i love singlish *

i feel the need to talk about what has happened in the past two weeks of my life.. the folks have come and returned, and they left the flat feeling empty and too quiet on sunday after they flew. i was feeling rather out of sorts that day, cos i wanted to go out and talk to people, yet didnt want to socialise at that time either. like.. i think if my friends from singapore were nearby it would have been fine, but the comforts of home in the form of friends werent available. i think that only means that i have to go out and get to know the rest of the ALTs better till i can call them friends whom i'm comfortable with, rather than people whom i'm still in the process of socialising and getting to know.

but somehow i think it's rather different.. back to the whole idea of culture and so on.. i totally understand what another JET wrote in her facebook note about how good it is to meet another californian - more specific even than another american - because you just 'get' each other.. like seriously. i think the whole lingo matters too.. after having communicated and socialised in singlish for the past 22 years, that's my native tongue and there's actually a huge difference between talking to people in english and talking to people in SINGLISH. compounded by the fact that the people whom you speak to in english come from different cultural backgrounds and different experiences from your own, the gap that has to be bridged is actually somewhat significant, and doing so takes effort, which is tiring. to be honest it only just struck me, after the fun time today and reading my friend's post on facebook. maybe i'm not adapting well enough! haha. i have to work harder and try to overcome all these stuff :P

anyway, yes my parents also left me tonnes of stuff like mooncakes, bakwa, durian cake, cornflakes (which is tmdf-ing ex in japan)**, sambal chilli, haebi hiam, wolfberry and dried longnan. yummy! i can more or less eat like a singaporean with my sambal chilli, which i will use with care and prudence.

then yesterday there was an enkai - japanese party of sorts - for the australian teachers who accompanied the students from my school's sister high school down under. it was fun, as i sat with teachers whom i hadnt had the chance to interact with before, and they couldnt really speak english so i was forced to use japanese. it actually felt good and i enjoyed myself tremendously! for some reason - maybe it's just being polite haha - they tend to comment that my japanese is good (when it's far from that) because i know enough for normal everyday life here. and i guess it's true that my current level allows me to get through life in japan without too many difficulties (which frankly isnt all that difficult since there're apparently people who've been here 16 years without speaking any japanese), but the thing is, as a language, i still feel very constrained by my lack of proficiency. like there are so many things that i'd want to say when talking to people, but because i dont know how to express myself i can only convey a fraction of what i'm feeling and thinking.. same thing when it comes to listening in on conversations going on around me. and i cant read the newspapers either! and all the advertisements and blah blah.

nothing much else has been happening actually. bringing my parents around has allowed me to orient myself around osaka station - which is a HUGE help - and i think i've definitely adapted to the place. the challenge to overcome now is the social aspect, and i think that's of course going to be more difficult. i need to really get myself going for japanese classes and hopefully yoga or dance classes soon, and i must definitely exercise. i will try to force myself to go jogging this week. yup. anyhow, back to the social aspect.. i think i've been doing so much talking about it to people over the past couple of days that i dont have to go over it again, but yes. that's definitely something i have to work on. that and the need to find some free time to sit down and think about stuff in general!

*: i apologise if the title has nothing to do with the post itself!

**: i didnt request for cornflakes, but somehow my mum decided that i needed cornflakes - bless her warped sense of logic this time - and brought me 3 boxes. frankly i'm EXTREMELY thankful for that, as it was a very pleasant surprise - i requested all the other stuff that came over! heh.

i am a product of singapore..

more than 22 years of indoctrination and social conditioning has rubbed off me in more ways than one..

my brit colleague has been hard at work drawing a map of the UK with nice pictures for certain chosen parts of the UK (like he drew the welsh flag, a haley coo - highland cow - the beatles for liverpool, etc), and finally put up his finished product on one of the doors of the room we're in today. and i was jealous cos that door doesnt have anything singaporean on it, at which he suggested that i put up some singlish phrases.

which is a really great idea - i'll elaborate more on that later - that i have undertaken with much enthusiasm. however, i was going to do a 'title sheet', and when i read out what i wanted to write - "Singlish: the colourful world of English in Singapore" - he laughed out loud and it then occurred to me just how TOTALLY Singaporean campaign-like that sounds!

i'd previously put up quite a few singapore posters, and we had a good laugh at the somewhat cheesy and exaggerated taglines on the postcards - like "a city with its head in the future and soul in the past" or something like that - but i'm doing this sort of cheesy stuff myself!

urgh.

i think i'm going to stick with it though. haha. i suspect that despite the cheesiness and his amusement, he thinks that it has a somewhat nice ring to it, and i cant really think of anything better than that either (that's unfortunately how unimaginative i am). and i'm guessing that it would work rather well in the japanese context too, because goodness knows that only the japanese can read really corny stuff and think that it's somewhat cool. haha. but still, if anyone has good suggestions as to what i can write as a nice 'title', please let me know before monday, as that's when i'll resume my little project :)

well now about singlish. considering that he's now the person i talk to the most (and i know what all of you are thinking about: sorry, he's taken, and i have no romantic interest in him either) - we're both working everyday at the same school and the room is like a private office cum pantry for both of us - my singlish and singaporean accent is slowly reappearing in bits and pieces ever so occasionally. and he's really good at languages too - he knows french, some japanese, italian, spanish and icelandic (he did study abroad in iceland for about a half a year or more) - and is interested in them too, so i've been teaching him a bit of singlish too.

i realise that i've talked about this before, but he's REALLY REALLY amused by some of the phrases like "dont talk cock" and "itchy backside" and "vomit blood", and he says all these with such a RIDICULOUS accent that i laugh non-stop when i hear him say all of them. haha. i have at least 1 term to teach him some proper singlish intonation, and i hope i succeed. it will be sweet success to corrupt someone who speaks Queen's English - and he speaks the middle/upper middle class London accent to boot. but i told him that i should make a recording of him trying to speak singlish as a sure-fire laughing 'potion'.

maybe i should bring my mp3 recorder into school tomorrow and do some recording. and if i do, i'll post it on youtube or something so that all of you can hear it too! :D