Languages languages..

"I will look stupid if I speak Malay!"

Heard that one before? Some public figure said it on national TV I think.. Oh well!

Do I look stupid speaking Malay? I speak Malay maybe 33%, Sarawak Malay 33%, English 28%, 6% Melanau (pathetic eh?) not that I actually did a full research. There's that much of diversity, oh and I'm taking up Mandarin.

So what language should I speak when approaching someone I just met or a sales person? If I start speaking English, nanti orang cakap sombong. If I speak in Malay nanti there's the double standard. You sometimes won't get the 5 star treatment with service. But there's some good points to it, these ppl will just let you be!

I love telling my Western (meaning KL) stories.. So I was bored waiting for my sister with her haircut so I chatted up with the hair shampoo person there. I spoke in Malay cause I overheard her speaking in Malay. We chatted up and she asked what I was currently doing. I said I just graduated, she asked from where, I replied from USA. She had a customer a few weeks ago, a graduate from La Amerika too, but according to the hair shampoo lady, she was too sombong to speak in her Malay tongue, ada American accent pulak too..

Doesn't it saddens you to hear stories where Malays aren't proud of the Malay language? I know I speak good English, but I chose Malay, even at work with my 3 Chinese colleagues whose Malay is worse than their English (no offense ppl). Some Sarawak Malays can't speak good Malay I agree and choose English as their medium instead (some West Malaysians are rude and just assume they're Indonesians--believe me, I've been one of their victims) so sometimes I understand the choosing of English over Malay..

It saddens me when I hear parents speaking to their kids in English rather than their mother tongue, to know that the child's first language isn't either Malay, or Chinese.. I didn't grow up speaking English (except that short time in Michigan), so I don't see why kids should speak English as their 1st language. And what's with the English education in Science and Math? I take that back, I haven't thought much of this issue so I won't comment much.

Word of advice, embrace your heritage, your language, your culture!