Does this title catches your attention? Well, if it does, what is your first thought about the story with that title?
A 'Fat' Soul is play writen by Jasmine Wong, Lam Hui Nee and I, Ho Jia Yiing. The story resolves around the main character, Ellen, whose boyfriend dumps him due to her drastic weight gain. She then starts diet but on a wrong way which causes her to faint. Her colleague,Ron , who is secretly in love with her told her repeatedly that inner beauty outshines outward appearance. He later went overseas for work, and purposely gained some weight, in the hope that Ellen would feel more at ease to have a boyfriend who is of the same size as her. What he did not expect is that Ellen has slimmed down upon his return to Malaysia~
I think the issue here is clear: Weight issues those caused a lot of stress among teenagers as well as adult nowadays. You are considered pretty if you are slim. Otherwise, you might be poked fun of if you are slightly fat. This mentality seems to grow its roots in most of our minds nowadays. There are cases where girls as young as 8 years old is diagnosed of Aneroxia! They would rather starve and be bed-ridden just because they force themselves not to eat!
Parental and teacher guidance lead an important role here. As educated people, we have to show our youngsters that everyone is born unique. We should love ourselves despite the fact of being fat, poor, ugly, stupid etc. It might be hard to change the inevitable. On the bright side, weight is something we CAN change. First, control your diet. Yes, it works. Not that you must only eat an apple a day like Ellen, but eat a balance diet - fruits, vegetables etc.
Writing this play has let me ponder of these issues. The bright side about writing a play in a group of 3 is that we get to contribute the ideas for the story, agree and disagree some of the points our friends point out, challenge their remarks. In short, co-operation is needed in group work. Basically, Jasmine came out with this remarkable idea, we added minor details to add juices, then each of us write either one or two Acts. It was fun to continue another person's story from your point of view. There are visible difference in our style of writing, but we iron that problem out throught drafting and editing. Heartfelt thanks to Sir Harold and Dr. Edwin for their time to comment on our work.
Reminder: Love your body!
hehe! i couldnt agree more
ReplyDeleteYou all did contributed a lot too.. It's not just "me" who came up with the idea..
ReplyDeleteWhen we were asked to write a play based on teenagers' issues, the only thing that came up to my mind is WEIGHT PROBLEM. Since I'm having the same problem, why not write it out and share it with others? But this story is definitely not from my personal experience.. =P
Teenagers nowadays are getting more and more ideas on being pretty is the only way to gain popularity.. Metrosexual-ness too are spreading around wildly, tehrefore this story is not confined to the scope for female readers but also the male readers.. As mentioned by Jia Yiing, them ain message that we intended to send is "Love your body".
I sincerely hope someone, some day will read this play. Although it might not be a good one or an interesting one, we hope that those who could bear our un-polished writing can treaasure their body and life even more.. =)
hahahaha... i couldn't agree more. I have to admit, I contribute the least in the group. My ideas sucks and irrelevant. Hahaha. it is great to have you girls as my group members. ;)
ReplyDeleteMohd Khalis Sumardi (144524) says:
ReplyDeleteYou know what, I really am interested to read your play. I definitely agree with the fact that everybody have their own uniqueness as being fat is not that bad. Sometimes, they just genetically fat so why dont they pick up phone and scolded their parents instead. Being skinny thin is not good either. It just perception that kill our beautiful culture in society. Otherwise , we should be more ready to be friend with fat, ugly or hideous looking buddies. It doesnt matter right. We are not good looking either. So just be nice to everybody and dont try to be someone else. Good luck. I hope Dr Edwin and Mr Harold will appreciate what you guys have done so far. Tata...Beautiful play ever written!