Thunderclouds Not In The Sky

Today I had to face a machine gun of what my dad thinks about scouting today on my way back home from college. I was defiantly unpleasant and he kept asking me questions I cannot answer and hollering at me about what scouting is when it is clearly obvious that it is what my dad thinks scouting is from his personal experience. You see, my dad is a 1950-1960 person and the way scouting was in his years is different from how scouting is now, in fact, from listening to him shout about the badges, ranks and age organisation of scouting of his years, I can say that there is a huge difference between scouting now and then.

I'm going for a Rover interview soon and I was informed that I need to buy some uniforms and badges for the interview and events after the interview.

It all started with me telling him that I need a sea scout uniform when he asked why I needed one. I was not sure about that but I knew that all the Rovers I know have one and they wear it occasionally. Then my dad (who already knew but clearly forgot) found out that my juniors, Sean and Maverick who are also going for the interview are in Form5 this year and that was when he went through the roof. He started yakking about how can a Form5 student who's going to take SPM join the Rovers? He, as usual, went shinkansen and went on and on about the scouting system (read: old scouting system) which I have no knowledge of because that system has pretty much went through a complete makeover.

Scouting then (as how I understand from listening to my dad)

-They have no badges, the only badges they have are proficiency badges. To them, the badges that they earn (like our Usaha, Maju and Jaya) are not badges, they are ranks.

-Junior and senior scouts have the same badges and ranks, meaning, whatever badges they had back then which is like our Usaha, Maju, Jaya and proficiency badges are the only badges they have throughout their scouting years in secondary school. No Jayadiri, Kemahiran, Kegiatan, Ekspedisi and Perkhidmatan and no Rambu Pengakap Remaja, just Bushmanthong(?) which I think is similar to our Rambu Pengakap Muda. To sum it up, it's like everybody is even.

-King Scouts cannot be a Rover and a Rover cannot be a King Scout.

-There are only countable numbers of King Scouts back then in the whole country. My dad says that the qualifications to be a King Scout has dropped.

-Only those in Form6 and older can become a Rover, period.

-Scouts who become Rovers return to their troops. Unlike now, Rovers cannot be assigned to the troop they were in during secondary school, they have to go to other troops but can go back to help out at camps and the sort.

Seems like my dad won't listen to my explanations unless someone else tells him about the scouting system now. Also, he said that he talked to Mr. Dawson about Rovers before and from my point of view, I can see that he does not understand what Mr. D told him.