This post is inspired by my fellow blogger friend Firehorse, who is a great blogger who writes posts that are fantastically funny. I read this post of hers and it reminded me of something I wanted to write about but has since forgotten and thrown to the back burner.
During my trip back home (Malaysia), I encountered a lot of things good and bad, but there’s this one thing that annoyed me the most. You know those people who went overseas and came back with a weird/fake accent? Well, I am not one of them. Mr K did have one old uni mate who is lidat. He was in the same class with Mr K and went to the same uni for the final year. For your information this guy is Chinese Malaysian with Chinese educational background, so his English was like mine back then, half half only. Have you met those people who tried so hard to speak the slang of certain country but end up sounding very weird? Well, he is that sort. He would go around talking to gui lou (Caucasian) and trying to use all the ‘big words’. Frankly, he sounded like a fool. I mean it is not that I am against learning to fit in and adapt to the environment, but that is a limit before one start to sound weird and make an embarrassment of himself/herself. It is natural that we as Malaysians would have an ascent of our own, that is nothing to be ashamed of. Why have to go and hide that fact?
The joke is, a year after graduation, Mr K met this guy in a conference and introduced him to his boss (a kiwi), who was there with him. After the guy left, his boss asked him, ‘why do you guys sound so different? He sounded really weird!’ Heh. Again, I want to emphasis that I am all for fitting in the local culture and we inevitably will have to do some changes in order to adapt, but that’s a way to do that and not loose your self identity and culture, right?!
OK, I totally digressed. As I mentioned above, the thing that annoyed me a lot was that a lot of people asked me whether I can still speak Chinese/dialect, and also asked whether I am still used to the weather or not. WTH?! I only lived in NZ for 7 years, it’s not like I totally lost touch with my friends and relatives, and transformed into a gui po or something. We are talking about the country I was born in and lived for 20 years! That was 20 long years where I breathed and lived the culture and people. How could I totally ditch that and come back a foreigner? The thought of it really baffles me. To me, no matter how long I’ve been away or how much adapting I have done in order to fit in, Malaysia will always remains home in my heart. So, that’s it, once and for all.
p/s: Something came onto me when I wrote this post yesterday, sounded so angry one hor. I am not an angry person ok. ;P
June 16th, 2007 at 1:18 am
hear hear. happy merdeka day in advance. =D
wayyy advanced.
[Reply]
June 16th, 2007 at 3:01 am
I know what you are saying.
I lived in Melbourne for 10 years before one of my ex-colleagues from KL flew to Melb with her son and within 3 weeks of lodging with me while she was trying to find a place to stay, she started to say, ‘to-die’ instead of today, ‘good-die’ and not hello or how are you, ‘mite’ instead of ‘mate’ or what is wrong with friend?
What she did not realise is talking like that shows a different background because the more affluent Aussies don’t talk like that. It made my hair stand on ends but on the other hand, she was not a close friend for me to say anything. So, I had to put up with ‘good-die’, alrighty mite for 4 weeks or so.
[Reply]
June 16th, 2007 at 5:00 am
LOL your post just reminded me of on Malaysian chinese fellow who took his final uni year in australia, he works for this company in KL named PURE GROUP ASIA PASIFIC … and he talks so weird
) he’s got a really fake accent LOL, I’m Japanese and i been in working here in KL 2 years now and sound more malaysian than he does with all the LAH’s i picked up at the end of my sentences 
) but when he speaks mandrin LOL you don’t get to hear any slang 
)…. his boss is australian and i get to understand his boss well perfectly…
but when talking to this kelvin kua LOL it’s really so difficult to understand that fellow…and his accent becomes so irritating you know what i mean?
i’ll admit the “LAH” thing is so difficult to rid of, once you’ve gotten used to ending sentences with lah
[Reply]
June 16th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hehe.. i understand how u feel. Went i went back to Malaysia for my holz, my frenz kept teasing me if i had adopted the ‘kiwi slang’. But when I tried proving to them that i did not, they said i had but not my english, MY BAHASA MELAYU was the 1 infected instead… =(
On another note, manage to spread the “LAH” thing around most of my hostel mates.. Its so funny seeing them trying to add “LAH” in every word & sentence =P
[Reply]
June 16th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
It’s nice to see how much you love your country, not like those who pretend to be ABC only after few months of staying in foreign land.
[Reply]
June 17th, 2007 at 2:25 am
mine even worse,i only come to melb for only nearly half a year and yet my friends thought i already forgot my BM already..=.=..and i have to keep on convincing them that i didn’t at all.haiz
[Reply]
June 17th, 2007 at 5:11 am
chloe
Hello! Thanks for dropping by.
Dr ve Thru
Exactly, but it’s their choice.
Lucifer
I am proud of my lah. Haha.
Thanks for dropping by.
prawn
Oh, the infectious ‘lah’. When I was studying, the gui lou at my hostel also made fun of it.
Nonnie
I am a Proud Malaysia with lots of lah.
De Pianist
My BM has suffered due to the lack of usage, but that doesn’t make me any less of a Malaysian. Haha.
[Reply]
June 17th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I’ve only been in Perth for 1.5 years but my Mum said I talked with a slight Australian accent! Imagine my horror when she told me that because I was turning into those annoying people that I myself dislike.
Blech! Thing is, I did not even realised that I was speaking the way I did until she pointed it out. Argh, it’s all in the subconscious mind!
[Reply]