Soooo Kampung!!!

It just grates me the wrong way whenever I hear anyone, just anyone, spew out verbal diarrhoea using the sacred word (to me) "kampung" in a degratory manner or tone. You know, the seemingly "harmless" expression of "the way she dresses is soooo kampung" or " where do you think you are, in the kampung" or "her make-up soooo kampung" or "the way she/he talks is soooo kampung" ....

Often times whenever I hear this being expressed in a conversation, I often pondered which kampung the speaker ( or his keturunan) hails from. I am 2nd generation urbanite, my grandparents were born and bred and lived and died in our kampung, Masjid Tanah(Melaka).
Due to work, my parents (born and bred in their kampung) lived around the peninsula but mainly in KL where I was raised. They retired to live in the kampung and I have not seen a more contented couple as far as lifestyle goes as their needs are simple , besides they enjoy being landowners and being close to tempat tumpah darah. They took their turns to being village elders, and in our kampung, village elders are highly regarded and respected, no matter who they are and no matter who you are in a KL-urban society. I am proud to say quite a number of my mapung folks have "made good" and still maintain their ties to the kampung. How can one forget where the other end of one's umbilical cord was once attached?

Most people these days do not have a kampung per se, their forebears may have long participated in the urban migration of days of yore, never to return, for reason of vocation or convenience. That is fine. Create a new kampung, if you may, KL being a global kampung full of migrants ( including the expatriate and pendatang kind), but never forget where it all began.

Just because their postal address is now in a prime property area code( never mind how they got there) and driving wheels that can pay for a complete row of single storey terrace houses(again never mind how they got them), they think that it qualifies them to look down on people who chose to live away from it all. I thought with the new breed of technopreneurs and agropreneurs choosing to make kampungs their base, the perception of the public at large would change.

It irks me to read in the papers lately a disgusting article about how someone was putting down some people who chose to litter in their squatter-like surroundings that they ought to behave because they are no longer in their kampung. If they want to live in the city they need to behave like "city people". What the.....? Won't a simple " Please take pride surroundings and keep your environment clean so that it is healthier, blah, blah ,," be better advice? Was the insult to kanpung people absolutely necessary? And do "city" people really deserve the accolades and pedestal they are always being perched on? By the ignoramus!

And how are "city" people? Who are the "city" people? How are they different from "kampung" people? For someone in that person's position and role, I would expect him to use more discretion when blurping out statements like that. I would ask him if he has been to a kampung, a real kampung where important values (neighbourliness, sense of community, respect, caring and sharing) are still very much alive and practiced. Cleanliness is without doubt high on their list, why even the elderly sweep their compunds for exercise, now that they don't have to go rubber tapping or padi planting anymore as contract labour can handle all that. Even when taken-for-granted city conveniences are absent like Alam Flora or Indah Water, the kampung folks get by and create their own garbage disposal system (burning or burying). So, how are kampung people dirty and unruly?

And if the city folks are sooooo nice and good, why do we keep getting ugly news of happenings in the so,so, fine towns and cities? Corruption, murder, abduction, blackmail and so on - is that something rampant in the kampungs? Would a child playing alone in a kampung playground be abducted? I have not heard.

Anyone can behave in a backward manner, whether they are in the city or in a kampung. It is all a question of breeding and civic mindedness. I live all my life in the city but touch base with life in the kampung at least 20 times a year. In fact in 2005/6 I lived for a full year in my kampung and I have found nothing to complain about the kampung folks. Only perhaps they need to be more aggressive in sounding out and getting their local needs met by their elected representatives ( who perhaps have to give way to the needs of those in the city?). My kampung folks are clean and God-fearing. Yes they are human and do have their minor failings here and there but do they deserve to be compared to those vagrants in the city who live like pigs in their messy environment? I don't think so.

I remember having to politely tell off the driver of a BMW, a very "city" gentleman from the way he was dressed. He stopped his car within my residential area, which is next door to his, in neighbouring Damansara Heights. His kids were playing in the playground and he, wife and 2 smaller tots were waiting in the car. They were drinking coca cola from cans while munching on groundnuts and pistachios. I passed them while I was on my evening walk. On my way back, it was just my ( or was it their) unfortunate luck that I saw "Daddy" and "Mummy" doing a synchronised act of treating MY neighbourhood like a rubbish dump. "Mummy" was flinging out a plastic bag full of peanut and pistachio shells onto the roadside from her side of the car window, and "Daddy" was playfully aiming at the trees across the road and hurling empty coke cans from his side of the window! And the little tots were watching, gleefully. What the ......!!

Because I caught them in the act, and there were many others who were around waiting for their kids too, I was bold enough to approach their car and asked them with a friendly smile if they live around here and if so, which Jalan? They were surprised that I approached them and said they live behind the hill ( Damansara Heights). I told a white lie and said that I am with the resident's association and we have been wondering who has been littering our playground and residential area. That it was also my job to educate the people found doing so to stop doing so, and if they could kindly not do that again. There were ( and still are) garbage bins placed at strategic locations for the convenience of the children patronising the playground.

The redfaced couple of course apologised and said they did not see the bins. At which point I wanted to say well, you could darn well bring them home to dump them in your own, couldn't you? That is exactly what my kampung folks would have done as they would think twice about simply littering anywhere knowing that it might be their neighbours who have to clean up?

So, tell me again....is it fair to insult kampung folks?