A Better Title

I have this strange fascination with westerners who try to learn the habits of the locals, in particular the language. I’m still amazed by Americans who manage to pick up Singlish or Indonesian language while staying in Singapore or Indonesia.

One of my uncles told me this story while I was at my grandma’s place this afternoon.

You see, at my place, public transport means cars, usually vans with the rear compartment being modified such that the passengers face each other, much like in the MRT. In local lingo, we call these cars “angkot”, short for “angkutan kota”, literally “city transport”. They are popular among the locals because of the relatively cheap fare for both short and long distances.

And so there was a time when a westerner hailed an angkot near my place. The moment he boarded, the driver said in Sundanese, which is the local language, to his friend, presumably the conductor: “Eta aya monyet naek angkot”, which means “There’s a monkey boarding the angkot“.

So all was well, until the monkey wanted to alight.

The locals usually just say “kiri”, which literally means “left”, or sometimes “depan kiri” or “payun kiri”, both of which literally means “in front, left” to signal the driver that they want to alight. The reason for this is because the kerb is to the left, so naturally the passenger wants the angkot to go to the left and let him alight.

The driver probably expected the monkey to say “stop” (i.e. in English) or tap the driver to signal that he wanted to alight.

Imagine his rude shock as the monkey said in fluent Sundanese, “Punten, ieu monyet bade turun”, which literally means “Excuse me, this monkey wants to alight”.

I must add that it was such a weird experience, being on a flight to Singapore with the next leg being to Jakarta, and then having your flight diverted to Jakarta first because of the thunderstorms in Singapore (thereby delaying our flight by about 2 hours). The diversion was so that the plane could refuel so that it can circle above Singapore, waiting for an intermittent pocket of reasonable weather to land.

We could have gotten off in Jakarta!

But alas, the regulations do not allow passengers to disembark at an airport which is not the final destination of the flight. So off we went to Singapore, delayed by 2 hours.

Just to drop a note that I’m now back in Singapore with my mum, cruising around in the island state to tourist attractions, with only the perpetual torrential rain stopping us.

Well, to be precise, we were supposed to cruise around in the island state to tourist attractions, but the darned perpetual torrential rain had been stopping us. Damn!

Not today though. We went to the Singapore Science Centre, and were disappointed by the appalling collection of exhibits. Many (and I really mean many!) of the exhibits available are broken, and as such we couldn’t really enjoy ourselves.

Anyway, Australia has been fun! We went to beautiful places there, including an aquarium, a zoo, three beaches, lookout points which, erm, marks a spot of a wonderful lookout to the beaches, two wineries (though we only stepped in to realise that the darned places were closing), a seat, an observation deck more than 200 m high in the air, and in general, close to the entire city. Add that to an arts gallery, a museum, a botanical garden, and a shrine, and many others which I might have forgotten, all packed in a ten-day visit to the country.

(And maybe that explains why I am sick at the moment when I’m supposed to bring my mum around Singapore).

Anyway, I’ve got to thank my brother for sponsorring my air ticket to Australia and covering all my expenses, and my mum for being so afraid to venture in a foreign land that she enlisted me to be her guide before we meet up with my brother (she was supposed to travel alone to Australia and back with my brother).

Apart from the horrifying experience of having mum, unbeknownst to me, bringing Eclipse mint tin cans across the electromagnetic scanner gizmo used for security checks in airports (thereby triggering the alarm, and a barrage of instructions from the security personnel which my mum happily didn’t understand [she doesn’t understand English], and forcing me to tap the security personnel to say that “she doesn’t speak English” before translating what he said into Indonesian) the experience has been wonderful, and I look forward to being in Australia again.

Being the linguist-wannabe that I am, I can’t help to analyse Australian English, and I must say that I now understand why Singlish deviates so much from the standard English that it could just be categorised as a new language on its own. And that Australian English is not without its own uniqueness, like how “a couple of bottles” literally means a couple, i.e. two bottles. Or bush to mean country (as in the music). And how “wotah” is how some people pronounce “water”. Or “yair yair” to mean “yes”.

And if you feel that I don’t sound like myself today, it might be because I’m under the effect of a drug. It’s an opiate.

But before you turn me in to the police, I must add that the opiate is codeine, which is contained in Panadeine, a drug which my doctor prescribed me long time ago, but I believe can be taken in my situation right now.

Ok, time to drop dead.

See ya latah!

Just wanna let you know that my mum and I are in Australia right now, staying at my brother’s place in Melbourne, and we’re fine right now.

Australia is huge! The land is huge, the roads are huge, even the people are the food is huge. The weather is hot, much hotter than Singapore at 37 °C at one point in time. But the difference is that the air is very dry here, so one doesn’t sweat easily.

Anyone staying in Melbourne wanna meet up? I’ll be here till 18 December. Just drop me a message on this blog and I’ll try to arrange, if possible at all.

More post (and pictures, hopefully) next time!

It’s been ages since I last write. Well, I guess it’s about time I flex my writing muscles once again.

In 15 hours I’d be at an airport, waiting for my plane to depart.

In 42 hours, I’d be at another airport, waiting for my plane to depart.

In 49 hours, I’d be at yet another airport, waiting for my plane to depart.

And finally, in 53 hours, I’d be at my final destination.

See you guys in 21 days. I might or might not blog while I’m away. Meanwhile, be good.

From Bohemia Bunny.

And be the bipolar loner you always say you are.

1. Whine about how sad your life is.
2. When people try to cheer you up, tell them they don’t understand.
3. Threaten to cut/harm/kill yourself.
4. Look happy, and then complain that you feel compelled to be cheerful when you’re hurting so badly inside.
5. Go the other extreme and be very, very Goth. Talk about the darkness inside your soul and how it’s consuming you atom by atom.
6. Always be on the verge of tears. “Bravely” hold them in.
7. When you do something wrong, do a global stable attribution (e.g. “I’m so stupid and clumsy”) rather than a restricted unstable attribution (”The tray is heavy and my hands are tired”).
8. Refuse all compliments strenuously. Tell people you hate your voice if you’re a singer, you hate your face if you’re a model, or that you hate your horrible fat thighs and cellulite if you’re a skinny stick. If they try and convince you of your error, tell them they’re only saying that because they’re your friends.
9. Frown. A lot. Then say that nothing’s the matter.
10. Write stupid emo blog posts that are by turns snarky, attention-seeking and emotional diarrhea.
    

    Eg: Stupid bitch dared to talk to me today, who does she think she is. OMG someone save me before I kill myself, I can’t stand even being on the same earth as her. I so mean it, I’ll do anything to be rid of her. I feel so shitty, she sucks in all my positive energy and I’m left feeling like an empty shell of myself. Why, oh why is my life such a torment?

Do the above, in any combination, and you should soon find yourself alone and friendless. Which is the way you wanted it, right?