Last weekend, a video of a Malaysian cleaner auntie speaking fluent Japanese in a mosque in KL went viral on social media, surprising her fellow Malaysians.
Over the past few days, some people have claimed the famous auntie used to be a lecturer in the past. The auntie, Nirmaningsih Mawi, fondly known as Kak Ning has since debunked the rumour.
Three decades of tour guides
According to Kak Ning in an interview with Harian Metro, she worked as a tour guide for 30 years before switching to cleaning the National Mosque as a result of the pandemic and the closing of the borders. Without a doubt, she is learning new things as she transitions from a seasoned tour guide to a cleaner.
Her previous job required her to bring tourists to the National Mosque but now, she’s working at the very place she used to frequent as a tour guide.
Why the National Mosque? Kak Ning has very simple and practical reasons for that – her husband, and the tourists.
Working in the National Mosque has made things easier for Kak Ning to see her other half every day, who also works as a cleaner at the same place.
“With my husband here, we can have lunch together and pray. Other than that, I can also meet new tourists every day.”
She can speak 5 different languages!
Kak Ning’s fluency in English and Japanese is enough to amaze fellow Malaysians, but many may not know that the 59-year-old auntie can actually converse fluently in five different languages.
“I also speak fluent Arabic and German,” Kak Ning revealed.
She started her career as a tour guide in 1990 when she started to take language courses to brush up her fluency, starting with the English language.
As a tour guide, Kak Ning expectedly had to communicate with tourists from different countries. Mastering a foreign language is never easy, but that had never deterred Kak Ning’s will to learn more languages. A year later, she started learning Japanese.
Fast forward to 2010, she took the liberty to learn the Arabic language, followed by German a year later.
“I used to go for training in Tokyo. That was where I practised to speak the language, as well as learning about their working ethics.”
“I’m still partly a tour guide”
Despite the leap in her career field, Kak Ning revealed that during the weekends, she is still providing tour guide services. Despite her age, Kak Ning finds no excuses to work lesser.
She also said that she had no idea her video of conversing in Japanese would go viral on the Internet as it was merely a casual conversation. However, Kak Ning had a message for everyone out there.
“I hope it fueled the spirit of the youth out there to learn the languages they like, and not to be too choosy in work.”
Kak Ning was just going about her day whilst having a conversation with a tourist, who knew she found fame because of her fluency in multiple languages? Her commitment to work and to learning different languages is certainly a huge motivation for us to chase what we desire in life.
Also read: M’sian Student in Virginia Tech, USA Consistently Scored CGPA of 4.0 From 2018 to 2021!
