Malin Kundang grew up poor with his mother in Sumatra. As a young man, he decided to leave on a ship to seek his fortune overseas. He never contacted his mother again. Years later, when his ship returned to port as a wealthy man, Malin denied knowing his mother when she tried to embrace him. Enraged by his denial and mistreatment of her, his mother cursed Malin to turn into stone. Her curse came true when a storm hit his ship and Malin was thrown onto shore, his body transforming into the stone known as Batu Malin Kundang, which remains on the coast of Sumatra to this day.