About Pantun

1.0 Introduction
The pantun (pronounced “pun-tone”) is believed to be uniquely Malay in origin. It is the most popular Malay traditional poetry genre and is still very much alive today, playing important roles at traditional events like weddings and other formal functions, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia. Many old-age pantuns are learned by heart and can be fluently quoted by the Malays.

Taken from this website:

‘Many old-age pantuns are learned by heart and can be fluently quoted by the Malays.’

Me and Mr. Z can still recite most of the old pantuns now, so I guess that is good news and proved that above sentence right. However, from my experience tuitioning a few standard 6 students, they have not heard many of the old pantuns, and a few could recite any. If I can recall correctly, I was already pretty well-versed in traditional pantun in my primary school days.

I do not know whether this is just a one-off case, or it is the norm among the standard 6 kids nowadays. I mean, it’s bad enough we have no idea whatsoever of the more complex art of the traditional Malay culture; if we can’t even expose a ‘4 lined-poetry’ to kids, I do not know what hope there is to retain the Malay cuture.