Folke Tegetthoff, considered world-wide as the founder of a new tradition in the art of story-telling, narrated engrossing and delightful tales at the Wisma Kebudayaan SGM on October 14, 2008. Entitled “Tales on Noble Values,” it was his second storytelling session at SGM.

Working as a storyteller, poet, lecturer, festival founder and organiser, his unequalled “World Storytelling Tour” has led him to 28 countries between 1982 and 1984. Currently surpassing his 4000th session, he is the only German-language storyteller whose work has been entered in the sound archives of the National Library of Congress in Washington.

In between his stories, were insertions of various facts about listening, telling and how our society has changed from an aural society to a visual one, hence giving rise to countless problems. Listening involves giving others our precious time, respect and attention to hear and understand. Our ears are open 24 hours a day; it is not in our ability to stop hearing sounds. Ears are also the only fully developed organs when a fetus is only one cm in length. Later it will come to a stage where it can differentiate its mother’s voices from other female voices.

He also destroyed the myth that eyes are considered more important than ears in measuring lengths, citing and carrying out a simple imaginary experiment to prove himself. As the inner ear contains a device for balancing our bodies, ears clearly control every muscle in our bodies.

Knowing very well that stories are perceptions of life conveying emotions, he narrated scientific discoveries, folklores and history lessons in an interesting manner. Although calling the television an unbelievable magic, he related the results of a survey which shows how little couples speak to each other (8 minutes a day) and how little parents and children talk to each other in today’s modern world. In contrast, most people watch the television for two or three hours a day, exposing them, the young ones in particular, dangerously to a huge amount of undesirable elements.