Tuesday, March 31, 2009

jaga mulut tu..

The Arabs dont understand Malay. Well, most of them dont. So as Malaysians, we've got the upper hand. We can speak all the Malay we want without them understanding right?

So when an Arab cuts the queue in Fathallah, we can say " Oi, mamat ni, menyampah betul la, orang tunggu lama kot, nak kena belasah ke?", without him understanding or even noticing even the slightest.

When we're in the tram, and this one Arab brushes past us, causing us to either stumble or fall , we can shout out "buta ke, tak nampak ke orang kat sini, takde adab betul".And again they will understand nothing.

When we're in a shop, and the shopkeeper is telling lies and putting the prices up all high, just because our faces look all innocent, naive and Asian, we can mutter under one breath, "ingat kita bodoh ke, tak tau harga ke?", and then leave the shop with a smile as bright as the sun whilst saying "ba'dain sa'arji' henna".


These are just a few examples of the things we do when the Arabs get on our nerves. But little do we know, that these small actions can become bad habits in the near future. Imagine what would happen in Malaysia when we say something like the above to someone who is queuing up in Mydin. We would long gone be dead.

A story for me to share. One of my friend's teacher, went to London with his friends and was on the bus, on their way home. A fat British guy came into the bus, and took up a lot of space, and started leaning and brushing pass them.

They got annoyed, uttered swear words, critisizing the man. Amongst the things they said were, "eh bapak ar, gemuk nak mampus, mcm b**i, main lalu je kena aku, etc etc etc."

Then when the guy reached his stop and wanted to get down, he said in return " eh tepi ar, ni b**i gemuk nak lalu".

Speechless were they.

The Moral of the story : Take care of your mouth because there might just be another Malay speaking Arab in the middle of nowhere.

Be proud of your language, but use it wisely. And, this habit, is a habit that might not be so easy for us to get rid of.
So before we get our bottoms kicked in Malaysia, and before us Malay students studying in Egypt get critisized for our lack of moral, we should try to get rid of this habit slowly.


Prevention is always better than cure right..?


Good luck with changing that habit! :)