Retelling Little Red Riding Hood with a Malaysian twist

Authors Avatar by zygan2027marlboroughcollegemy (student)

Gadis Berkerudung Merah

 - little red riding hood with a Malaysian twist

Deep within the lush Sarawak trees, is a remote village in Jankang, a cluster of longhouses surrounded by chilli padi fields, is a little girl by the name of Putri. Every morning, she would hike up through the palm plantations to her grandmother’s house to deliver food for her to eat. Putri loved listening to her grandmother’s stories of when she was young, when she would wake up to the bright sunshine and the chickens in the barn, and fill up the wooden pail with water from the river. On the way back, she would be greeted by the old man in his own bamboo house, playing his bamboo nose flute, and after that she would meet up with her childhood friends from around the village.

This morning was no different. Putri climbed out of her hammock onto the wooden floor boards, and greeted her parents and siblings with a “Selamat pagi!”. Breathing in the fresh air, she went over to the chicken coop, letting the hens all gather around her, flapping their wings. Crawling into the henhouse, she gathered all the eggs in the nest and neatly placed them in the straw basket, ready to be fried for breakfast.

The smell of the deep-fried peanuts alongside the rice spread across the small village, combined with the sizzle and crackling noise of the fire. Putri went over to the wooden table, and wrapped the rice and vegetables in a pandan leaf. Then, she tied a knot to fasten the cloth carrying the package and set off to her grandmother’s bamboo cottage up the mountain.

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“Don’t wander away from the path!” her mother told Putri.

Strolling away from the dense, random arrangement of the longhouses in the village, the sound of the jungle nymphs and calls of male insects showing off their sounds to attract the attention of females suddenly overtook the music and chatter in the village. It was a gentle slope up to her grandmother’s house, with quite a rewarding view over the forest after climbing up. Her mother always warned her of wild boars in the jungle, found in groups of 20, the size of a small elephant. They won’t attack you out ...

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