The Loss of My Lah. by Farah Iman Muhd Najib. I pushed against the heavy entrance door of Target, pressing my shoulders against the

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1 The Loss of My Lah by Farah Iman Muhd Najib I pushed against the heavy entrance door of Target, pressing my shoulders against the bright bull s-eye on the glass, and stepped out into the cool air, hands full with heavy bags digging into my fingers, surely leaving red marks. I could see the bus waiting at the corner of the street and the headlights of cars a blur as they occasionally passed by. As I began walking towards the bus, my American roommate, Natalie, came up next to me. The wind gently blew her wavy blonde hair back, and she had a soft smile on her face as I turned to talk to her. I heard a guy talking about durian just now! Malaysians love to eat this fruit, and it was so funny listening to him talk about how it smells. Whenever foreigners come to Malaysia and smell it, they always I had to stop. I had wanted to say tak lalu nak makan to describe to her how it made foreigners feel when they first smelled it, but of course, it wouldn t have made sense to Natalie. So I racked my brains for the right translation. Tak lalu? It doesn t pass? That doesn t make sense. Makes them feel like puking? No, that s not what it means. Lose their appetite? Well, I suppose but it doesn t feel right though I looked at Natalie again and I could see the smile had slowly slipped off her face, her eyebrows raised expectantly, her head slightly tilted towards me as if to better catch my words and confusion settling in her eyes as my pause became longer and longer. lose their appetite, I finally said in a voice that suddenly sounded weak, coming out more as more of a question than statement. She gave me a blank stare for a moment, before slowly nodding her head and looking ahead. Entirely missing the target of my intended meaning, it made me feel disconnected from her as my long silence and sudden doubt distorted what I had meant to convey to her. Instead of sharing my amusement and enthusiasm, I gave off a different impression that I think may have confused her. I remember as Natalie turned away

2 2 from me to look ahead, I felt a flush of embarrassment washing over me. Frustration. Disappointment. I thought to myself: You ve spoken English your whole life, that shouldn t have happened! I suddenly felt incompetent, as if I had only just been introduced to this language. As I consider what happened that night, I m starting to realize that I was, in fact, only beginning to learn a new language. The Manglish I speak and the American English spoken here in Pittsburgh differ so much from each other: the pronunciation, the accent, the spelling, the everyday phrases, the expressions and even the sentence structures. I m still trying to adjust to all of it. Hardest of all, though, is resigning myself to the fact that I can no longer resort to throwing in a Malay word or two to describe something or accurately express myself. At home, I speak English with confidence. Here, I feel like a stranger to the language. I no longer hear confidence in my voice. Often, I feel dissatisfied at the end of the conversation, as if I had left something unspoken and I find myself going over the Malay words that I would have liked to have said. I feel limited and trapped as if in a cage without Malay words, the key that won t fit into the lock. It makes me wonder: how much harder must it be for others who are truly new to English, who have never or rarely spoke a word of it before? And I feel it is important to explain this to native speakers of English. Make them understand why it may sometimes or often feel like we nonnative speakers of English lack so much confidence, speak with so much doubt and uncertainty, our sentences ending as if they were questions rather than affirmations. It isn t because we aren t clever enough to speak English, or that we aren t making enough of an effort, or that we don t know the right words; the right words simply don t belong in English, and the English substitutes come out sounding diluted.

3 3 In his literacy autobiography, The Fortunate Traveler: Shuttling between Communities and Literacies by Economy Class, Suresh Canagarajah, a bilingual Sri Lankan who grew up learning English as a second language, describes his first impression of English as a language of power, but I have to disagree (24). Canagarajah feels empowered by English because it means he is more knowledgeable than the people around him who can t speak English, but for me, a powerful language not only provides you with more knowledge but allows you to express yourself whenever and however you d like. At times, it feels as though English limits rather than empowers me. How can I feel empowered when I can t believe in each and every word I say? When they feel almost fake, like plastic in my mouth? It does not always allow me to fill my words to the brim with emotions or to give the best descriptions, and worse, it withholds from me and what I have to say. When people look at me in confusion or pretend to understand what I m saying, their blank looks betray them, and I do not feel powerful. I feel weak. I feel embarrassed. I feel sad. Alongside powerful, Canagarajah also describes English as a language of secrecy, a language that can hide things from others (24). This, I do not necessarily disagree with, but I do not share the same sentiments as Cangarajah. Yes, English hides secrets the secrets of my thoughts and feelings but unlike Cangarajah who talks as if this is an advantage, I do not find this beneficial at all. Instead, it is a burden that drags me down as I try to find my way as a Malaysian student in the US. And it makes me wonder: English can hide secrets, but can it reveal them? Can it reveal my secrets? I don t think so. My secrets may very well lie hidden behind this American English that I ve only just begun to get to know. However, it is not willingly so some secrets are not meant to be kept and unlike my Manglish, American English is not powerful enough to reveal them to the people around me.

4 4 Unfortunately, I feel that as time passes by, I will get used to this. That slowly, I will find myself seeking Malay words and phrases less and less with English words replacing them with hardly a thought beforehand. However, this will only happen because it will be out of habit, something that I would have done so often that I would hardly even think about it anymore. It would not be because English had become as powerful a tool as the Malay words or phrases that I long for. This insufficient English makes me sad because these new people that I meet will never truly know me as a speaker of Manglish. In Manglish, I can be myself; I can use the words that feel right and resonate with my feelings. At the same time, I wonder why I feel so strongly that English lacks power compared to Manglish. Is American English really incapable of conveying what I want to say or perhaps, I m not trying hard enough? I think that if I try hard enough and succeed in making English as satisfactory a tool as my Manglish, my Malaysian language and identity would cease to be as significant to me as it is now, and that thought scares me. So, I suppose English could possibly be as powerful a language as I need it to be to express myself, but part of me feels reluctant and unready to embrace this idea and its possible consequential diminishment of my precious Manglish voice and identity. Through the memory of my unfulfilled conversation with Natalie, I ve realized I may have lost the ability to fully express myself and connect with the people around me in the United States, but another memory leads me to wonder if the loss of my Manglish could lead to something worse. What if I lost both the ability to express myself as well as my connection with myself my Malaysian identity? I remember sitting down at Schenley Plaza, as part of a circle of international students introducing themselves to everyone. I remember not entirely paying attention I could barely

5 5 hear anyway but instead, I looked around me. I could see people scattered across the field of grass a woman lying down reading a book, a toddler slowly inching his way towards our group, a couple sitting at a bench together, their fingers intertwined and their distant chatter in their shared language punctuated with joyful laughter would float by every once in a while. It was a nice barely sunny day, the air was cool and I could feel the freshness of the wind gently blowing on my face. I remember the feel of my fingers between the moist blades of grass and wishing I could just lie down on my back and stare up into the sky, pretending like I had nothing and no one around me. Although I had been given the chance to introduce myself, I felt as though it was almost pointless because a superficial introduction spoken in an English that wasn t truly mine could only do so little to shed light on my cultural identity. It made me feel disconnected and more alone that I would have been if I were surrounded by no one. My new friend, Miu, from China was sitting down beside me. She had her straight black hair tied up in a ponytail, the ends of it twirled around her finger as she stared down at a patch of grass in front of her. I could tell from the blank look on her face and her unfocused eyes that she had her mind anywhere but on the introductions of the group. Perhaps, rather selfishly, I decided to interrupt her thoughts: Hey, Miu, do you have any siblings? And so we began to talk about our families. Talking to Miu, I felt at ease. Coming from a country where a significant number of the population consists of Chinese people, I felt as if I was just talking to another Malaysian, and I couldn t help but let loose a few lahs a typical way any Malaysian would end their sentence for extra emphasis. Exactly lah! and I expected Miu to give me a blank expression and say What? What s lah? but she just nodded away and acted as if nothing was amiss. And so, I did it again. Kan! I miss my family so much lah. And again. It s so silly lah. Each time, it felt wonderful, like I was right at home. It s funny though, isn t it? How even though I was in an

6 6 entirely new place, thousands of miles away from Malaysia and surrounded by strangers, a simple lah or kan in my sentence made me feel like I was right back at home again. But I felt that way for just a moment. I don t know what it was exactly that made the realization hit me perhaps it was the missing Malaysian sounds in her replies but I suddenly realized that I wasn t actually talking to a Malaysian. My lah and kan had no meaning or significance to her. I felt like I had been talking to myself, a one sided conversation where I couldn t share the joys of my language. Realizing I could never use my Manglish with anyone here, I felt hollow. Until that moment, I had never really realized how much of my identity lay in my language, hidden behind the injections of Malaysian words in my English sentences. I believe that the words we choose, the way we express ourselves and the sounds we make all act as little glimpses into ourselves: our feelings, our thoughts, our personality and most importantly, our roots. So when a lah or kan creeps into my sentences, I could be trying to tell you: I find this exciting! I find this important! I really agree with you. I m so sorry to hear that. I could convey so many different thoughts and feelings through those three lettered words while simultaneously telling you I m a Malaysian. I grew up in a country where the different languages have come together to form my Manglish. This is how we speak. This is how we tell you how we feel. This is who we are. Coming here, having to speak proper American English, I ve lost my lah and my kan. I ve lost the ability to voice the Malaysian in me. So what does that mean? Does that mean I m slowly losing part of myself? I wonder, how will it affect me when I go back to Malaysia? Will fellow Malaysians say I have become lupa diri just as Richard Rodriguez s relatives, who felt he had forgotten his roots, angrily accused him of being a pocho because he had assimilated into the American culture and could not speak fluent Spanish (30)? Situations like this make me wonder whether or not multilinguals such as myself should

7 7 try so hard to separate the influences of our own language from the English we speak here. In a way, I feel it is necessary. I feel like if I continue to speak Manglish knowing the people around me do not speak or understand it, I would be intentionally placing a barrier between myself and the people who have welcomed me into their country, albeit temporarily. Personally, I feel that would be a snobbish and ungrateful act. However, if eschewing and losing Manglish comes at the cost of possibly losing part of my identity, is it really worth it? I know the possibility of losing my Manglish is real because I have had numerous teachers who studied abroad and even decades after returning to Malaysia, still speak with a distinct foreign accent. No lah or kan decorating their sentences anymore. The thought of this huge loss makes me sayu hati 1. Even now, barely over a month of staying here, I can hear myself pronouncing certain words differently in an effort to make myself sound clearer. What Malaysian sounds will I have left in four years? Will I be able to keep them? Works Cited Canagarajah, Suresh. The Fortunate Traveler: Shuttling between Communities and Literacies by Economy Class. Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. 26: Reflections on Multiliterate Lives. Eds. Belcher, Diane Dewhurst and Ulla Connor. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, Web. Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. New York: Bantam Books, Print. 1 A phrase used in the Malay language to describe the feeling of sadness or longing for something that is gone.