Idle

Today is one of those slow and normal days where nothing caught my interest and everything went on mostly unnoticed. I was out with Eyan and Lia last night and Eyan was telling me about this joke, an incident, of a bruneian doctor and an indonesian rape victim. Bruneian doctors mostly, maybe after spending ages in the negeri orang putih, are pretty crap with their malays. Anyway, one fateful day, an indonesian woman was brought in and she claimed that she have been rape. So since this doctor has no other way but to speak standard malay to her, if brunei malay ok lah but since the patient doesn't speak brunei malay the doctor have no choice....and some part of the conversation went as follow:


As the patient claimed endlessly that she was raped, the doctor have to make sure that there were physical contact that correctly defines rape so the doctor said:

Doctor: Kamu mengaku kamu di rogol, tapi adakah batang itu memasuki lubang kamu?

An the patient claimed that she was having her period, after checking, the doctor found the patient not wearing any pad, again she asked:

Doctor: Adakah kamu tadi memakai tuala wanita?

Now, you might not find it funny. But imagine if you were there and listening to this conversation? What would you do?


Anyway, do you notice that Bruneians are used to adapting things especially with language. When we go to KL for example, we can easily speak in standard malay with malaysian slang very very well. And you thought, well thats normal!! Now, if a malaysian tourist were to talk to you in Brunei, you would even speak in malaysian slang right?? So does that mean that we lack identity and ownership of our own self and culture? Why should we adapt, why can others adapt to us? Is our culture less valued even by us? Something to think about huh! I'll leave you with your thoughts.

Its not a simple as you think...............