Malaysian Night Market and the Fun of Languages


Night Markets are a thing in many places in Asia. On Monday we had our first opportunity to visit a Malaysian night market. Sister Letty brought us in her car and showed us all around. Night markets are temporary markets that are set up on empty streets on certain nights. All sorts of vendors come to sell their special foods and wares and lots of people come for a fun night out of shopping and eating. I will caption a few pictures here to hopefully give you a taste of what this night market experience was like.
Deep Fried Chilli Crab Rolls. What could be better right? Cheri bought some and brought them home and they make a great breakfast food.
The famous fruit called Durian. This is a favorite many places in Asia. Indonesian and Malaysians grow them and love them. Most westerners don't like them because the smell is quite pungent and the actual fruit has a very soft texture unlike most fruits that we enjoy. People here keep telling me to try it and I have tried it so many times but people still tell me that I will like this one because it is special and I never do. Can't get Cheri to even taste it yet.
This is a fruit that is related to Durian but much different tasting. It is Jack Fruit or Nangka. They are huge so you never actually buy a fruit because you could not eat it all or even carry it. This woman is separating out the tasty bits inside of the fruit and putting them in plastic bags. We bought a bag because I like Nangka. Its quite sweet and has a unique taste.
I never found out what this woman was planning to cook in these pans but I thought it was a cool picture.
My previous post was all about satay so I won't explain it again but this is just to show that you can also buy various kinds of satay at the night market.
Tasty Malaysian snacks
Cheri and Sister Letty picking out a bamboo back scratcher for Cheri

BAHASA
This word means language in Malaysia and in Indonesia. Languages in Asia are an important heritage of the native people of these lands. It is part of their cultures and histories. The languages of Malaysia and Indonesia are not the same but they are very similar. I have no trouble understanding Malaysians although technically I speak Indonesian and they seem to have no trouble understanding me. For the most part these two languages share the same vocabulary but they have assigned different meanings to some of the words. I will give you some examples.
- Tolak means to refuse in Indonesia but here it means "push". Since the two meanings are similar it is easy for us to catch the drift of what they are saying if we hear it in a sentence.
- Sahaja is the word for "just" in Malaysia and in Indonesia the word is very similar, "saja". So that is another easy one to understand. Baharu in Malaysia means "new" and the word in Indonesia is "baru"
- Boleh is used in Malaysia to mean "may" and "can". In Indonesia we have two different words for this. Boleh means "may" and "bisa" means "can". That's a tough one to get used to in Malaysia but fortunately for me the Malaysians watch Indonesian movies and TV so they all know what I mean when I say "bisa". 
There are many more differences and similarities but they are pretty easy to get used to.
Here is something I'm working on to continue to develop my language skill.
I am working my way through Preach My Gospel (Menghotbahkan Injil). Word-by-word I am noting each root word with its definition and common forms in an excel spreadsheet. I also make a note of the number of times the root word is used in PMG. When finished I will sort the document by frequency of use and print it out for the missionaries as a vocabulary resource for studying the Indonesian language. I'm almost up to 1000 root words and I think I'm about 90% finished with this project. I know it sounds incredibly boring but it helps me to cement the vocabulary and for me its fun. I list about 10 to 20 words per day. 
I have heard many times that Indonesian is an easy language. First of all, it is not easy to learn any language, it takes literally thousands of hours. Secondly, Indonesian may not have the tones of some Asian languages and it does not have the complicated rules for conjugating verbs of many European languages, but to speak it well, like the Indonesians speak it, is not at all easy for an American. Everything is different from English, so different, that to speak it well your actual thought process needs to change. You need to get past simply translating your English thoughts into Bahasa to the point where your thoughts are formed in Bahasa. Only then, will you sound natural. Indonesians are masterful at economy of words in daily conversation and they are also quite masterful at flowery eloquent language when they are giving formal speeches. I love to listen to native speakers who speak well. It is music to my ears. Our young Indonesian missionaries amaze me with their power of communication in Bahasa Indonesia. I get to hear them almost daily when I live there and I learn so much from just listening to them speak and conversing with them. 
Well, if you had the patience to read this entire blog entry, good on ya! We love you all and miss you dearly. take care!






































 

 

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