It's a language thing.

In Kuala Lumpur, most of the people around me speak English as their main language, while their mother tongue is only used at home. My Malay friends speak English outside, Malay + English at home, my Chinese friends, English and Cantonese outside, and various Chinese dialects at home (Hokkien, Hakka, Mandarin, Hock Chew, etc), and my Indian friends speak English outside, and maybe a little dialect at home (am not sure, but my close Indian friends speak mainly English at home).

As for me, I speak English and Cantonese (and a little Malay with people from work) when I'm out, and at home, I speak mainly Mandarin plus a little bit of English here and there. My mom refuse to speak English to me btw, but her favourite English word is 'regret' (private joke).

Has anyone noticed that speaking your mother tongue is somewhat more... intimate? When I first met my bf, we communicated in English, but nowadays we speak a lot of Mandarin. When I asked him how come we do that these days, his reply is "Well, you started speaking to me in Mandarin so I just reply in Mandarin lor". But seriously, it feels more intimate to me when we discuss stuff in Mandarin. It feels as if we connect better. But sometimes get a bit worried that people might think we are ahbeng couple also lah.

There are stories that you just have to tell in your mother tongue. The story that I would like to tell right now may not make so much sense in English, but it will, if I tell it in Mandarin. An intimate story, that goes like this...

When I was younger, dad used to work 2 jobs. He came back real late every night, and would be dead tired. All he could do is just have some leftover from dinner time and continued working. But there are times when he would be too pooped to do anything else, and he would lie on his bed. And he would call out to either my second sister or I, "Come, bang papa chui jiao", which is loosely translated into "Come help knock papa's legs".

Chui Jiao is when you crunch your knuckles up as if you were gonna punch someone, and then you repeatedly knock knock knock on the calve area and the thigh area with the appropriate strength, so that it doesn't hurt and the person receiving the knocks will feel more relaxed.

I think Dad drank a lot of cold water when he was young, that is why he frequently had aching legs or 'jiao suan'. Perhaps it was also because he was overweight back then, and the aches were due to the body weight that his legs had to support. Anyways he is at the optimum weight and is healthier now than he did 15 years back.

I remember, when we had to 'chiu jiao'. Knock knock knock 10 minutes left calf, 10 minutes left thigh, move to on 10 minutes right calf, and then 10 minutes right thigh. That was pretty tiring for a 12 year old, or in my er jie's case, for an 8 year old to handle. I remember having to do that too when we were at popo's place in Bentong. I remember that recliner made out of multi coloured plastic ropes. Funny isn't it the things you actually store in your mind. Come to think about it, I think those trips were probably one of those few times that Dad got to really rest. He worked hard, yes he did.

Eventually (after 1-2 years) Dad no longer suffered from this leg ache, so we didn't have to chui jiao anymore.

Mom also suffered from fongsap back then. Whenever it was gonna rain, every part of her body would be aching. Mom's body suffering lasted longer than dad did. Even till today, she still need her daughters to massage parts of her body with some chinese herbal medicinal alcohol. Instead of knocking, we dripped few drops of the medicine on the part that was aching, and we would rub and rub and rub. Thank God there is 5 of us now. It's funny how ungrateful one can be when young. I remember we used to hate it when Mom asked us to massage her. We would give all sort of excuses, and like the ungrateful daughters that we were, grumbled grumbled and grumbled. I'm really sorry for grumbling and giving you the impression that I was not willing to do my duties as your daughter, Mom. Anyways, eventually we all all grew up, and the younger daughters took over the task of massaging Mom when she's in pain. Now we do 'guasa' too, but that's a story for another day.

I stopped massaging Mom for at least 10 years, but recently I 'guasa'ed for her. It felt real good.... I just did it again just now. :) Two times now, can't wait for more.

Don't get the point of the story? It's a language thing.