M'sian in Melbourne plus the weekend..

What does it mean to be a M'sian in Melb?

• See fellow M'sian - speak proper English with the "lah-s"
• See Chinese - speak Mandarin
• See Hong Kong-ers - speak Cantonese
• See anyone from other culture / background - speak proper punctuated impeccable English (usually with a "yea" to good effect)

Something people keep commenting when they meet Malaysians aka ME - "wah you can speak so many languages ar?!".. point here is every Malaysian knows at least 2 languages. My "known" languages - English/BM/Mandarin/Canto plus a smattering of Foochow and a teeny bit of Hokkien. Foreigners I meet always seem amazed by that. They're always surprised by why we seem to know more 'bout their country than they do about ours. Maybe its just me. I've always been interested to know more about other country's culture and way of life. I figure, we could always learn from their positives and discard their negatives - to improve.

When I first met Zoe from HK last year, she was surprised to know that I'd heard of some HK places before eg Kowloon, Causeway Bay, New Territory etc..chortling with laughter, I could only tell her "Thankyou to TVB for all these years of 'education'!" hahha so many Msians grew up watching the quinssetial dramas.. (actually I only started speaking Cantonese 2 years ago but its passable enough by now) .

Without really realizing it nowadays, I've realised my English changes slightly whole conversing with Zoe. Its a little difficult to describe but an example is this:

"city" usually pronounced as "see-tee" becomes "see-tih" instead. "Summer" becomes "saam-mer". We say tutorial as "tute", they call it "tuto". It took me awhile initially to gather what they meant when they said "tu-to"..

Being trilingual has its usefulness.. basically it makes conversation in "Asianized" Melbourne easier. I was just talking with a friend yesterday.. something I've noted on campus is that the Aussie students aren't really the friendly type, at least not that I know of. Australians generally are friendly people, but when I say that, I mean those Aussies working, in shops/bus/elder generation. The younger ones... ? just my 2 cents worth.. On campus what I note is that Asians still mix with Asians and likewise with the Aussies. There doesn't seem to be much of a dialogue in between. Of course there's also the Australian born Asians. But again they seem be mix amongst themselves or with other Asians.. ??

oops got abit distracted.. as I was saying..being bilingual is good.. I'm comfortable in most basic languages, in fact I believe my Mandarin is even improving.. such irony innit? For it to be improving while abroad. My chinese housemates (from China) actually told me they were rather disappointed to be speaking in mandarin most of their time here in Melbourne. Rebecca (my hsemate) prefers to practise her English with me so we try to speak English sometimes.

I do admire their efforts to improve on English. They hardly speak English while in China and classes can only teach you that much. Another admirable effort was seen last night. When I got back I found XiMin having a few Time magazines and an amazingly thick Oxford dictionary in the dining room. Rajin-nya I thought.

In Msia, some people always say their level of English is low. They say, but do they do anything about it? Would they actually make the effort to improve? like what XiMin does? In fact, after conversing with XiMin in English, one would be quite surprised. His English is really good and he expresses himself quite eloquently. But point is - he's striving to IMPROVE. He's actually making the effort to brush up on unfamiliar English words. So don't complain when we get left behind..in terms of education levels/other developments. People get ahead of us in life. Thats because they work hard. At least, harder than us..

Talking bout housemates.. had a conversation with a few of 'em coupla nights ago - XiMin (China), Min from Korea and Danny. Interesting to gather some insight from other countries. Although we share the same heritage, things are definitely very different in Msia and other countries. Happily Danny made some supper for us too =)

This's now the beginning of Week 3 of uni. Week 3 only?? I already think its mid sem 'dy. The past week was just soooo busy. Inundated with work and the weekend was really tiring.

Saturday:

• Photography workshop (Monash Photography Club) - fun! Julian was the instructor and he's actually an IT lecturer. Thought he was from the Arts faculty initially. Nice thing 'bout having instructors like that are they're all doing it voluntarily. He basically walked us through some photography essentials eg light, flash, focus, zoom etc. Talked alittle about aperture and control of shutter speed etc. Julian prefers the "old-fashioned" manual SLRs, just like me =) we're both probably the only "old-fashioned" people in the room. I'm still the only person I know who's using a film SLR... He showed us his 300mm lens too..amazing piece of equipment..plus some photo samples. It was quite a short session and after that we had a a club initiation party. Amusing thing from the meet. 2 of the first few people I met were named "Ana" (Indonesian), "Hana" (Vietnamese) and I'm "Diana"...ohdear it was quite amusing for Jackie hahha
• Malaysian Students Society dinner at Sofia's - turnout quite large, food decent, and I had a bit of an itch to take pics.. Kuan did a good job organizing things. Amusing fact found out that night - we're neighbours, he stays right across the road. Made some new friends, some of which are my coursemates in some units. Had some scary tales told of my so called "suicidal" units this sem..ohdear..

Will blog about Festival Victoria soon. Will have pics up yayy! Anyways to be concise - it was really great! =P

Was also at the Nike warehouse clearance sale at Flemington Racecourse. Actually it was a last minute decision to go. I didn't know bout it till a friend told me her housemate went to 扫货 ("sao-huo" chinese term meaning to grab/buy LOADS of stuff especially during times of sale, common behaviour seen in members of the female human species). Usually not a big fan of shopping. Main purpose was more to teman my friend.

Thought I could get some sneakers but since today was the final day of the clearance, there wasn't much of the ladies stuff left. There were LOADS of guys stuff left. I'd say about 85% of the stuff there was the men's range. Almost every guy in the warehouse was seen lugging large boxes filled to the brim with shirts/pants/caps/socks (which at $2 per pair is really dirt cheap)/ football boots etc.. Really, this's the first time I'd seen guys shopping so frenzily..

Erm when Nike has warehouse clearance, its really THE WAREHOUSE clearance - clearing their warehouse (Not clearing their warehouse outlet in Smith Street fyi). Prices were dare-i-say almost rock bottom. Only the jackets were selling for AUD 50. The tops/shirts etc mostly going for AUD 15/20. FIFTEEN! Everything's original, of course.. I did get some stuff of course, plus a shirt for my father.. bahagia-nya...