered China and at the same time their family had to runaway from this war situation. At that time, Jamie was separated from his family and his new challenging life was begun. He must watch many kind of people that come from different background and personality. He had been through a long journey and experience many king of things. For instant, he had been sent to one terrible place with no enough food, drink, medicine and spaces to sleep. Everyday, he watched people die in terrible ways in front of his eyes. Meanwhile, he gets a new friend that is the son of the Japanese army. That’s help him a lot from being so lonely. He such a clever boy because he has the ability to communicate, understands and make friend with Japanese in order to survive. At last, Japan has lost in their war and Jamie found back his family in a dramatic scene.