Public Speaking Script

Holidays

Good morning to the panel of honourable adjudicators, teachers, and friends. On this fine morning, I would like to talk about Malaysian Holidays.Our country of Malaysia is the home of people of different cultures and ethnic groups. Themajority of Malaysians are Malays. Besides Malays, there are Chinese, Indians, and so on.We live here, Malaysia, peacefully without wars amongst ourselves.There had been some disturbing talk some time ago about the necessity to do somethingabout Malaysia having too many holidays. I say ‘disturbing’ because who has heard of having ‘too many holidays’? We’ve got along all these years celebrating every festival that ison the calendar and still managing to keep up with the work that has to be done.To students, a public holiday means having fun and relaxing. We students will get tired of school if holidays didn’t exist. Spending our time on a holiday also means we could spendsome time with our family. A five-day school week gives us less time to hang around with our families. During the weekends, our time is usually spent in shopping malls with either our family or buddies.On Hari Raya, Malay kids would be elated to have ‘duit raya’. My past years of going aroundthe village have passed, leaving good memories such as being chased by a goat with mycousins. When I turned ten, I felt awkward being around little kids while collecting the ‘duitraya’. This year I spent my time at my grandparent’s house with my siblings and my12years+ cousins. I felt bored, having the urge to go back home and listen to head-bangingmusic. These days, teens as well as preteens don’t have the spirit of a get-together. To me,it’s déjà vu every year.Even though the spirit of togetherness is being overshadowed by the stress of a teenager’slife, we still somehow find a way to make holidays with our families interesting. For example;we try not to talk back on our parent’s opinion to go to an island somewhere in Borneo.While we’re there, we have fun snorkelling and appreciating the wonders of the marineworld. And I thought I was going to swim with the lionfish!Holidays should be spent with reasonable activities. Some parents send us to camps duringthe school holidays. We dread of going to camps. I had the experience when I was 11. “Isigned you up to a camp in Rawang. It’s a four day study camp,” said my dad. I was like, “What?! I’m so not going there!” I was full with anger and fury. My diary read – I can’t believethis is happening! - Well, who likes to go to camps when their parents say so? I saw this pollin the internet and it said 73% of people rather stay at home without TV than go to camp. Soit’s true that students don’t like being forced away to camps during the holidays.The Chinese celebrate a lot of festivals. There is a list of the celebrations, but I’m going totalk about two only. I’m not sure what they celebrate on the Moon cake festival, but what Iknow is that there are loads of moon cakes. Yum! The most obvious and marking the firstday of the New Year of the Chinese calendar, is Chinese New Year. Lion dance andparades are held, full of excitement.The quietest of all the festivals known to my brain, Deepavali. I’m not the whiz of the detailsof the festivals in this country. The

kalam

is a decoration they make out coloured rice. Theother thing that I know is they eat murukku. A delicious, country treat.

Of all the holidays in Malaysia, there is one celebration that most of the citizens watch or attend. ‘Merdeka’ is the word that people cheer to at the stroke of midnight of 31

st

August of every year. Celebrated at landmarks such as Dataran Merdeka, and many more in theWilayah Persekutuan.Thanks are the word I would like to say, for sharing your time with me on this wonderful day