Identity

I was always mistaken as a Malay here, no doubt about that. It's my skin tone. 

I remember when I was in KL studying, some strangers whispered among themselves about 'this Malay girl' (me) dating a Chinese. I was moving house at that time. So I pretended not to understand whatever they were talking about. 

Then there was this time when I was in a taxi, the Chinese driver asked if I'm Malay mixed. So I said yes and played along. We were having conversations in the car and I tried so hard not to give away hints but I think I occasionally let slip my Sabahan accent but it doesn't matter I think and it's funny because I can speak Chinese and I know he can, but I just want to play along. And of all topics, he had to talk about rape. 

Another time was in Sungei Wang shopping when a sales girl excitedly asked if I'm from Hawaii. LOL!! Of all features. She was so shocked when I replied to her in Cantonese.  She was embarrassed. 

Then when I went holiday in China, the sales person would always face difficulty in assessing which language to speak to me. They will try from Japanese to Korean to some remote languages I never heard of.  

The most recent one happened during my trip to Hong Kong. Most, I think mistaken me as coming from China because my Canto sounded somewhat different from theirs until when I look puzzled at some words, only they guessed I am probably from Malaysia or Singapore. I had the best time in Hong Kong differentiating the Cantonese accents coming from different parts of the world. I can say the easiest to distinguish is those from China because it sounds softer and more polite while I think those from KL, Penang and Singapore carries a little bit of Hokkien in them. 

And then there was this sales person in a Chinese herb shop (I think she's from China) who confidently greeted me with "Sawadikaap" and spoke fluent Thai with me. I was like :-O :-O :-O ! No idea what she was talking about until I had to say, "我不懂..." (I don't understand). I don't know who should be more embarrassed, me or her.