So there are times when we think we know that the other
person has understood what we have said but they haven’t, even when we are
speaking the same language let alone when we are speaking in different
languages.
SMSing in mixed languages can be very entertaining.
For example, the temple can often be misunderstood for a
tampon. God/the universe/Elvis what ever you believe in knows that praying in a
tampon can be somewhat uncomfortable.
Dinner that you have just bought for two didn’t actually
include you but included the person you bought it for and their friend.
Sometimes ‘a little bit’ means that the person saying ‘a
little bit’ results in them actually declaring themselves, ‘a little bitch’.
‘St. Patricks Day’ becomes ‘St Party’s Day’ which makes
sense when you get the day mixed up in the first place.
Sitting and waiting for a friend for over half an hour may
not be due to jam karet or rubber time in Indonesia but actually due to the
fact that there you misheard or misread the name of the warung.
And it doesn’t just stop at verbal language but body
language too.
If you happen to be seen with a person of the opposite sex
maybe once twice or three times, you are now their pacar (boyfriend/girlfriend)
or could even be considered their spouse.
I joined my English teacher Made Suwana on Thursday night,
in an English class at the local banjar, Negeri. Seriously, Made has taught me
more about English than Mrs Palagy ever did. It could also have been half mine
and Hayley’s fault too considering that we nicknamed Long John Silver, Long
Shlong Silver, after the casual teacher who happened to be teaching us at the
time. Yup, that’s how I remember studying Treasure Island…
Made introduced me to the class, introduced the question
words in English and then handed the class over to me.
And I thought I was just there for the food…
Made S had to remind me after speaking to the class for a
couple of minutes that although we could understand each other at the speed we
talk to each other, the students couldn’t.
It confirmed my realisation that communicating can be so
fragile.
The class were really shy and even scared to talk to the
crazy bule who had just hijacked their class. The thing is, I remember being
that shy whilst learning Indonesian. I remember being too scared that I would
make a mistake.
It really makes me think that whatever I wrote back in one
of the first couple of blogs about the man with the bad Indonesian accent, was
really awful. I can’t believe that I had a go about him speaking bad
Indonesian. I know nothing about him. Just like you may know nothing about me
right now while you are reading this blog. Ah well, nasi sudah menjadi bubur.
There’s that old saying, don’t judge a book by its cover. We
can be too quick to judge people sometimes. And maybe both people are at fault.
Maybe one person didn’t communicate himself or herself clearly and maybe the
other didn’t listen properly.
In Bali, people are always asking questions about you so
that they can place you in the status rank. Some example questions are: What is
you name? Where are you from? Where are you staying? Are you married? How many
children do you have? What religion are you?
Sometimes my friends and I just make up silly questions to
ask people when we meet them so that we don’t have to ask or answer these
questions AGAIN!
Some example questions are; what is your favourite colour?
What do you think about having a coconut as the next president of America? Why do birds suddenly appear anytime you are
near? Why did the chicken cross the
road? What is the average velocity of an African Swallow….? Hahaha!
One expectation of bules in Indonesia is that we are all
rich. I have discovered that money is a very sensitive topic. Now, that is true
if you consider the differences in the average wage between a person working in
Australia and a person working in Bali that bules are more well of. I won’t
even get in to the fact that we have health care, centrelink and a university
loan repayment scheme. However I do know people working, volunteering and/or
studying in Bali, whos wage is the same or less than the average Balinese wage.
When my funds get low at the end (hahahah-okay the
beginning) of the month and Pak asks me why I chose to eat the nasi campur that
I just bought from the lady carrying the basket of food on her head instead of
at the fancy restaurant over the road I don’t say because I don’t have enough
money. I say that it is lebih enak, or tastes nicer. Which it is. I made this
mistake once when an Ibu asked me if I wanted to but some manggis, the price
was Rp. 13.000 for a kilo. I told her that I didn’t have enough uang and she
laughed at me. It would seem ridiculous that I didn’t have enough money. I
would never tell them that I’ve been selling all of my books at the local bookshop
so that I would have enough money to eat all week!
But that’s just the way it is.
I was reading Siddartha a few months back and one of my
favourite parts was when Siddartha went to the river and learned how to read
it. All he did was listen and observe. He learned the ways of the river and
earned much respect from the people crossing the river.
I like to remind myself now just to listen and observe and
take things in rather than think that I know what I’m doing, take over the
situation and exit the situation feeling empty.
Whilst learning how to teach language at uni, I heard a
story about a person who lived next to a Japanese family and they had a four-year-old
girl. Everyday this person would speak English to the little girl but would not
get a response from her-in any language. Then one day after about three months
the little girl started speaking English.
If we immerse ourselves in anything long enough we will
learn it. Isn’t that how advertising works? Ooh I could go for McDonalds
cheeseburger right now…
Its like if you listen to a song a few times and then
randomly start singing it one day realising that you know the words.
I suppose it works the other way too; if we are exposed to
something negative for a long time then it will have an effect on us too.
I realised the other day that for the last few months, I
have not had anyone raise their voice towards me me and I have not raised my
voice at anyone else (and I mean in anger not in the ‘yahoooo go Mokos band
yeeeeewwww!’ way). So I haven’t been exposed to any angry vibes. This is the
first time in my life that this has ever happened. And I realised that I
haven’t had a need to be angry. Yes I’ve been frustrated at times, but not
angry.
Anyway, I spent this night with Made S listening to the
banjar meeting in Indonesian/Balinese and I realised that since coming to work
in animal welfare I have learned to understand a lot of animal welfare-related
vocabulary. It made me feel not so lost in translation for a moment.
Anyway, I do realise that as my brain soaks up Bahasa
Indonesia, my Bahasa Inggris is deteriorating faster than you can ay
antidisestablishmentarianism.
I saw Blacky The Dog (coolest dog in Ubud) the other day and
someone had hang a gold chain around his neck. I immediately messaged Kum to
ask who pimped Blacky?
Try explaining what ‘pimped’ means in Bashasa. Kum
understood what I meant as I tried to menyampaikan via SMS, the image in my
head of Minime singing ‘It’s a hard knock life, for me…’ with his large, gold
clock swinging around his neck.
But I was successful; so stick that in ya pipe and smoke it.
Peace out
x
