For confidentiality, the name of the person and the University has been changed.
A 24 year-old middle eastern international student entered Lecture Hall 1 in Universiti Teknologi MRA. He sat somewhere in the middle row of the hall and listened to the commotion his fellow students made while waiting for the lecturer (who was always late for 5 mins at least). All Ameer, the Iraqi International Student, can hear is gibberish noises which he can’t decipher. He has the urge to participate in a garish conversation which was going on between the two students who were sitting to his left and right side. He feels so left out that being in the middle of the two students,literally, he doesn’t even have the slightest idea what they were talking about. Could it be pertaining to his class lectures or exams? Ameer knows that he is just helpless, if he asks his friends in the class, they have trouble understanding his English ascent, just as he is having understanding theirs. It’s like making chicken and duck to converse to each other, no one understands anything. So he kept quite , after 10 mins, the lecturer came and made a funny remark as to why he was late in the national language, everyone laughed, but Ameer. He can’t help but to ask the personwho was sitting next to him what the lecturer said. “ No la.. Nothing important also, Err.. I cannot translate he say what..You ask him and see..” said the one on his left pointing to his friend on Ameer’s right side. And the student on Ameer’s right side immediately began to jokingly smack his hand off from pointing at him. Ameer instinctively smiled at this, he knows that it is of no use. He began concentrating on the lectures. Most of the lecture is in English, whenever there was a question, the professor answered it in The national language first before attempting it in English. Often enough Ameer found that his lecturer’s English translation is often pithy and short compared to the lengthy explanation that he gave before in the other language.
Ameer went back to his dormitory, a small room which is shared by 3 other international students. One from Libya, the other two from Jordan. He wanted to share rooms with the locals, but he was assigned by the University to stay in the International student’s Residential College. This to him, is a way of depriving him of any chance to converse the language which he really needs to learn in order to have a good college experience. He felt like home in his room, with his roommates. They talk in Arabic and listen to Arabic musics. One of his Jordanian friend brought along ‘sheesha’ accessories which they prized in their room. In the evening, when they have nothing to do, they smoked ‘sheesha’ with their fellow international friends. Not all of them who are living here are from Middle East, some are from China and Pakistan. Ameer found no problem talking to them, their English was acceptable and good enough to have a hearty conversation. His favourite pastime, watching television, is no longer an option, as most of the time it is showing programs in languages that he has’nt mastered yet. He tried once to sit and watch this program, but he ended up wasting 2 hours.
One day when he was having dinner alone, his ears caught something that was being talked by two local girls. They talked in heavy accent but from their gestures, he know that they are talking about him. He picked out one word from their conversation,’bodoh’. Which he knew meant stupid. After th dinner he approached the ladies and enganged them, “ I cannot understand completely what you two were saying, but I know that you were talking bad things about me. I am not stupid or ‘bodoh’ you know...,’ he said.. The girls were shocked,” how’d you know? Who told you? We were not talking about you” came the protest. Ameer just walked away, he knew this was not the way to earn good reputation in the campus, he just slimmed his chances of making any local friends. There were times when he tried to approach his football buddies, they couldn’t be his acquaintance for they find it very hard to articulate themselves to him in English, their Malay language was not perfect either. They used too many slangs and non standard usage of words which made things even worse for Ameer. What can Ameer do...?
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