I WAS at a Watson’s drug store not too long ago, looking for a thermometer. After spending a few minutes looking for it, I gave up and decided to seek help from a young sales assistant behind the counter who was busy swiping on her handphone.

“Do you have thermometer?” I asked.

“Thermometer?” she repeated.

“Yes. Thermometer,” I repeated.

“Oh. Kejap (Please wait),” she replied.

She then went to an aisle and came back with a facial mask pack from Korea.

“Ini bukan thermometer. Ini ‘mask’ muka. Saya nak termometer (This isn’t thermometer. This is a facial mask. I am looking for a thermometer),” I explained slowly.

“Huh?” she seemed blur.

“Termometer. Alat untuk menyukat suhu badan (The instrument used to measure body temperature),” I said, pacing my words carefully.

“Apa tu (What is that)?” she asked.

“Benda yang kita guna apabila demam (The thing we use when we have a fever),” I explained once again.

The young lady smiled and nodded as she walked towards a different aisle – only to come back with a strip of paracetamol tablets.

“Ini Panadol. Saya minta termometer (This is Panadol. I asked for thermometer),” I said, beginning to get irritated.

“Inilah yang kita makan bila demam (This is what we take when we have fever),” she replied.

I returned the tablet strip and spent the next few minutes trying to explain what a thermometer was.

The sales assistant then shook her head and said, “Itu kita tak ada di sini (We don’t have that here).”

As she returned to the counter and picked up her handphone once again, I left the store and headed for Guardian pharmacy across the street.

An elderly pakcik in a security guard uniform opened the door for me and upon noticing me getting lost in the arrays of different products, asked what I was looking for.

“Thermometer,” I said, hoping not to see a blur face again.

“What kind?” he asked.

“What kind do you have?”

“Forehead thermometer strip, electronic ear thermometer or the traditional thermometer?”

“The traditional one” I replied.

Within the next few minutes, I got my thermometer, paid for it and left the store.

This incident is too similar to the one shared by a friend some time ago.

“I took my wife to a restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. Since the seafood my wife ordered was quite tasteless, she asked for some black pepper from the waitress. The waitress, whom I believe is fresh from school, maybe waiting for her SPM results, had no clue to what black pepper was – she even brought us newspaper at one point.

At the end, I had to call another waiter, a Bangladeshi man – and finally got my wife some black pepper.”

These stories may sound comical but unfortunately, they speak volumes of the younger generation in our country and their intellectual capability.

Of course many would not take long before lashing at the poor education system, dragging the ministers in charge, school management, principals and teachers down the cesshole in order to be responsible for creating such a situation.

However, the schools are not entirely responsible for an individual’s knowledge.

As a mother, I cannot help but to compare the young people I meet with those I live with. My children too, are not perfect to begin with – my eighteen year old son still has problems spelling the most common words while my twenty year old daughter still gets her Southeast Asia map wrong.

But they both know what thermometer and black pepper are.

Today, we find ourselves debating on many policies regarding the education of our younger generation. We speak about the reintroduction of English-medium schools, abolishing the vernacular system, fighting racism and extremism in schools, improving the curriculum standards, and the never ending saga of the spoon feeding policy we adopt to enhance our children’s intelligence.

But pray tell me what is the point of all those discussions if our younger generation does not even know what a thermometer is! – November 23, 2017.

* Fa Abdul is a passionate storyteller and a resident agitator of the idiots in society. Well-known for her straight-talking sarcasm and occasional foul mouth, she juggles between her work as a writer, producer and director.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.