I'm a Malaysian Chinese!

Explaining my identity to people from foreign countries especially people from China is really troublesome.
They tend to not see the difference between Malay and Malaysian when I proudly introduce myself as "I'm a Malaysian".
 Here is something that me and my friend had both encountered recently.


China man: Are you Chinese?
你是华人吗？
Me: Yes, I am.
我是。
China man: Which state are you from?
哪个洲来的？
Me: Selangor.
雪兰鹅洲
China man: *confuse* Pardon me? Guang Zhou?
对不起，广州？
Me: No, no. I'm local, Malaysian.
不是不是，我是本地人，马来西亚人。
China man: Oh, you are Malay.
哦，你是马来人。
Me: *smack head* No no! I'm not a Malay, I'm a Malaysian.
不是不是！我不是马来人，我是马来西亚人。
China man: So you are Chinese or Malay?
那么你到底是华人还是马来人？
Me: *almost yelling* I'm a Malaysian Chinese!
我是马来西亚华侨！
China man: Ah.. I see. *finally he get's it*
啊，我明白了。


Although we are both Chinese and speak the same language but there is difference in it.
The same term we use might refer to different subject such as:


"Chinese" in his terms is referring to China people.
"State" refers to which part are you from in China.
"Malaysian" and "Malay" is the same to him.
"Malaysian Chinese" is a Chinese who lives in Malaysia.


So, whenever you go to China, always introduce yourself as "I am a Malaysian Chinese".
If not, you might have to give them a good explanation about the difference between "Malay" and "Malaysian".

I will feel like I'm a chicken talking to a duck 

when people don't get what I'm trying to said 

no matter how hard I tried my best to explain. 

In mandarin, it's call 鸡同鸭讲

Rachel

Why can't I understand what you are trying to tell me??!!!

 A Celcom advertisement in Penang..

Anyone can guess what it means??

For me, Penang is the like best place on earth. I love it so much because it is advanced, the food is awesome and I m from Penang!! It is a state dominated by Hokkien people, therefore most of us speak Hokkien, a type of Chinese dialect. So, if one who stays in Penang but cannot understand or speak Hokkien, it is consider as “weird”. Hence, I speak Hokkien too but not really in a fluent way because Hokkien is only a type of language which I will use when I am communicating with someone older or when I m ordering food.  Mandarin is still my mother tongue.

Before I move to KL, I m so proud of myself being a Penang Chinese because in my opinion, most of the Chinese in Penang can speaks “normal” and "better" mandarin. (No Offense to Chinese in other states ok??Just my personal opinion..) This is mainly because whenever I meet some other Chinese from other states, especially from Ipoh and KL, the way they speak Mandarin is totally different from the way I speak. They have a very strong influence of Cantonese (a type of Chinese dialect commonly spoke in KL and Ipoh) in their mandarin.. For example, my friend in KL will say “naturally” as “生成” but I will say “天生”. Hence, there will be sometime where I really cannot understand the terms they are using during conversation because it is actually direct translation from Cantonese.  **FYI, I am now complaint by other friends that my Mandarin has very strong influence of Hokkien too!! Am i?

In fact, I learn Cantonese through watching Hong Kong TVB drama series. Thus, I speak in Hong Kong style instead of Malaysian style and my friend laugh at me all the time when I speak Cantonese because it is weird. Sometimes I actually wonder why Malaysian Cantonese is so different from Hong Kong’s. I have a funny story from one of my friend who visited Hong Kong last year. So, after she finished her shopping, she went into a café and ordered a drink. However, the waitress forgot to give her a straw and they start their funny conversation. (all in Cantonese)

My friend:  “水草，唔该!!”  Can I get a straw please?

(At the same time, she looked around and realized that everyone was looking at her weirdly. )

Waitress: “有啲咩可以帮你啊?” Can I help u?

My friend: “我要一枝水草..”  I need a straw.

(The waitress do not understand what she requesting and reply,)

Waitress: “水草? 水草是咩来? 可以形容下吗?” Can you please briefly describe the items that you want?

(the waitress interpret it as water grass because 水is water and 草is grass. So in her point of view, how can water and grass be an item?) 

My friend was so pissed off that time because a cafe waitress cannot even understand what “水草”is.  So, she pointed to the drink and use her hand to show a long plastic tube which is use to suck the drink. 

My friend: “水草你都唔知? 点做餐厅啊? 水草就是个啲长长塑胶管啊..无理由你唔知啊..” How can you don't know what straw is? The long plastic tube we use it to drink water..

The waitress finally understands what she asking for and immediately laughs at my friend.

Waitress:  “哦，你要揾吸管是不是?!!”  Oohh, are you looking for straw?

At that point of time, my friend realized that they actually call straw differently and she was so embarrassed. She also got a lesson- always adapt to their culture and language whenever you are in a new place.

Sue

Do your perception is always right?

Perception is always related to the first expression that we make towards the very first time we experienced, such as meeting new people. Different people will be experiencing different perception towards the new person that they’re meeting because of the differences in perception such as the psychological factors. Different people has different lenses, the way they looking to that particular person might be different to how we look at that one person especially how the way he act. I might think he’s such a nice person but for my friend he’s not. Past experiences and roles take place on how we look at one person as we aware of what we have experienced from the past. For an example, as my mother doesn’t and never like cheese cause if she had cheese in her meals, she would vomit. So every food that is containing cheese even how good the taste is, she wouldn’t want to eat because she’s allergic to it

Sometimes people would make perceptual errors, not all of us would have a correct perception. Perceptual errors might be misleading to stereotyping and how we react to the first impressions. Stereotyping is when we’ve already put our own perception towards certain things such as when many people stereotype that all Chinese people only thing about money, whatever they do they’d thing money would comes first. But it’s all wrong, not all Chinese people are think about money, this is only happened when people is start stereotyping about others.

Other than that, perceptual errors would occurs when they’re already making their own assumption towards their first impression, such as people already make their assumption during the initial opinion about another person. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” would be the best quote so that people would not make assumptions before they know well about that one person so that perceptional errors would not occurs.



Syafenaez Wahid

Perception, Self and Communication

I never keep any diaries because it shall be a tool for those who wanted to hurt me. 

I never like blogging because I knew that my thoughts will be vulnerable towards public. 

I know I might sound like I have paranoia disorder but I perceive myself as one that really pay attention towards personal privacy. Well, definitely people will tell me that I could alter the privacy settings but what’s the point writing a diary online and doing your best to keep it a secret? 

Deep down inside everyone there’s a lust to be famous through any channel. 

If I blog, I wanted the whole world to notice my existence, but obviously that wouldn't happen because I will never wanted to share my true thoughts on my blog. And I've never meant to disguise my true identity to be a dishonest blogger just for publicity purpose. 

So, this is me.

I truly believe that people could see through each other, understand one’s personality better through words. From a hundred words above, you might have form a rough idea, either positive or negative perception about me. I don’t really care whether you like me or not but I’m really interested to know what kind of impression you have on me from the few hundred words I wrote above. 

So, please comment. Will you? =)

By the way, when I said I could know a person better through his or her writings, I really mean it.

“When the melody ends, you will exchange your vow with her,

How I can stand this, watching you slipping the ring on her finger,

I try to hate you, but I can’t, I don’t want to be a love beggar,

Perhaps I shall silent my love, my heart, my wishes with my soul later” (anonymous, 2008)

The whole story shall be a secret, blame my high privacy settings or paranoia disorder. The conclusion is I and her had become the very best of friends because I see through her trouble from the above paragraph of writing and prevented her from doing something stupid.

Trust me. I’m not really a KPOP fan but I’m not against it at all. However, I really think this song provides the exact feeling for the story above.  Taeyang’s Wedding Dress. Enjoy.

Rachel

First Impression!!!

 

First impression always plays a vital role in daily interaction between people. Do you agree?? It forms a perception in people’s  mind what kind of people you are and it will also determine the way people treats you. So, please make sure you give others a good first impression every time or you will end up having the same “misfortune” like me.

I guess everyone will be excited for their college life as it is like a second chapter in our life and we’ll be starting to be treated as an adult. Besides, the most important reason- finally we are set FREE!! No more discipline teacher who will chop off our hair just because she is in her menopause; no more funny and ugly school uniforms!! College is like a new place to meet people from different background, to study what we really want to study and it will definitely be a heaven!  Therefore, I believe all of us hope to have a good and memorable one. 

The first day of college is like a WAR. Everyone hopes to stand out from the crowd and be one of the star (I mean be notice by others). Thus, most people will try to dress up as nice as possible especially during the orientation. However, this is exactly opposite for me. OK I admit that sometimes I tend to be drab as I am lazy to think of “what to wear for tomorrow”. Plus, I have something on my head which is outstanding enough to grab other’s attention-my gold hair. So, I end up being perceive as a “clubbing, alcoholic and wild girl” just because I have gold hair. (See how important first impression in?? *wink*) In fact, the reason why I dye my hair to GOLD is because of a part time job as a hair model (do not ever sacrifice your hair just because of few hundred bucks because it is not worth it at all!) and I do not have any interest on clubs. Last but not least, I hate drinking and do not understand the reason why people willing to spend on them just to make themselves unconscious. Therefore, those people who perceive themselves as “good, obedient and hardworking” will try to stay at least 3 feet from me as we are not in the same channel!(ok, maybe not 3 feet but just difficult to get along with..)

Now, even though I’ve already grow back all my black hair, there is still people who will perceive me as “clubbing, alcoholic and wild girl” because this is the first impression I gave them during the first day we know each other. Besides, I also realized that I have a bad habit whereby I used to cross my arms in front of my chest with a serious or so called “critical face”, which recently I become conscious that it is actually a type of self protecting gestures and facial expression in which will keep people away from you.

In a nut shell, what I can conclude from my own story is that keep yourself NORMAL and do not do something which is too OUTSTANDING especially when you need to meet new people because people tend to get along with someone who is similar to themselves. In addition, be friendly (say cheese~~ ) and always pay attention on our own body movement and gestures as they might be a sign of “hey, please do not come near me..”.

Good luck and stay tune for my next entry..=)

Sue