DPM AZIZAH THE PRODUCT OF A CONVENT SCHOOL FROM STANDARD 1 TO FORM 5 – IS SHE LESS MUSLIM THAN HADI AWANG? ‘IT WAS CHRISTIAN NUNS WHO TAUGHT ME TO BE POLITE, HOW TO SPEAK WELL & TO BE PATIENT’

Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail today shared her experience studying at convent schools, thanking her nun teachers for inculcating good values that shaped her into being a better person.

Speaking at a Christmas hi-tea reception, the Pakatan Harapan president said she was indebted to her teachers who taught her things that could not be learnt from textbooks.

“I want to share with you that I went to a convent school from Standard One until Form Five. I am indebted to my nun teachers who taught me how to be polite, how to speak well, how to have a lot of patience.

“All this I learnt which is not (taught) in the books. This is how you inculcate good values as a person,” she said in her speech during the event held at Luther Centre in Petaling Jaya.

Wan Azizah, who went to the St Nicholas Convent School in Alor Setar, Kedah, also shared a story about Santa Claus when delivering her message on charity and the importance of eradicating poverty.

She cited how the Christian saint’s charity had helped save a poor man who could not even afford to feed his three daughters.

“When I was on my way here, I received WhatsApp messages about how Santa Claus is real. How Saint Nicholas was an orphan, but a very rich orphan, and had given money and helped the three daughters of a very poor man who did not have money even to eat.

“But he saved them. When I read that message, (it reminded me) how you should actually abolish poverty.

“Try to help each other […] these are things that I (also learnt) from my nuns (teachers). Charity begins at home, you have to be kind. All this are the things that I (still) remember (from my schooling days),” she said.

Wan Azizah, who is Pakatan Harapan president, was referring to the legendary story about Santa Claus which is said to have started from the act of Saint Nicholas helping a very poor man who did not have money to pay for the dowry of his eldest daughter’s marriage.

The story goes that he dropped a bag of gold into the poor man’s house through a chimney and since then it was thought that every secret gift came from Saint Nicholas, or later famously known as Santa Claus.

MKINI