Malaysia. Manglish.

FYI: i'm in malaysia now if you're wondering what I'm about to talk about.

Woke up pretty early on Sunday for Church (St Ignatious in Kg Chempaka, the usual one that I used to go to). I can't be more impressed with the technology they use for a Sunday mass: Projecion Screen at both sides of the stage. Power point slides. Even fans are everywhere. I don't remember feeling too warm in the church. Maybe it's early in the morning. Maybe they've got too many fans around.

The priest was a bit too soft. Maybe he isn't old enough. I couldn't really understand him. Maybe I just gotta try to get used to the Manglish again. It's hard. I'm kind of torn between so many English accents.

I used to just got myself exposed to American English when I's a little boy. Got hooked up to tv shows, movies etc. People in high school thought my english was good but heck it's just plain watching bloody american tv shows and movies that kind of juiced up my english. If i was in a government high school my english would've been normal in people's eyes..

Later I went to college, got mixed up with Manglish speaking govt school grads. American English -> Manglish.

Second year in university (first year was in a college in Malaysia) got me mind mixed up with the Ali G's in the UK and somehow me got myself a Brit-ish accent tongue and Manglish became English English or we so call it Brit-ish English (note the hyphen in the word British, it's done on purpose). Blooody English got me talking like nobody. I mean nobody because my identity got mixed up: I talk like a Malaysian (Manglish) to my fellow Malaysians in UK and I talk like a Brit-ish to me fellow Brit-ish bros. Pretty fucked ya?

Graduated in 2003 and there me wuz in the sheep rich no sky scraper little town of Christchurch and took me a few months to get rid of my 'ya's and 'quid's just to fit in to the kiwi culture. no more posh becks english but some accents so weird i thought i'd abandon kiwi english for the sake of getting my own identity back. But no. Kiwis didn't understand my Manglish and me trying to be posh speaking Brit-ish English didn't help.

Since then i've been trying hard to learn English the kiwi way. Have not really turned back since. Apart from speaking Singlish to Singaporeans, Manglish to Malaysians it's all different English to suit different 'markets'.

That's what makes us Malaysians superb: we like to mix and match. We (Malaysian Chinese) were born as Malaysians, we know Malay language, we have Indian neighbours, we watch HK Drama thus the Cantonese fluency, we swear in Hokkien, we listen to Jay Chow thus the Mandarin fluency, our ancestors are from China, we learn Malay language because it's the National language, we eat roti canai (mamak food) and we watch Astro Supersport for English Premiership matches (go red devils!).

Multi cultural we are. Savour that.