#SaySomethingNice: Why it is kewwwwl to be a Malaysian. Reason #4

We get to appreciate the jokes only Malaysians can.

Of course other countries have their own personal jokes so to speak, but think about it…more races, more stuff to joke about. And since we comprise of variety, naturally the humour is in abundance. I’m married to a non Malaysian and although we share many things including humour, it will take some time for him to digest Malaysian humour that only Malaysians like you and I can appreciate. For instance; my spouse do not understand it when I told him that here in Malaysia, the subtitles of a film can be hilarious. I have seen the translation of “We start from scratch” translated as, “Kita mula dengan menggaru”. And then, only Malaysians, with the exception of the MCKK (Malay college Kuala Kangsar) boys of course, will laugh at the term “ Mc Gay Gay”. I got this from watching the Comedy Court boys perform a stand-up comedy. They are hilarious I tell you. Then remember that beautiful Petronas Deepavali ad, where the bunch of Indian boys dressed up like Afro American, not to mention tried to sound like one goes, “Phatty…phatty” alerting the other boys that their “Phatty” or and Indian word for “Grandmother” although the others did not get the warning thinking the guy meant “Parteeey”. I mean this one:
 

 I mean, how can my hubby laugh at the word “Batang Berjuntai”. And then, there are names to fool around with. I’m sure you all have heard of the classic joke. It’s about a shop in Ipoh called “Wee Kian Fatt”. Across the road however, there was an alleged similar shop but only called, “Soh Kian Wee”. How beautiful is that , tell me. We also used to joke about names. Zakaria, Soh Long Kok. One of my patient name is “Butt Chin Chuan”…I promise you that was how butt was spelt. Then there was a “Wong Shit Moy”…again, I’m not kidding. These people exist. In Sabah, the Pengarah Jabatan Arkib Negeri Sabah was named Datuk Datu Tigabelas Datu Zainal Abidin. Too bad his father was not Tan Sri Empatbelas..otherwise it would have been cool to be called 13 anak 14. Here’s another one. My kid’s friend’s name is …get this…”Fakhim”. Kids call him “phakker" for short....

Here’s another one… the word “Sifat” means “virtue” in BM yet it means “butt” in Chinese. Hahaha…I’m amazed Jakim, Jais dan kawasan kawasan yang seimbecile dengannya did not ban the Chinese to say “Sifat sifat Allah”. They got to ban the latter word to be used by non-Muslims…although there was no need in the first place. Then I used to joke with my Punjabi friends by saying “Tey riiiii maa kasih”. For the benefit of those who do not understand a word of Punjabi, “Tey riiii maa” means “Your mother” but in an expletive sense of it. So we use to greet each other , “Tey riiiiii ma …kasih”…then would giggle after that. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve forgotten to pen down.

And then there's Ilmu Hisab....it became less interesting when it was changed to "Mathematics"...maybe failure in marketing....should have left it as "Ilmu Hisab"...sounds more alluring to especially curious kid.

I use to study close by home for some time, so much so, I like to say that “When people say ‘I’m homesick’ it means ‘they miss home’, but when I say I’m ‘homesick’ it means ‘I’m sick of home’….”. But there was a time when I was overseas and I was truly missing home. One of the stuff I missed was how we are as a society. Sure…sometimes we step on each other’s foot, hey, nobody’s perfect. But it’s home. Remembering jokes like this is just so …exclusively Malaysian.. I leave you with my favourite video, that only Malaysians can truly appreciate….it’s an old video, but it’s just….let me put it this way…I will cry buckets if I watch this when I’m far away from home…