Mixing the languages
I attended a film shoot yesterday for a TV documentary series that my employers are sponsoring (I hesitate to say “my company” as it sounds like the company is mine, when what I really mean is “the company where I work for” , so I feel more comfortable saying “my employers” instead of “my company” , but I digress … ).
The series includes on-screen (or on-camera) interviews with people involved in the various areas of the documentary’s focus. While the main language is Bahasa, the interviewees have been told they can reply in either Bahasa or English.
Yesterday, my young colleague answered the first question on-camera in a mix of English and Bahasa - mostly English phrases with a Bahasa word thrown in here and there. The director stopped the filming and suggested that she either says a whole sentence in one or the other language. Even tho she’d said she was more confident answering in English, she ended up answering the various questions in Bahasa (and answering them very well, too, I must add - both in fluency and in content; okay, maybe she wasn’t that fluent, but her hesitations now and then only added to the authenticity and sincerity of her answers).
I can’t fully remember the director’s reason for why my young colleague shouldn’t reply in a mix of English and Bahasa (AD setting in), but I think he said something about people not talking like that in real life. I would also think it would be distracting to listen to someone speaking in English and then throwing in a Bahasa word or phrase here and there. Indeed, I have heard this before, and found it rather irritating because it came across as condescending. It felt like “I know you understand English, but hey, we’re all Malaysians, so here’s a Bahasa word” .
How does this apply to writing for a multi-racial readership and trying to express the richness of a multi-racial society?
Fast forward to this morning …
I’ve just come back from what I thought was a quick trip into Popular Bookstore to get a copy of Lydia Teh’s Honk! If you’re Malaysian. But since when does one go into a bookstore for a quick trip? I ended up with 5 books more than what I’d gone in to get.
One of the books was nineteen: a collection of stories by women. I’d bought the book based on one name found among the contributors to the book. Dina Zaman. When I got home, I took up the book and flipped to her story “Of Fishes and Wishes”. And there, on the page, dialogue in a mix of English and Bahasa.
Did it sound natural? Was it distracting?
Yes, it sounded natural. No, it was not distracting.
The director of the documentary series was not entirely right when he said “people do not talk like that in real life” . It depends on the situation. In private, among family and friends who you’re familiar with and “talk like that” with, it would be natural and not distracting. But in public, especially in a formal situation, it would not be natural and it would be distracting.
How then, does one present private dialogue in a public setting? A private dialogue as in a family conversation, and a public setting as in a story in a book or even a movie. I think this is a concern that has hampered the local writing scene, altho not one that has been widely discussed.
On the one hand, if a local scene is written in perfect English - even for the dialogue - it would not be real. Malaysians from different walks of life do not speak perfect English all the time. On the other hand, if the local scene featured too much localised English, it would run the risk of being accused of broken or pidgin English.
What’s the answer? An occasional “lah” and “haiyoh” in the dialogue?
Maybe there’s no answer for now. Maybe the answer, for now, is to just keep writing and to keep finding one’s voice. And this is as much for me as for any Malaysian writer who may be suffering from writer’s block because of this.
By the way, for an example of mixed-up dialogue in a movie, go watch Sylvia Chang’s Rice Rhapsody (aka Hainanese Chicken Rice) which features conversations between mother and sons in a mix of English and Mandarin. I read somewhere that it was badly done, but I personally enjoyed the movie, especially the scenes of Singapore life. And then, of course, I’m a big fan of Sylvia Chang, one of the best actresses turned producer and director to come out of Asia.
Oh yah, sorry for digressing …
