By Dr Rahim Said
It started with four words that should never have been typed: “Hi uncle pig. Do you eat pork?”
A schoolgirl sent that message to her school bus driver — an elderly man who had faithfully driven her every morning. When his son shared it online, Malaysians were appalled.
One netizen said, “If my mother heard me say that, I’d be forced to eat chillies.”
But today’s kids don’t fear chillies. Or much else.
The Death of Respect
There was a time when you stood up when a teacher walked in. When “uncle” and “aunty” meant respect, not ridicule. Now we have twelve-year-olds calling adults pigs, and parents pleading for leniency when their kids get caught.
Let’s not romanticise the past, but at least we feared our elders enough to behave. Now, we fear nothing — not teachers, not parents, not consequences.
The father’s apology came too late. The child had already learned that bad behaviour can be erased with a quick “sorry.” And when adults don’t correct their children, they become accomplices in moral decay.
Influencers as Moral Teachers
Our new role models aren’t teachers or parents — they’re YouTubers and TikTokers. Loud, rude, and gloriously unfiltered, they’ve turned arrogance into entertainment.
Kids now imitate their favourite streamers’ language and attitude — fluent in sarcasm, fluent in mockery, but illiterate in empathy.
Every viral clip rewards cruelty. Every “like” normalises rudeness.
Why say “thank you” when “whatever” gets more views?
If our heroes are people who insult for fun, we can’t be surprised when schoolchildren do the same — just without the followers.
The Future: A Nation of Narcissists
If this continues, Malaysia won’t just lose manners — it’ll lose its soul. Picture classrooms where teachers quit after being mocked online, cafes where teenagers scold waiters, and homes where parents apologise to children for setting curfews.
Respect will become nostalgic — like cassette tapes or Sunday school. People will talk about it fondly but never practise it.
We’re raising a generation that knows how to argue but not how to apologise; that demands “rights” but sneers at “responsibility.”
The Missing Ingredient: Accountability
We love to preach “Pendidikan Karakter” and moral values in schools. But what good are moral lessons when parents rush to protect their child instead of teaching consequence?
Character isn’t built through posters and PowerPoints — it’s forged through discomfort and discipline.
Maybe what we need isn’t another campaign about kindness. Maybe we just need to rediscover a word our grandparents understood perfectly: shame.
The healthy kind that stops you from humiliating someone who’s been kind to you.
The Last Stop
The bus driver made the right call when he said, “It’s over.” His bus may have stopped for one rude student, but symbolically, it represents something larger — the moment when decency decided it no longer wanted to ride with us.
If we keep excusing insolence in our young, one day we’ll wake up to find we’ve built a society where everyone talks — but no one listens.
And when that day comes, “Hi uncle pig” won’t shock anyone anymore.
It’ll just sound like the new Malaysian greeting.