By Greg Clough

Sheep or ship? Sheet or sh*t!

Learning a language is like driving through Jakarta’s streets: forever bumping over potholes and obeying formal laws everyone else is informal about.

I’ve been navigating ‘Jalan Bahasa’ since first studying it in Australia in the mid-1980s. Still am. Like the kid in the back seat bleating “Are we there yet?”, I sometimes wonder if my journey to mastering bahasa Indonesia will ever reach its destination. Not likely, considering how often I am surprised at learning something new about the language.

My Indonesian wife travels a tougher, bumpier road: English. When we converse, it’s a confusion of prepositions and propositions. A profusion of crippled verbs and improper nouns. A contusion of all things past and present but never perfect. And as for the indescribable adjectives, well, words can’t begin to …. You get what I mean.

Our strung-out communication works. But so do two rusty cans and a piece of string.

Given our Javanese patience and Asian distaste for anger, it’s more cross-communication than cross! communication.

Yep. Our talk walks. And so it should after 30 years of marriage. Although, admittedly, we still mispronounce each other’s country. But, hey, lots of Indonesians and Australians do.

“Hello mister, you from ‘Arsetral𝗲𝗲’?”
“Yeah, that’s right, mate. I’m from ‘Orstrail𝘆𝗮’. And you’re from ‘Indoneee𝘇𝗶𝗮’”.
“Yes, me from ‘Indone𝘀𝗶𝗮’”

Jeeze! Sheeeesh!

Bi-lingual children get to play linguistic tricks on their intercultural parents. One of our kids’ favourite pranks was teasing mum when she changed the ‘sprei’ – bahasa for bed sheets.

“You remember the English word for ‘sprei’, mum?” tempting her to say ‘sheet’ and knowing she’ll say ‘sh*t’.

“Yuck, Mum! That goes in the toilet, not the bedroom! Ha ha ha.”

Ten years later she still can’t say it. I sheet you not!

What happens at home, of course, stays at home (well, except when it’s worth writing about!). What happens when mum and dad are away from home is a different story. Linguistically, we cover each other’s backs. Well, not so much each other’s backs but tongues and ears.

In Bali, for example, if she heard a young, sunburned, freckled Aussie girl wishing people to “avaroily noise dai”, I would translate that the girl means “have a really nice day”. But, considering how much young Aussies like Kuta’s loud music, having a “noise day” might be exactly what she meant.

Guarding each other’s interests in foreign language territory has not always been foolproof. At a restaurant in an upmarket hotel in Palembang, Sumatra, some years ago, I asked the waiter in Indonesian for a toothpick. My native Indonesian-speaking wife didn’t correct me. Nor did she need to. I had requested a toothpick a hundred times before. It’s easy. Just say “minta tusuk gigi”. And that’s precisely what I said in Palembang.

The waiter’s bright, white smile dissolved into a blank stare.

If there is an Indonesian facial expression for WTF, I was looking at it straight in the eye.

“Minta tusuk gigi”, I repeated while miming tooth-picking actions. My ego was hurt. It had been years since I had to mime my bahasa.

The waiter was still gobsmacked. I don’t know who was more confused, him or me. Or maybe my wife. When he turned to her for help, all she could say was “minta tusuk gigi”, albeit in a better accent than my voice from ‘Arsetral𝗲𝗲’… er…. ‘Orstrail𝘆𝗮’.

“Minta tusuk gigi …. Minta tusuk gigi”. Finally, the waiter nodded his head. Both ways. Back-and-forth. Side-to-side. Simultaneously. Neatly communicating he both understood and misunderstood. With a smile.

By this stage, all my “minta tusuk gigging” had dislodged my teeth’s leftover food—no more need for a toothpick. Still, we were delighted when the waiter reappeared, bearing gifts on a tray. “Aha!” said my wife, “The toothpicks. He did understand …….”

Er ….. no, he didn’t. When he placed the tray on the table, a half-squeezed tube of Colgate and a more Oral-Z than Oral-B toothbrush stared back, daring me not to use them. We left them on the tray, along with a generous tip. After all, he may have got it wrong, but you had to admire his initiative. And his smile.

Yes, learning a language is full of surprises, such as when we gave the waitress our credit card at the same Palembang restaurant. She returned with not only the docket to sign but also a shiny, sharp new toothpick.

What could I say?

“Um, terima kasih, thank you, ‘avaroily noise dai’.”