Nursery Rhymes: Haji’s Book of Malayan Nursery Rhymes by A.W Hamilton. Book of nursery rhymes – offered in Malay and English.  Illustrations with wonderful color and b&w’s by Nora Hamerton and with musical notation for songs by H.A. Courtney. (Source)

Poetuns are short poems which are written to resemble pantuns. Pantuns are quatrains, or four lines to a stanza, with the rhyming pattern of abab, or aaaa. The resemblance may be loose or strict, it does not matter.

Sleeping in a tent with no-see-um,
You might be mistaken for a cartoon,
When a Pantun marries a Poem,
The progeny may be called a Poetun.

Hehe.

Buy junk, sell Antique,
In goes punk, out comes Geek,
Push in oink, pull out Clinique
Input sampah, output Elite,
From throwaway plastic,
Industry makes Polar mits,
Jumpa murah, jual mahal,
Jampi muntah, jadi khayal,
Sewn in the Lembah,
Sold at the Mall.

Hehe.

Singa betina disambar helang
Bila dah kena, tak akan hilang
Bukan malu, bukan malang
Itulah untungnya Putri Neelam.

Hehe.

Kadok lalu, bunting keladi,
Dah tahu tanya lagi,
Biduk lalu, pecah teratai,
Tak tahu, tak pandai.

Hehe.

O seksanya demam cintal,
On the contrary,
No ordinary,
You are one lucky gurl!

Hehe.

1961 School Text book  “Tunas Bahasa Kebangsaan“, a Malay language subject for Tamil and Chinese students in the primary level. (Source)

Salleh licik guna toyol
Tak payah peteh
Tak usah leceh
Dah pasti masuk gol

Hehe.

If life is a game,
In love there’s no shame,
If love a bit late came,
None is to blame,
If the heart can be tamed,
Then love will never be the same.

Hmm.

Ada Zaitun,
Ada Putri,
Tiada pantun,
Tiada bestari

1962 ‘Majallah Bahasa kebangsaan’, an educational magazine targeted to Chinese to encourage and educate the learnings of the national language – Malay. (Source)

SMS From Irresolute Son:

Dear Dad,
No wimin, no cry,
No frens, still can,
No hon, no prob,
No cert, no job,
No mon, no fun,
Send one.

Response From Intractable Dad:

Salam Son,
Begad,
So sad,
Too bad,
Regad,
Your Dad

Ita

Ita fell down at work,
Lapsed into a coma;
Her man, and memory, too
Deserted her;
Her nil Perkeso papers
Turned her into a pauper;
Slow step by slow step,
She picked up the scraps
Of her shatttered dreams;
With the shadow of deprivation
Stalking her every move,
She stumbled into cyberspace
And into her mindscape hove
From a speck of stardust
A forming figure of light
A holographic sight
That ends her plight.

1964 Standard Three school text book on “Structural Modern English“, a revised edition of the former “Modern English Course”. (Source)

~

All images from Malaysia Design Archive.

Zaharan Razak is a traveler. He journeys by bicycle, boat, kapcai and the written word, and co-wrote the beautiful, now sadly out-of-print coffee table book ‘Rivers of Malaysia’. Calling ‘Dungeon di Dungun’, Terengganu his home, he dreams of walking a jungle trail with a dog by his feet and a packraft on his back, to seek out a remote river and paddle down its course to the sea.

Photo of Zaharan on a tribike, from Kelantan Blogger Pak Zawi’s ‘LAISI: Life As I See It’. – (SC)