With Malaysia being a huge melting pot of races, nationalities and cultures, there is surely times where we wish that we speak a certain language as it could prove beneficial to us.
In some cases, it is important to have a grasp of a certain language as it could help you defend yourself when you’re being insulted or spoken rudely to in a different language.
This exact predicament was recently highlighted by Twitter users after a post about someone being insulted in Mandarin went viral.
In an anonymous post which sparked the sharing of experiences, a Malaysian shared their story of how they had entered a lift with their children only to get insulted by 2 random people in Mandarin.
1. It's so rude when you mengumpat orang tu depan² orang tu guna bahasa yang dia awak ingat dia tak faham ??
2. Padan muka kena sound macam ni ? ingat orang melayu tak tahu Mandarin ke
Siapa pernah kena macam ni? Laoshi 5 kali dah kena ??
Memang DIRECT on the spot laoshi tegur pic.twitter.com/iXdvkPIyDo
— Mandarinjer (@mandarinjer) January 14, 2023
The strangers had apparently made comments about the size of the family and likened the family to dogs due to the number of children.
Fortunately, one of the user’s children knows how to speak Mandarin and called out the strangers for their comments.
“No matter what race you are, you shouldn’t talk bad about others.”
The post has since gone viral and led to plenty of netizens sharing their similar experiences of getting insulted in a language which the person had presumed they didn’t understand, only to get called out for it.
“They spoke ill about Malays & Indians. I went to them and told them ‘not all are such’ in Mandarin.”
“Till this day, they don’t know that I can understand them,” commented another user.
Meanwhile, other netizens shared instances of how they are trying to rectify the issue for the future or how they dealt with such instances.
“My boss scolded them for not respecting his Malay staff and told them to speak English and respect others,” said a user.
“I teach English in a multicultural classes, however, when they do work in groups and are mixed between Malays and Chinese, they’d discuss in Mandarin even when I specifically said that they can only talk in English,” added a netizen.
What do you think of the whole issue? Have you ever faced a similar experience? Let us know in the comments section.
Also read: “Uniquely Malaysia” – Controversial Local Internet Celeb Receives Praise for His Malay CNY Song
