Kancil Tales and Manifestations of Ethical Values: Cases from Malaysian School Textbooks

Authors

Ping Leng LIAU, Institute of Chinese Studies, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, MalaysiaFollow

Abstract

The Kancil is the Malay language for mousedeer (Tragulus kancil) which is a small native animal of the Malaysian rainforests. Stories about the creature are common in Malay folktales that portray images of an animal imbued with a mixture if good and evil. For reasons of projecting ethical values of a creature that looks adorable and mischievous, the Kancil is featured in textbooks of language and history subjects to convey simple ethical lessons for the education of school children. This paper takes a critical look at the Kancil stories in textbooks published by the same publisher for the school subjects on Chinese, English, and Malay languages and Malaysian history. It is shown that these Kancil stories manifest real or imaginary ethical values and moral behaviour and reflect subtle variations in perspectives in different language texts.

Recommended Citation

LIAU, Ping Leng (2017) "Kancil Tales and Manifestations of Ethical Values: Cases from Malaysian School Textbooks," Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies: Vol. 6: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://mjcs.newera.edu.my/journal/vol6/iss1/3