nuances of the soil
August 31, 2005I’m often tongue-tied when asked to describe my mother tongue. Bahasa Malaysia and English comes to mind, rather than Hokkien or Mandarin. It’s the language you’re born with, the language your parents spoke to you with, some offered. Well, my parents spoke to me predominantly in English with a mixture of Mandarin and Malay. Growing up in Gombak, KL, I spoke Malay in school and in my local neighbourhood. My maternal grandparents got frustrated trying to communicate in Hokkien with me that they resorted to a Malay-Mandarin hybrid language.
Haiyah, typical OCBC lah… orang Cina bukan Cina,” my cousin would lament, to which I’d gladly tease him back, “Aku anak Malaysia, orang Malaysia… rojak pun rojaklah…”
Do I regret not being Chinese literate? A little, because I have problems understanding Chinese songs that I like and the world of Chinese literature is lost on me. Mostly not because I’m still able to hold a decent conversation in it, albeit a little haltingly. However, I’d regret it bitterly if I lost my proficiency in Malay as it has become an identity, my identity.
Malaysia dearest, as you celebrate your 48th anniversary of independence, i hope that you do not forget me… a product of your education and social engineering policies- belonging to a generation who speak the national language with fluency and pride and identify with more things Malaysian than my own ethnic background… have a lovely celebration and cheers for the years to come!
With love and salam merdeka,
carina suyin
“And when I encounter Chinese Malaysians whose Malay is more powerful than mine, when I hear one of them say words like ‘rindu‘ (and I’m sure you know Malay is a very affective language, as a matter of fact, languages that were agrarian and pre-literate have that kind of cognition), and he says it with that same emotional charge that strikes me to the heart, I’m flabbergasted and humbled. I get angry also because I can’t understand how much further Chinese Malaysians have to go to prove themselves. These people are not guest people. They know the cultural inflections, they’ve embodied the nuances of the soil, and they speak the language not just to do business with the majority but also to speak to them on equal terms. What do you do your Merdeka play for and insist on ‘reminding the minorities that they are where they are due to the grace and accommodating nature of the Malays?’ It’s such an insecure mak tiri complex.”
Alfian Sa’at in an interview with kakiseni.com
