The Knowledgeable Warrior: Please Cakap To Me Dalam Engwish

13th - 19th April 2009

My Malay schoolmates keep urging me to communicate with them in English because they want to improve their English proficiency for the upcoming MUET exam although I always tend to speak with them using the Malay language instead. It's just that my Malay is weak so that's why I want to improve myself better by speaking more in Malay. When I was in Form 3, I used to hang out a lot with my Malay friends because I thought back then having Mat Rempits, bohsia & gangsters as your friends is a cool thing. Anyway I would not elaborate further regarding these group of people. The point is you can master a certain language depending on what kind of people you spend time with. My Malay proficiency was used to be excellent during Form 3 & I can produce very good karangan (compositions) in the Malay language during those days simply because I mix around with my Malay friends. After PMR, I didn't spend time with my Malay friends anymore & instead I would hang out mostly with English speaking friends up to this very day. Now as you can see my Malay has berkarat (rusted) a lot & sometimes I would find some difficulties to pronounce certain Malay words when I communicate with my fellow Malay schoolmates. I do have Chinese speaking friends & I would spend some time with them too but so far I managed to learn only a few Chinese words & basic sentences consisting of both Mandarin & Cantonese. However some might ask how am I able to mix around despite facing language barriers. It's simple really. We may not speak the same language but we definitely have some interests in common. For example, I love football & I enjoy watching football matches once in a while. My Malay friends love watching football too & we would discuss future match fixtures & results of our respective favourite teams. On the other hand my Chinese speaking friends love badminton so therefore I would try to learn how to play badminton even though my number one passion is football. I find it funny though that many M'sians would shift the blame towards the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition for the cause of racial polarization to worsen. I want to reiterate that if we want improve racial & ethnic relationships, then it must start from ourselves by opening up ourselves to others. Do not use the religion, skin differences or language barriers as an excuse for not mingling around with other races. If I can still socialize with people from various backgrounds despite our differences, why not you?

I found out there's a lot of April babies. However, I will only upload photos in two occasions I've attended;