Lingering for Lingo

Awaken from my usual noon nap, I realized that I need a haircut. It’s not about how long my hair was,rather it was an uneasy feeling about my current hairstyle.Short & ease of styling are the principles for me.

With a quick wash & wear, I grabbed my Wave100 keys and headed for my stash, bought me a coffee-in-can & ciggs. There I was, having my caffeine fix while cerebrating on which barber shop should I pay a visit. There’s three barber outlet here;Indian’s,Chinese’ and Malay’s. Since the Indian barber is younger than the latter, I headed there and waited for my turn.

Ah,crap. It always came to this similar situation.The usual situation;want to satisfy you nicotine cravings,have ciggs but forgetting a lighter. I dragged my lazy bones & flesh for a minimart. I asked the owner;s son for a lighter and he replied and we dealt in Bahasa Malaysia. He’s a Chinese but his spoken like a typical Malay,with no slight hint of any dialects that Chinese people converse with.

I put my awe behind and strolled for the barber’s. My turn came and I sat on the chair, pointing out the way of the cutting for him to execute. The cut session starts and we talked; a rather unconventional for me for I am very much untalkative. I usually ended up with a dreaded fullstop when conversation took place; the ‘no idea’ situation. But not today, from start to finish, we talked and voiced opinions and shared stories,as well as laughed at a few points. Payed my RM8 for the damage, I ride home happy.

The barber did mentioned that having a member of opposite race speak his native tongue would make him feel pleased. There’s one hardware shop of which frequent for hardware supplies back in my hometown where the owners gladly threw a nice price cut for those who can bargain with them in their native tongue. As for me who cannot speak any Mandarin, or Cantonese, or other dialects, deals are done in usual manner, with no added colours in it.

Having the ability to speak in other native tongue have advantages. For one of many, there’s a situation when two person belongs to a same race, chatting whatever their heart’s content.And there you stood, with no idea whatsoever of what they were talking about. Might as well be conversation about how disgusted they were for what you’re wearing. Or how you smell, be it stinky with BO or stinging with excessive Eu de Toilette u sprayed,trigger-happy. Might as well be a usual tête-à-tête. Whatever they speak of, you are at loss. It might be less mind boggling to not take interest. But at least all your worrying, or curiosity will be answered, to your delight or vice versa.Eavesdropping is a bliss for one who always has this cravings to dig into people’s life. You even might ended up making an entry inside your blog with it!

Though it’s not in my urgent list of things to lingo besides English and Malay.I planted a seed of hope that someday, I will able to have a chat with a Indian lad in Tamil, or dealing with a Chinese shop owner in his/her native tongue, and get a cheeky discount.=)

Godspeed…