To Lah or not to Lah....

I checked my baggage one more time to make sure that all my absolutely necessary things (like my favourite snacks and sweets) were in. I had called and met all my friends a day before.  The suitcases were packed. Passport and ticket checked and I was off to live in a new country for the very first time in my life.

That was the preparation I had done for this huge decision that we took in 2009. All I knew about Malaysia was the Petronas Twin Towers, which still hold this special place in my heart because I always felt an association with them.

Now that I look back, I can see clearly the phases of my settling in and I am sure everyone who moves to a new country more or less goes through the same.

The short-lived phase. In this phase, I was just plain excited like a six-year-old. I was excited to see

clean roads that I will drive on. All the malls that I will visit. The huge variety of food options. All the new things I would try and do. The excitement of meeting new people and making new friends.  It felt like life was a clean slate where I could write a new beginning. I could select the parts of my life I wanted this new world to know. I was super excited at the thought of not dealing with my annoying neighbours or my ex-boss. I found amusing things, for example, the discovery that the Malay word for fine/penalty is Denda, toilets is Tanda and public toilets is Tandas Awam and best of all milk is Susu (which still makes me laugh), height is tinggi and thank you is Teri Ma Kasih (all these Malay words have different connotations in my mother tongue). I laughed at how all the signboards were made by someone with extremely poor spellings; which I later came to know were in Malay language and not English.

For me, this phase lasted for only 3 days that we had spent in the hotel before moving into our own house. Our hotel was comfortable, overlooking the KLCC Twin Towers and life looked pretty smooth until we started looking for a place to rent and buy groceries. The excitement ended and started the next stage.

 When the charm of the move had worn off,  I started comparing every little thing with things back home. Cultural shock, perhaps. I constantly compared how my life was in such perfect order back home. How the people around me were so warm and friendly. This comparison was coupled with currency conversions. My mental math improved like never before. Our first shopping experience just added to the misery. Out of my love for the towers, I did my first grocery shopping from there! Imagine the bill. We were shocked at the exuberant prices. Thankfully, someone told my hubby that we shouldn't be shopping from KLCC as it is only for rich foreigners!

Comparison stage can be quite taxing. For a long time, I did not know where to draw a line. Whether to look good or feel good or eat well. Everything that was so easy back home had become impossibly expensive and somewhat complicated. I struggled hard to find the balance while entering the third, longest and most dangerous stage..... 

When I realized what had happened, I began to hate the clean slate that I so loved in the first stage. I missed everything. My family, friends, food, home, bed, the annoying neighbours, and even my ex-boss. During my first month in KL, I managed to find all my schoolmates from ancient times on Facebook. I even missed those people that I had not met for years. The depression doubled on special occasions. I have always loved celebrations, but on our first Eid (Muslim Festival), we did not even have a single friend. My mum sent me Eid clothes so I was naturally excited. But on the day itself, after hubby came back from prayers, we both looked at our table set with special Eid dishes that I had cooked the night before. No one was going to see it. No one called us from home as in Pakistan, Eid was the next day. We changed into our night suits and I cried myself to sleep.

During this phase, I picked up strange hobbies like cleaning an already clean house, mopping a shining floor, and doing unsuccessful food experiments. I cleaned, dusted and cooked all day and felt miserably alone all evening. The only positive outcome was that when we vacated our condominium, the owner said it was in a better condition than when we had rented it. We got a full refund of deposit without an issue. 

 Acceptance comes a bit slow. It is quite a task to accept that you need to build your world again. Literally! it is like building everything from zero. Whatever you were back home does not matter in this new place. If you were the best-dressed person, your fashion sense does not appeal to the locals. If you were the heart and soul of your friends' group, now you don’t have any friends at all. Your school, your university, your work experience which was a crucial part of your social identity have no value anymore. It is very frustrating when from 'someone' you become 'no one'. But you have to accept this state and make an effort to move forward. For me reaching this stage was the toughest but I think the sooner you reach this stage, the easier is the settling process. In the first year, we just knew one more couple in the whole country - our friends from Iran who were our only outlet in those lonely days. Malaysians take their own sweet time in accepting you as a part of their social life. Most of them do not really accept you; most - not all. They will be very kind and courteous but you will not be their friend. It is not like Pakistan, where if you know that your neighbour or a colleague is a foreigner, you make sure that you make them experience all the best things about Pakistan. You need to understand how it works in the country you have moved in. The sooner you discover where you need to invest your time, the easier it is to move to the final stage.

For adapting a new culture, you need to have an open mind to changes. A different kind of open-mindedness that makes you patient and tolerant. You keep your expectations more realistic and move towards adopting the lifestyle according to your new home country. Work with the new culture instead of resisting the change. You need to stop comparing and remember that YOU are the guest, so YOU must change. For some people, this might be a threat to their identity, but if you want to settle in a new country, you must adapt to a certain extent. Trust me, it is liberating when you decide to put your ego aside and indulge in something new.

The first thing that I adopted in this country was local vocabulary. If I was in Malaysia during my master's program, I would have done my thesis on the localization of English words and would have thoroughly enjoyed it. 

In Malaysia, you will truly understand this old saying

"Words have different meanings in different countries" 

If you have to borrow a stapler from someone you say, "borrow me the stapler ah" and if someone wants to you lend you a stapler they will say, "I borrow you the stapler ah!". 

When you follow someone in the car, you are not following them in your car. You are sitting in

their car. So instead of saying "I can drop you or you can come with me". You simply say,

"Follow me ah!" 

You don't stamp your documents. For some odd reason you 'chop' your documents. 

The best is the minimal use of language to convey messages. I am officially in love with the way everything is either CAN or CANNOT. So instead of asking if you can take a certain door to exit, it is best to point at the door and ask “Can?” and if you can, then you "CAN" and if you cannot, then you "CANNOT". 

And all these words are accompanied by the famous 'lah' which can be best described as a spoken exclamation mark. Here is a blog to understand the use of lah and other similar expressions.

And here is a clip on Malaysian Localized English that you will enjoy!  

Seven years down the lane if you ask me today, "Can life be any better?"

I'd say, 
 

"Cannot, lah!"