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Dec. 29, 2004 Having lived and worked in an English speaking country for most of my life, traveling to Asia to live and work has been rather interesting and often amusing. When you travel to other cultures, you begin to understand how your brain often leads you to the wrong conclusion. In my first week I discovered the vast array of foods available and hilarious difficulty that went with trying to order them. Consider this simple problem when ordering noodles in KL. I walked up to the foodstall I had selected after wondering past many of them with open mouth and confused brain. "I would like some noodles please" I asked politely. "Mee?" "No, not you, me" "Ah, mee, you want mee?" "No, I don't want you, I want some noodles" I said more firmly in the true ridiculous British tradition. "Yes, mee, you want mee!" he answered more animated than before. "Mee Goreng?" "Yes, pleased to meet you Goreng but may I please have some noodles?" "Goreng, goreng, mee goreng, mee hoon?" "I'm sorry, I thought your name was Goreng. Is Hoon your last name?" A spread of hushed laughter to my right made me realize that perhaps I had not quite grasped the conversation. One young lass, decided to assist, inbetween muffled giggles. "Mee" she offered "is the local Chinese word for noodles." I had just called a person the name of their local pasta, something he can't be too happy with, I thought. Imagine someone calling me Spag Bog! "Goreng means fried, so he was asking if you wanted fried noodles. Mee hoon is noodle soup so he was offering you a choice" she giggled. Some further equally embarassing moments waited around the corner. My wife and I love chicken so we decided to try a local stall recommended for its delicious food, especially chicken. "I'd like some chicken please," my wife Kaz asked. "Ayam" he beamed. We pondered this and our English ear translated it as yam or the sweet potato-like vegetable found in darkest Nigeria. "No, not yam, chicken!" Ah, ayam kari?" the stall keeper asked "No, I don't want to buy yams and carry them home. I just want some chicken." Kaz then flapped her arms and made ridiculous cheap-cheap sounds. Sure enough, the giggles started again. The stall keeper was saying ayam, ayam and flapping his arms while roaring with laughter afterwards. We soon realised that ayam was the local word for chicken and that the stall keeper had been to school in London and spoke better English than us. Just something to do with nudging tourists to make total fools of themselves! Well, it has been ten months now and we're learning all the time. We can now count to ten, can ask for most foods by their local names but still don't know the days of the week. Try going to the local hypermarket and arranging to get something delivered! We bought two desks on Friday and were informed that delivery would be by Ahad. On Sunday we went out for the day and when we came home, we spoke about our day before going to sleep. Monday came and we waited that day expectantly for our furniture but to no avail. We called the store and asked repeatedly for Ahad but only got numerous no's and not much else. Frustration levels increased but every enquiry to try and trace the elusive Ahad proved futile. Finally one of my local staff called the store and when she put the phone down, promptly burst into a fit of laughter. Turned out that Ahad means Sunday and we had been harassing the store manager demanding to speak to a day of the week! At least now it happens less often but still living in Asia reminds us how very different the culture is here and yet each day we need to learn that just because it sounds like a well known English word, does not mean that it is. ------------ About the author: Ian Campbell is the author of the novel "The Fifth Cylinder." Ian tells us: "I love writing about issues that we as people wrestle with, both the big and small issues that can affect our lives. Looming just over the horizon are technologies that will utterly transform our communities and our lives. I love writing about how we as a society will live, love and war in that timeframe." Ian lives in Kuala Lumpur with his wife Kaz and is busy working on his second novel. Email: ianc28258@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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