Menjadi kebiasan untuk Sarawakians and Sabahans untuk berbahasa lebih daripada satu bahasa sebab budaya kami yang pelbagai. Plus there are so many mixed marriages that Chinese can look like a Malay and a Malay looks like Chinese.
A lot of us speak Mandarin or other Chinese dialects like Hokkien, Hakka etc on top of our Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Sarawak, Bidayuh (jagoi, singai, biatah all have different language), Iban, Orang Ulu etc. Bila berkawan dengan Sabahan, we pick up Sabahan slang, bila duduk lama di semenanjung, boleh bercakap ikut style KAY-EL katanyaaa.
Masa kecik-kecik, parents Cik Panda hantar adik beradik Panda pegi sekolah cina. I used to resent it because it's so difficult! My late father used to suscribe Chinese newspaper to improve our vocab but I never actually read them.
When we were young, me and my siblings converse in Mandarin at home.
When I was in secondary school, majority of my classmates and good friends are Chinese so I continued to practise speaking Mandarin. My Mandarin gets rusty when I was in Matriculation and Uni. But I can still comprehend Mandarin.
In my daily social and working life, I seldom let people know I understand Mandarin. On many occasions, immediately after they knew, the first thing they always say is
"Aiyoo. Luckily I didn't say something bad about you."
There was one particular incident many years ago that I remembered to this day. Me and bunch of Borneoan friends who mostly speaks Mandarin were at a shop, conversing in Malay when we heard the girl at the cashier talking about us in Mandarin
"What are those people ah? Malay is it?"
"Looks like Malay. Maybe they are Malay who eats pork." then giggled and teruskan mengumpat.
Apalagi, weols mula la buat plan jahat. Tiba-tiba masing-masing bercakap bahasa Mandarin. The look on their faces i tell you, PRICELESS!!
Nah lain kali mengumpat belakang-belakang.
At work, I always converse in English and BM unless among Chinese tourists who had zero understanding of English. Among local customers, I'll just kept quiet and pretend not to understand a thing when they speak Mandarin.
There was one particular customer, jenis tidak faham bahasa. Orang cakap company policy to give this certain discount, masih juga mau argue. So she started to talk to her friend in Mandarin
"Oh yesterday I saw the new batch. I know she lied to me, she purposely didn't want to give it to me. We go buy in other place la. Sure they will give more discount."
I told her again, in English, it's the same policy in the outlets because it's the same company.
Then she babbles to her friend again
"Bluff lah. I'm sure there we can negotiate more." and more BS.
Iols panas hati dah ni. Dia ingat kita tak paham apa dia cakap. Apalagi, iols balas la dlm bahasa Mandarin
"Mem, bukan kita taknak bagi. We are bound by company policy. Kalau boleh bagi dah lama saya bagi."
Makcik memang jenis kiasu kan dia jawab kita balik dlm bahasa Mandarin.
"Company policy amende! Korang ni nak bisnes ke taknak bisnes? Nak duit ke taknak duit. Baik pegi beli kat tempat lain!" and walked out. Aishhh makcik buat lawak. Pergilah try nasib kat tempat lain tu.
Well, of course there are other benefits of being multi-lingual. One time, I went to this tailor and spoke Malay initially. When I came to collect my things, I spoke Mandarin to her and she gave me discounts. yeay!
Then on one occasion at work, this Korean customer wanted to speak to someone who speaks Mandarin. So I attended him and ended up buying RM5000 worth of products and told them
"I bought all this because of her."
And he continues to patronize our outlet.
I couldn't thank my parents enough for sending us to Chinese school.
Moral of the story is, lain kali kalau mau mengumpat, mengumpat belakang-belakang. Ingat orang muka Malay tak faham Bahasa Mandarin? Or mat salleh tak paham bahasa Melayu?
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