This afternoon I was with Dr C, one of the consultant paediatricians at Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe Co. Galway at her clinic. I encountered quite some interesting cases that I thought I would like to share one of them on this blog.
I went over to the OPD pretty late that my other friends had already headed over. As I arrived I think Dr C was just about to begin her first consultation that she invited me in. There was this one non-Irish couple with their son and younger daughter in the room. The son was held by his standing dad with a phone on the young fella's hand which aired a Hindi song softly, adding some spice into the dull ambiance.
As I entered the room the dad asked me, "From Malaysia?". I answered "Yes". And he replied, "I was there for 7 years, in Kuala Lumpur". We subsequently didn't get the chance to chat further as Dr C stepped into the room after she finished talking to some people outside. I guess the dad could tell where I am from from the way I wore the hijab, just my assumption. The dad did most of the talking as Dr C took the history off the couple. He clearly had limited English in his expressions but his reception and understanding were really not too bad. From their conversation I picked up that the couple were Bangladeshi and their son had some problem with hearing while the daughter, with constipation.
Interestingly after exchanging sentences with Dr C for a short while the dad suddenly said to the doctor, "I can explain to her and she can tell you", referring to me, realizing the difficulty he had in describing about the condition his son had. He then looked at me and started speaking in Malay. I found that situation funny that I nearly laughed as he talked to my face, after which I thankfully managed to behave. His Malay was quite good, as in comprehensible.
On the other hand my voice actually has gone off-form a bit now. Probably laryngitis as Dr C supposed. Not much of a sore throat but the voice is gone to the La-la land that it is apparently hard to get people to understand my on-off voice whenever I speak. So my role as an interpreter could've been better performed, and I realised that to translate a first-language into a second-language was really not easy!
Coincidentally last time my friends and I went to London where we took a taxi to get to the destination we were heading to. The taxi driver introduced himself in a British-accented English, and he as well looked relatively like a Briton himself. So we all thought that he was just another typical Briton taxi driver to happen upon.
Suddenly the taxi driver uttered; "I can speak Malay". My friend kind of asked, "Do you know 'apa khabar?'". To our surprise he answered, "Boleh la sikit-sikit", with that informal style like the way us the pure Malays speaking the language. We were extremely shocked as he continued speaking in Malay as that was far beyond our expectation. He told us that he lived in Malaysia for 18 years, so I suppose no wonder he mastered the language very well. Impressive!
The above stories got me thinking, we overseas students study abroad for years. As for those who study in an English-speaking country especially, isn't it a huge loss if we don't use the opportunity to master the language? I remember reading this blog written by Jed Young where she described how impressed she was when she attended this one conference organised by an Islamic group in Malaysia. The lady at the reception was dressed in a Muslimah attire from top to the bottom and was able to converse in English fluently, which she found first-rate. So even that (probably) tiny aspect of communication has a big role in depicting Islam's image, and I believe it is crucial for us to prove that being someone who displays a Muslim/ah appearance doesn't mean that we are unliberated or held back.
So peeps, let's together work on this!
So peeps, let's together work on this!
"Yes, we can!"- Barrack Obama.
