Thursday, April 26, 2007

'No crying in the board room' - the day I lost my modjo

Hello yellow.



I don't need no introduction. Just like a 90's singer who's making a comeback in the music industry, I'm coming back to the blogsphere.

Hello people. It's good to be back! (chewah)

Cukup-cukup lah poyo tu kan?

May is coming very soon, and that only means my internship is almost OVER. It's not the time for me to conclude my six month life with EY just yet. There are still lots more to come.

It actually happened to me, even though I fought hard for it not to happen. Yeah yeah, you guessed right, I cried at work. Not because I had to work late (which I did so often), or I was scolded by seniors/manager/client (who dares marah me? hehe), or because I got lousy pay (yeah tell me about it), but because my laptop went cuckoo and my one week worth of work was unretrievable. That's one week of interviewing clients and perah otak buat AR.

But, what's done is done. I've already redid (ade ke such word? spells funny) my work and submitted the file to manager, hoyeh! My senior didnt really push me to get it done asap cause well, they felt guilty. Gah. Both of them. Agaga. This is what happened when 'sorang tu tease (but in a way, compliment) sorang lagi punya colourful working paper and sorang lagi tu sebok nak tengok sekali working paper yang colourful tu sampai sorang tu lari tu stop yang sorang tu from showing her colourful working paper sampai kaki terselit kat laptop charger punya wire sampai sorang tu (me!!!!) punya laptop jatuh atas lantai sampai bunyi "sMacK thAt". Hehe. So the next day, when my laptop jadi gila and both my seniors punya kerje tak jalan cause they were trying to recover my files, I ran to the loo to woo. (menangis, as in woo wooo hoo).

Other than that, I cant remember any other time I cried. But definitely, I had my fair share of running to the toilet and sulk a while when clients treated my like I'm stupid or I don't know what I'm doing (which sometimes is true, for the latter). I dont experience it a lot, but nevertheless, I did. There I was thanking her/him for every single document she/he gave me (kenela amek hati client sket2 tu kan?). Pastu, sekali dier bukak mulut, fuh, bau macam food court pulak tu. Entah apela dier makan. Me being me, tahan nafas je la and continue to thank her/him for everything. After a while, we were OK, and that, ladies and gents, is a proof of good triumphs over evil. Ngahahaha.

On to the more serious matter.

We are currently auditing FELDA as in all the funds ie tabung pembangunan, sosioekonomi, tanam semula etc. (PWC audits Felda Holdings and its subsies/ related co.s). While our working paper is done in English, documents provided by clients are all in Malay, including the audited accounts submitted to AG. So, yeah we did have a minor problem translating the terms used, but that's no biggie.

What saddens me in this case (disclaimer: not all the time), and in fact generally, is Malays who are not proud of Bahasa Melayu or just plain mocking the language. Mocking here is not mocking per se, but more like "Ish, kelakar lah guna BM", or "Ee, tak reti laa guna BM ni" as if the language is of low standard or lame or whatever. It's kelakar, or you tak reti, because all this while, you've been using bahasa pasar. Which is not wrong. Saya cakap memang serious bahasa campur2, malay, english, a few mandarin/french phrases, pendek kata, ikut sedap mulut. (I even have my own languagerism lohansy for goodness sake). Well maybe that is wrong as per pecinta-pecinta bahasa. I don't blatantly degrade BM I suppose.

Entah, in this matter, I just feel like Malays should pay BM more respect it deserves. Tak perlu cakap bahasa baku, nanti bunyi tak logical (?) atau nanti orang kata skema. The least you can do is not make fun of the language, or feel proud (high class, educated, westernized ape2 lah yang korang rasa) by not knowing how to speak the language. If you're better at expressing yourself in other language, by all means, please do. Tapi korang neutral la sket terhadap BM, kerana ia adalah warisan kita.


Mungkin kah orang Melayu ni terlalu 'kool' untuk bahasanya sendiri?

1 comment:

Jalilah said...

Nina,
So good that you're back. Dah penat dah click on your page and see the same entry (hehe, not that my blog slalu update pun. kikiki)

redid: Kite slalu gune word tu. Betul ke tak, that I'm not sure.

laptop: I am so sorry to hear that

You crying: I didn't expect that, and kesian awak. I really don't know how to console people but hope you'll get your modjo back

BM: Well, I have to admit, I kind of felt a slap in the face. Not the tak reti or unproud part, just that I feel like I have abandoned BM for quite a while, you know, the Kesusasteraan Melayu. I really would like to try and read BM books/novels but books written by the likes of Ahadiat Akashah is stupid. One of these days, I have to look for Malay books that are meaningful and uses the right tatabahasa/grammar.