Gugur

Selamat berpuasa to everyone!! Ramadan Kareem (or however you say it!!!)

Anyway... I thought I might blog about things which I found funny during my holidays over the summer... in parts of course ;p

1. Speaking KL speak to Malaysian patients

In KL, there were some patients who didn't really speak English (kinda like Brunei)... So when the doctors tell us to speak to these sort of patients, it was my responsibility to be 'translotor' for my two non-malay speaking friends...

As everyone should be aware, KL speak, Brunei speak, and written malay exam speak are three totally different things!!! I of all people am one of the least able to converse in the three languages equally well... I'd like to think that I do best in my Brunei speak...

Anyhow.. the patient in hospital was a guy about 25-30 years old... He came into hospital because he had a headache.. and the doctor wasn't telling us anything more and we had to find out what had happened...

So lots of questions asked successfully in Malay, then my friends and I decided that we wanted to know if the patient has fallen or not... So with 'great' confidence, I went forward and asked the patient, "Awak gugur ke?" ("Did you fall?") What I thought was perfect Malaysian to ask if the patient has fallen... In Brunei everyone would have understood what I said...

The male patient then just stared at me and said, "ape?!" ("what?") and smiled away... To which I quickly apologised...

I then realised that gugur isn't a Malaysian word, so i had to re-think and then remembered the proper word for fall - jatuh!! So i re-phrased my question and he understood me and it all went well from there...

So I was laughing at me for being silly - for speaking Bruneian to a Malaysian who isn't exposed to my great Brunei Malay... ;p Met up with Raffiz and Mel (his wife) for dinner and told them the incident... And Mel burst out laughing!!!

According to Mel, the male patient (and anyone else Malaysian) would have interpreted my "awak gugur ke?" question as "Did you have a miscarriage?"

HA Ha HA!!! The patient would have thought I was some idiot asking him such questions.. But nah, I don't think he thought that!! I think he probably just thought, "Aww.. bless the foreigner for trying.." or my sister's favourite, "Cina ani tah banar, inda pandai cakap melayu" (- ofcourse in his Malaysian phrases ;p)

Take home message: Gugur does not = fall in Malaysia!!!

xx