Grace? Or disgrace?
Just yesterday, a friend of mine asked me to take a survey that would determine how "Malaysian" I was. After answering 10 questions it, the answer dawned upon me that the questions were in a way, insulting to the "average" person who lives in this country and abides by its ways and woes. If the thought struck you that you misread the word "woes" in the last sentence, I'll correct you here because you did, indeed read the word "woes" in the last sentence. Face the facts, however beautiful or peaceful this country may be, it still has parts that set apart the good days from the bad days. Although all I see around me is mostly not less a dissapointing sight, I still have faith in the local scene because I believe that one day the people will realise naive attitudes towards issues that we should have resolved long ago. Yes, I believe that you are still "Malaysian" enough not to disregard the real issues that are underlying the propaganda and deviations that much of the media is portraying at the moment.
Back to the survey, I looked at the questions that were imposed to the innocent participants and instantly, a thought of conflict occured within me. I relooked the questions again and again, but could find no doubt in my mind that the answers that would actually make me more Malaysian are those of the most unintellectual, naive and unfortunately extremely superficial answers. I held onto my "well-founded" faith in the existing society for awhile but it just seemed inevitable that it would sooner or later be replaced with my unsatisfactory regard to the general local mindset.
For starters, our language is of a nature that would depict monkeys painting with a broomstick; not with gentle, delicate strokes but with the custom frantic, agitated movements that we can all agreeably give credit to these animals. Any person who has watched non-cable channels will know the standard of our subtitles. At first I thought that I could cut them some slack on the almost-always-horrendous translations from english, mandarin and other languages into the national language. English is a second language, thus there exists at least a vaguely excusable reason for the incoherent translations. Though I sincerely urge those translators to take up more english classes to further improve the quality of the (let's put it in softer tones shall we) impoverished standard of english in this nation. The improvement will not only benefit to the quality of translations but also save the more literate of having to face the ill-chatter of people who learned the "bad" language from the television screens. Imagine having an entire nation talking in the same way as the subtitles on the televisions. The translations are commonly (not all) ignorant of the fact that some languages do not go with the same linguists as others. Often, translation is based on a direct method while ignoring the subject verb agreement and the multiverse of terms that can be used for the same situation. Sometimes is fills me with disgust when an extremely arrogant person suddenly perceives that his television-learned-competency in the english language is the best. Hold me back because if I were to become his tutor in english, I would definitely give him an "F" for all his assignments.
Returning to the issue of translations, last night I set my eyes on yet another sight of disgrace. First they give wrong interpretions of other languages - somewhat acceptable. But they, not only that happened. The translation into the national language was even wrong in liguistics of the national language itself. Quote:"Spot the difference...memoirs of a geisha= kenang-kenangan seorang geisha." (fm, 2006) and also another one,"Brokeback mountain= Gunung Belakang Patah." (kuching, 2006) Let's analyse them one by one. Firstly, the "spot the difference" post was totally a sight to set of convulsions even in the books of the Dewan Pustaka (responsible for editing the Malay language). Take the word "kenang-kenangan". Firstly, I congratulate them on managing to translate one word into 3 different words. There is no such word as "kenang-kenangan" in the Malay languange, but there is "kenang" and "kenangan", and I have absolutely no idea what in the world is "kenang-kenang" (somebody please enlighten me). Thus, either the author of the book by some miracle made a new compound word, or he sucks at his own national language. Secondly, I believe the word "kenang" and "kenangan" are not even the same type of words - as in verbs and nouns. Or perhaps he deduced that he needed to add another "kenang" to the "kenangan" because the word "memoir" translates to "kenangan". But the book was "memoirs" (notice the extra "s"), thus favourable of an illegal change of grammatical nature to form a totally new word "kenang-kenangan", right? Now let's look at the term "Gunung Belakang Patah". Firstly, is this author talking about the name of a mountain? Or is he saying that the mountain had a back that could break? Perhaps he is suggesting that we can break the Titiwangsa Range since it has been nicknamed as "The Backbone of the Peninsular" (translation).
The next institution that has made my faith in the ever-growing (or perhaps growing old) society of old-school and tradition is the attitudes of example:"never mind" and "I'm tired" (direct translation, think it up yourself please). There are many other attitudes that get on my nerves but these two would be the most sickening of all. You may say "never mind" and "I'm tired" in the proper situations, but please don't make them as an excuse to being lazy. If you're incompetent, go become competent. If you're lazy, go become hardworking. If you don't know, then go find out. I'm not your mother or your father and I will certainly not tolerate this type of obvious excuses for escaping doing your work properly. Another attitude that I am totally bemused by is the "childlike" maturity of many people. Do you know where the term "jakun" came from? Take for example an extremely good looking lady walks past a group of people. What happens? Whispering, okay fine that's your own perogative. But normally what happens? Stares, that annoying "kissing" sound and sometimes even hooting (think of an owl). After reading that sentence, think of this word - manners. Malaysians are polite? I think you already have your answer there.
Conclusion: I think besides my love for "mamak" food and chinese cousine. I'm just so proud to be Malaysian.
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