jules nora yati

I must really try harder talking in Malay with Nora. It’s so easy to be lazy and just succumb to speaking English and use the excuse that I don’t want to appear rude by speaking my mother tongue… but this is what I need to do to make sure that Nora will be able to converse fluently in Malay.

She does understand Malay but with me being lazy, she doesn’t really converse or even try to say much in Malay.

What ‘kicked’ me into thinking this?

A couple of days ago we were in Cafe Nero and bumped into her Nursery friend Jamie and family. After they left, Nora asked me “Where’s Jamie gone?” and I replied “He’s gone back home.”

To my (delighted) surprise, Nora then said “Jamie balik rumah” which was a direct translation to what I’ve just said. It was the first time she completed a proper sentence in Malay. Nora says Malay words but never full sentence. Yes, there were just three words but they were perfectly formed by her.

I must also admit that the laziness also extends to my cooking. It’s much easier to make pasta with mince and tomato sauce. I don’t have to think about how spicy the food is. But a couple of weeks ago Nora and I went to a ‘Malaysian’ gathering with Alice in a restaurant and Nora was tucking into the spicy chicken wings! She did stick her tongue out to indicate it was ‘pedas’ but I just told her to drink her orange juice and she went on eating.

Then Jules and I went to Nandos with her. We ordered homous with pita bread for starters and it came with a small bottle of chilli. I didn’t want to put it on my homous as I was worried that it might be to spicy for Nora, but she saw Jules putting the chilli in his and she asked Jules to pour some on her pita bread. She ate it and asked for more!

She is part Malaysian after all… and we love our spices.

And when all else fail, I always resort to making her ‘bubur’ (East Asian rice porridge) as she will eat it. And this is the only way she eats all her vegetables! She would not entertain green bean, spinach or any other green vegetable any other way. Yesterday, she even picked the bowl to drink up the last of the soup/sauce and today when I told her we’re having soto (Johor’s chicken soup) for lunch, she told me she wanted bubur.

But she still ate up the chicken soup for lunch and asked for seconds.

So here is my new year’s resolution… to make sure that Nora knows that the other half of her, the culture that is not close to her at the moment, is a very important part of her too.