How a lack of vocabulary can hamper creativity

When I was in high school, my dad made me take up Malay as a second language. The rest of my siblings took Chinese.

His reasoning is, someone in the Frou Clan needs to be able to read and write Bahasa so that it is ‘useful’ for the family since we live in Malaysia. He reckons that I should be the chosen one since I am naturally talented and dare to be different.

(ARRGHHH! I lied. I was the guinea pig!! ARGHH!)

So I studied Malay for 10 years and whilst I can read Malay perfectly (you have to be an idiot not to be able to read because it’s in Roman letters), I usually only understand 35% of what I read. When it comes to writing, I can spell any Malay word (again, you have to be an idiot if you can’t spell because it’s exactly as pronounced in Roman letters) but there is only a 35% chance that I can get the sentence right.

And so I went about my 35% ‘cannot-make-it’ Malay happily and when it comes to essay time, no matter what the title of the essay I’m supposed to write, I can only construct one storyline because I only know enough vocabulary for that one storyline.

And that storyline goes like this:

Pada hari Sabtu lalu, saya dan kawan baik aku, Siti, pergi membeli belah di Pusat Beli Belah Orchard. (This literally translates to, “Last Saturday, me and my good friend, Siti, went shopping in Orchard Shopping Centre”. This is my standard opening line for every essay whether it is titled ‘What I did last weekend’ or ‘Name an unforgettable experience of your life’ or “My best friend’. This opening fits all. And my friend’s name in all my Malay essays is Siti. It is too pretentious to use an English name in a Malay essay and also, I want to convey the message that I embrace multi-racial friendships.)

Cuaca hari itu sungguh baik dan kita berasa sungguh selesa. (This means the weather that day was good and we felt good. This is my standard preparatory line to describe the relaxed atmosphere as a contrast to what’s going to happen next.)

Tiba- tiba…(This means ‘suddenly’. I’m sad to report that this is the only ‘climaxing’ word I know in the Malay language.)

seorang nenek tua berjerit, “Tolong! Tolong” (An old grandma shouts, “Help! Help!’)

Tiba-tiba… (My favourite word rears its head again)

kita nampak seorang pemuda lelaki berlari lalu kita dengan dompet nenek. (We saw a young man run past us with grandma’s purse.)

Dengan secepatnya, saya mengejar pemuda lelaki itu……….dan melompat keatasnya. (Ok, this is where my bad Malay comes to play. I wrote that I immediately gave chase and jump on top of the thief. On hindsight, that does sounds slightly risqué…)

Pencuri itu jatuh dan saya menanggal dompet dari tangannya. (The thief fell and I manage to retrieve the purse from his hands. If I had better vocab, I would have said that I pinned him to the ground first and gave him a well-deserved punch for hassling an old lady before wrestling the purse from his tightly clenched fist. If I had better vocab, that is. )

Tiba-tiba.. (I told you I realllly misuse this word)

dua orang polis sampai dan menangkap pencuri itu. (Two police arrive and caught the thief.)

I want to finish the story but I can’t because I am laughing myself to death here as I am typing this… oh crap, I only just realized how BAD my Malay REALLY was. In summary, I returned the wallet to grandma and the police gave me a reward for my heroic act. I used the reward money to buy ice cream for me and Siti. The end.

I was retelling this embarrassing part of my life to Dailytoe the other day when she made me realize that I am not the only alibaba when it comes to my second language. The Toe convinced me she is just as bad, if not more, when it comes to her Chinese essays back in high school.

Just like me, she only knew enough Chinese words to compose one standard storyline for any essay of any title during high school. Her storyline is about a missing puppy.

Toe: I was walking in the park and my puppy goes missing – “Xiao gou bu jian le!”
Frou: So was your dog ever found?
Toe: He was always found. By a good hearted man - “Yi ge san liang de nan ren”
Frou: You slut! You want a ‘good hearted man’ find your dog so that you have an excuse to scandal with him afterwards in the park.
Toe: No! The only reason the police is not involved is because I don’t know how to write ‘Jing Cha’ (police) in Chinese.
Frou: Ohh…
Toe: You can write about the police because it is easy to spell it in Malay – “polis”!

That’s true. I also only write about the ‘polis’ if I had to prolong the essay to fulfill the minimum word quota. Otherwise, the reward money to buy ‘ais krim’ for Siti and me usually just comes from the grateful grandma herself.

Ok, don’t look at us like we are idiots now. We can write better in English. We both got win award for our English essays in high school before, hokay? Serious wan!