Trapped within Languages - A Memoir

The oldest memory that I can recall of my entire life is the time little Raihan got off the taxi in a foreign country carrying a backpack bigger than himself. Three year old me would have never thought of living and spending my childhood far away from home. Living almost my entire life abroad, there are still some major gaps in my Indonesian, my home language. English and Malaysian were the primary languages of my childhood (3-6 years old). The Malaysian language was easy to adapt as it is almost similar as Indonesian, a language which I knew the basics of at the age of three. 

I remembered my first day of kindergarten, the first day I met a foreigner whose a Malaysian. I approached him, introduced myself in Indonesian and started yelling out things that I like to do. "Halo! Aku Raihan! Aku suka main! Suka makan!" which means "Hello! I'm Raihan! I like to like play! Like to eat!". Keep in mind I was only three so that was pretty much the only thing I was capable on saying. I knew that he wouldn't be able to understand me but I went on talking him because I knew no better. What he said next blew my little mind. He also introduced himself and also started yelling out things that he likes to do and I understood him. He was speaking in a similar language but in a different dialect. That was the moment I realized that the Indonesian and Malaysian languages are quite similar. 

Growing up, I went towards speaking English more. I spoke English in school and with my siblings and spoke Indonesian only with my parents. In the UAE however, it is a completely different scenario. My first school in the UAE was a school where local Emiratis make up the majority of the entire school population. I would often feel left out due to the language barriers, the Emiratis speaking Arabic to each other most of the times excluding class times and me speaking English. One time during the lunch hour, I was having a conversation with one of my very few Emirati friends in the school who are able to speak English fluently. One by one, the other Emiratis started to join into the conversation to talk with my friend until it becomes a group conversation. The language of the conversation also slowly drifted from English to Arabic and I was there left clueless and lost on what just happened. Fortunately, there were also a few other international students which became my main friend group. Also fortunately, I was able to pick up some few Emirati phrases and slangs during my time in that school. I'm honestly extremely glad I moved to Raha. 

Until today, English is still my primary language which I use for almost everything in my life. Talking with my parents and family back home is the only way I am still able to practice my Indonesian. This is obviously not enough, hence why I am still not completely fluent in the language. Speaking about back home, I do not always look forward on traveling back home to Indonesia during my summer holidays, and yes, they are because of language barriers. Somehow, I am able to confidently communicate with my family despite some errors at times but I face difficulties communicating with other Indonesians which makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed. Last summer when I was in Indonesia, I was told to call a restaurant to order some food. As my parents were choosing the food off the menu, I prepared myself on what I am going to say in the call. I kept repeating the phrase "Halo, says mau pesan.." which means "Hello, I would like to order the..". As the restaurant picks up the call, "Selamat sore, bisa di bantu?" which means "Good afternoon, may I help you?" I literally froze after that and started saying gibberish and eventually, I hung up, rushed to my room and covered my face under a pillow. 

 Well that's my experience with language.

 DISCLAIMER: A translator was used for the phrases in quotation. 

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 6, 2017 at 1:34 AM

    I think your blog post certainly meets the some of the conventions of a memoir text type. You're retelling the event directly and your unique voice ans style is present throughout the memoir. You've spoken about your language experience in a way that communicates that you've grown and learnt a lot from it, even though you haven't exactly specified how. You've retold a good number of anecdotes, too. However, I don't see too much dialogue in your text- I think it would've been a better idea to add some of the things your friends and family said to you in terms of language in the form of dialogue as well.
    I would like to point out that you've listed the experiences you've had concerning language and barriers, but haven't really placed too much emphasis on what you've learnt from these experiences.
    I suggest that the next time you pay more attention to conveying what you've learnt from your language experiences, even if it's just one line. Otherwise, I think your memoir is wonderful :)

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  2. JoOctober 6, 2017 at 10:35 PM

    I enjoyed reading your memoir a lot. It was surprisingly serious, aha. Throughout the entire memoir I noticed you portraying your voice very often, very clearly. The first lines as an example already conveyed your voice to me quite clearly, and that's a very good thing to do to keep the readers attracted. From the way you retold these events, I could interpret your feelings with ease, specially being from the same kind of international community, it was easier to see these feelings through relating to the text. Also, the way you created dialogue between yourself and other members of your little experiences in your language was really enjoyable as well. It emphasized the emotion you tried to convey quite a lot more, and the way you expressed these emotions I can say from my opinion that your balance between serious emotions and humorous intent was what made this the more so enjoyable. Although your anecdotes were touching, I still wasn't able to notice much of what you learnt from your experiences except maybe a thing or two such as you exclaiming that you were very glad to move to Raha. That's what in my opinion I would consider that you improve a bit more, and I bet that if you do, you would make an amazing blogger. I can't wait to see more! :D

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