Bahasa

I speak funny.

In school, I'd have a weird accent whenever I got into public-speaking mode. It was something that came on naturally, and it wasn't a put-on gwailo accent or anything like that. I don't quite know where it came from; probably a mixture of the english spoken at home along with the telly shows that influenced my speech (the X-Files maybe?). Or maybe it was just me talking clearly for once without mumbling away my words.

It has continued 'till today; some folks can't place my accent. And combined with my rojak looks, I get the oddest guesses from folks; the latest is that of me being an Israeli.

So you can only imagine how 'wonderfully'-sounding my Malay is.

When I enrolled into primary school, I had only learnt a very rudimentary level of Malay. As in I was hardly able to hold a conversation in it. By the end of high school, I was on the Malay debate team and was routinely scoring the necessary marks to ensure that my Malay teachers didn't doubt that I was still Melayu.

My spoken Malay was still an oddity though. Despite being able to think in Malay, the words that came out appeared hessitant at times, and too formal. Which is not surprising when one thinks about it as my entire education on the language was from classes in school. No bahasa pasar for me. Naturally, that (unfortunately) made me stand out among the Malays in school - I was different and never quite fitted in. Indeed, my best friends were those who conversed primarily in English. Attempts to mingle with the Malay-speaking crowd ended (more often than not) in my Malay being laughed at.

Things didn't change much in college. In fact, they got worse. I had purposely stopped myself from getting enrolled into a Malay-dominated boarding school, and there I was in a Malay-dominated pre-university college. And as expected, I never felt that I belonged to the group that I was with. And they never really accepted me either; I was too different in a variety of ways (of course there are exceptions to the rule, this does not include Sweetie and the number of best friends that I became close with in college).

It used to hurt when the words that spouted out of your mouth were subject to ridicule, even when they were impeccable in grammar and syntax. I used to be furious whenever someone made some comment about my malay and the same thought raced through my mind again and again - you're butchering your language and yet you laugh at me? You can't string a proper sentence in English and you mock me? Didn't say those things out loud though - some people are able to say things about others, but are unable to accept deeper scrutiny of themselves. They would've been horrified and thought me as an arrogant bastard if I had said those words.

And one day, I realised I didn't care anymore.

I don't mind laughing at myself and I don't mind my friends laughing at me (as we did a couple of weeks back when I was the chairperson for a meeting that was supposed to be in Malay - disastrous!). It's different when it's said by someone who doesn't know you though, or means it with malice. And it is this sort of individuals that I have learnt to ignore. They have no bearing on my life, and as for their comments, I can only quote from Gone With The Wind - frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

That probably explains my habit of not having that many friends, but a few really close ones. People that I consider friends are those that I'd be willing to do almost anything for (even stuff I wouldn't normally do like chairing a political meeting held in Malay!), and people that actually mean something to me. I can do superficial, but I tire of it at times.

And the reason I tell this little story is because a friend of mine is having trouble settling in with some people for similar reasons, and she's naturally upset that a barrier has appeared when there were none before. Language is such a tricky subject isn't it? You just need to read a few of Chomsky's works to find out just ingrained it is within our psyche when using it to go about our daily lives.

But I digress - this is just a show of support to her, that things will get better and for her to not get too upset and distressed with herself. You're different - so what? Embrace yourself and if the people around refuses to look beyond the superficial and would rather be judgemental without getting to know you, then it's their loss.

Celebrate.