What is Malaysia that I call home?
It is a land that boasts of many dialects and languages.
What fascinates me most is our own ‘brand’ of spoken English that we fondly call Malaysian English. It never fails to make me smile when I listen to the concoction of different words in a sentence that might make no sense at all to a non-Malaysian.
Take for instance a father speaking to his toddler daughter . The father was carrying the little girl as they stepped on the escalator. We were standing a few steps below them when the little girl’s slipper fell off. A lady picked it up, rushed up the escalator and gave it to the father.
So the father told the little girl, “See-lah you. Just drop your slipper like that. Good thing, the nice aunty saw it and quickly- quickly gave it to me.”
The words ‘nice aunty’ really warmed my heart. In Malaysia, any older female who is not a blood relation is a sister or an aunt. This is a mark of respect as we don’t call people who are older than us by their first name. I must admit that I enjoyed it thoroughly when even Uber drivers called me aunty.
It is a land of hospitality and generosity.
Our short vacation was jammed packed with activities that revolved around family and friends. We went south to Johor, my home state and then to Melaka and Kuantan. Friends separated by time and space bothered to get together to celebrate, just because we came home.
Primary and secondary school friends treated us to sumptuous meals and gave us presents and local delicacies to bring back to Ireland.
A friend even brought us to her orchard and it was an Eden experience to be surrounded by dragon fruit, bananas, papayas, breadfruit, passion fruit and soursop. As mosquitos were swarming round, we made sure we had a good spray of mosquito repellent. The icing of the cake was when we saw weaver bird’s nests that were so intricately woven.
We also visited Tengku Mariam Primary school where I first started my formal studies. Fences and man-made structures had replaced the lush tropical foliage that once surrounded the school. We used to play hop-scotch or tag or run on the sides of the drain but I guess millennial children do not do that anymore. I remember having to recite the Rukunegara (National Principles) before 600 children during the school assembly and it was fun re-enacting the event at the exact spot beneath the flags to an empty field.
We also visited Tengku Mariam Primary school where I first started my formal studies. Fences and man-made structures had replaced the lush tropical foliage that once surrounded the school. We used to play hop-scotch or tag or run on the sides of the drain but I guess millennial children do not do that anymore. I remember having to recite the Rukunegara (National Principles) before 600 children during the school assembly and it was fun re-enacting the event at the exact spot beneath the flags to an empty field.
We also visited High School Batu Pahat where I did my Form 6. One of my classmates is a teacher there and we had tea in the canteen - the difference was we sat in the room where the teachers sat and not in the student area.
When we went to Melaka, we met up with my university course mates and visited the House of Museums which threw me back to the 60s and 70s when my mother used the wood stove for cooking and set her hair in curlers under the ‘big hat’. We were also treated to wonderful meals and watched others do the waltz, the swing and the rumba to Michael Buble’s Sway.
It is a land that boasts of friendliness among complete strangers.
After Melaka we went to Kuantan and I wanted to visit the batik centre.. I went to the tour desk to call for a taxi but another hotel guest who overheard my request offered to give me a lift since he was going there himself. After the visit, I waited for a bus but there was no bus in-sight for a long time. Again a lovely lady with very young children stopped her car and gave me a lift back to the hotel.
It is a land where you drift seamlessly into your younger self and just let your hair down with your best friend. Michael and I went for the swings, the see saw and the slide when no one was looking and chased crabs in the sand.
So I look forward to coming back again to the land where I was born. Being home is an indescribable feeling even though it was only for 3 weeks. Somehow I even enjoyed the sun, something I never really liked before.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW STRAITS TIMES MALAYSIA 8 OCT 2017 https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2017/10/288630/homeward-bound
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW STRAITS TIMES MALAYSIA 8 OCT 2017 https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2017/10/288630/homeward-bound
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