#thejournalist

This story is about a curious girl who loves investigates everything and to make it more fun, she filmed it. One time, a strange happened in one of the village near her house. the thing is, she doesn’t know why no one survived that incident. what will happen to her? will she take her curiosity to the next level? what will be the consequences? and what really happened to the village?

One day, I went into a phone store to pay some bills. A phone was on display, and I enquired one of the shop attendants about it. The shop attendant was this chinese teenie bopper, I guess around early 20's. I talked to her in English, and she was like HUH??!!! So I switched to Malay to converse with her, and she gave me a second HUH?!! and replied in terrible broken Malay. Switching gears again, I asked her in my broken Mandarin, and then she replied. I was shocked to see that this girl, who was working in a shop in Kajang which is smack in the middle of Selangor, could not converse in English or Malay much.

When I came back home, I told my mother about the incident and she was nonchalant. Nowadays, there are Malays that can't speak a word of English, Indians that can't speak Malay, and the list goes on. I thought that in this era, everyone had the privilege of being taught these basic languages. I was in a Chinese school before, when I was a kid, but I could speak Malay and English as well as Mandarin. I was shocked that nowadays, this is common. I just couldn't fathom the fact because for me, you spend every single day in school and learn the same language again and again, how can you not know it?

A few days later, I read in the The Star, in the Letters to the Editor column. It was written by a parent complaining that in her daughter's school (a privileged and well known school in KL), they were not allowed to speak in English at all except during english classes. And even during english lessons, the teacher taught in Malay! How could this be? How can English be forbidden? I just could not comprehend what is so wrong about talking in english, and why english had to be taught in another language. No wonder kids nowadays can't converse in english or malay. They were a confused lot. Even more confused than my generation. 

We are living in Malaysia, Malay is our first language and yes, everyone,no matter creed or race should be proficient in Malay, but at same time, English is as important and if they have a third language, so is that. When I came back from the states, I could not speak a word of Malay, I did not even know what Isnin or Selasa meant. Im not saying im a whizz in the malay language now, but I did learn it back and now I converse in Malay most of the time with my friends. But at the same time, I am still capable of upholding my english and no, learning english has not tainted my bahasa melayu one bit. 

Nowadays, Tun Dr. Mahathir's policy about Mathematics and Science in english has been eliminated. Again, the one's who are affected are the kids facing this. Yes it is important to remain true to our national language. But we must learn english because that is how we communicate with other people from different countries. Those against this policy are mostly politicians who have kids that speak perfect english because they have access to a better education. What about those normal kids in a normal national school? Why rip them off something that can only benefit them in the future? 

I blame this on our education system which is now obviously deteriorating. Everyday there are less and less dedicated teachers, and those who are dedicated are always kept in the shadows. Paving way for people who are less capable, but can kiss ass big time. Kids should be taught to love both these languages equally because it is very important. Our national language is important. Our second language is equally so. I guess it all comes to how we were taught in school. How the teachers could make language lessons fun, entertaining but at the same time effective. 

I can speak Malay, English, Mandarin, French, Sarawakian, and now, Indonesian. But it has not tainted my main two languages one bit. Why? Because I had really good teachers in my life. My english teachers were very dedicated to their work. My bahasa melayu teachers taught me from square one. My Mandarin teacher was strict that I had to speak and write perfectly and my french teacher spoke to us in french during classes.