Featured image: iBelieve
Disclaimer: Images used does not represent any particular banana
1. Ordering at a mamak is usually accompanied by your friends trying not to laugh
You order foods based on how well you can pull of pronouncing them like a local: your way of saying ‘teh tarik’ is pretty decent in your opinion, but your friends secretly snigger.
Imagine just how much they’d laugh at your pronounciation ‘teh o ais limau’.
2. In family reunions, you’re usually introduced as the ‘ang-moh’ in the family
You’re usually the source of amusement. And no, they’re not laughing with you.
“Wahhh she’s trying to talk to us in Cantonese! So cute leh!”
And when the relatives are bored with your ‘banana-ness’ they’d start nagging how you don’t know you own mother tongue.
3. On the occasion you speak your ethnic language, people stare at you in awe
Then they ask you to repeat again because they were so blown away by your one moment of non-banana-ness and forgot to listen.
Reactions range from this:
To this:
4. You’re the wet blanket at karaokes, just sort of…there
As everyone belts out those old-school Cantonese pop hits, you sort of nod and awkwardly sway.
Maybe even try to sing the one solo character you can read (it’s usually 大 or 好).
Your friends will shuffle in one English song out of courtesy. You politely sing.
You’re the girl on the bottom right.
5. If someone’s b*tching about you, you’d never know
They say ignorance is bliss. You understand only too well.
6. Or maybe you’re the type who does understand, but you speak it like ang-moh style so you keep quiet
But you know when they’re b*tching about you.
Ignorance is bliss, but so is secretly eaves-dropping into an auntie’s conversation who doesn’t know better.
*writes down your name in personal burn book*
7. Your relationship with the char kway teow uncle at your favourite hawker haunt goes far back
He’s the only one who figured out you were trying to tell him you don’t like mussels in your char kway teow.
And he’s one of the very few hawkers who has correctly guessed why you’re so ‘quiet’, so doesn’t hassle you too much.
Good ol’ hawker centre uncle
8. If you have an accent, you know only too well that feeling when everyone in the room looks at you
You’re probably also familiar with the sound of awkward shuffling from 20-odd people trying to glimpse at who the heck just spoke.
9. And if you do have an accent, you probably memorised a mini script that explains to people how you got it
You learnt how to play along the game of ‘guessing the accent’. It’s an uncomfortable icebreaker, but it always happens.
“here we go again”
10. You smile and nod as the nice taxi/Uber driver tries to talk to you
All whilst hoping he’s not asking you about which route to take to your destination.
“mhmmm! Yeah! Okay! ”
11. Local soap opera dramas have to come with subtitles
Unfortunately, most don’t.
To make up for it, you pester the poor guy next to you on whats happening and laugh too much or too little when everyone else does. Or you glaze over the screen, hoping some sort of divine understanding of the language rains down.
In fact, Joey from Friends in the picture of below sums that up.
12. Going to local government institutions like the passport centre or driving centre is a horror house
You can’t even find your way around the building, much less understand the forms you have to fill.
Hence, you never go along. Your mother accompanies you, and her and the receptionist laugh at your shortcomings.
“Your son cannot speak Malay? Must bring you along! Too funny!!”
