THE local social media crowd was piqued recently over a woman’s objection to being addressed as “auntie” at a roadside stall.
The woman said “auntie” was not appropriate, seeing that it was a seller-customer exchange.
Now, Malaysians call each other familial names all the time, even when they have no biological connections to each other.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, if you address a stranger “uncle”, “auntie”, “adik” or “kakak”, there would be no problem because in Malaysia it is a term of endearment.
But in the off chance that someone is uncomfortable with this custom, we should not, willy-nilly, say nasty things about it.
She has been called uppity, Karen and other ungenerous things.
But as someone who has been called “uncle” a few times, once by an older Indonesian who thinks “pak cik” is the equivalent of “bapak”, I can see where the lady is coming from.
It could be disconcerting, even for Malaysians, to be addressed like family in places where you don’t expect it.
A cute toddler calling you auntie is sweet, but not so much if the person is a server in an Ayam Geprek stall.
“Sorry, ‘pak cik’, we have run out of fried ‘tempe’. Can I give you more cabbage instead?”
Now, if someone says that to, say, a distinguished-looking gentleman who has been waiting in line for 30 minutes, the probability of a problem is high.
“Am I related to you? Did my sister give birth to you in secret without my knowledge?” someone who was not me said.
Long story short. More words were exchanged but politely.
In a world where economic mayhem is about to go down, a genocide is happening in front of us, and a war between two nuclear powers seems inevitable, a little thing like this should not even be discussed.
Thanks to social media and the Internet, the maximum number of people you can insult per day has now increased to infinity.
And to a wired generation whose default state is to do nothing, trivial things like this take centre stage.
Which is a shame.
- ZB Othman is an editor of The Malaysian Reserve.
- This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition
The post Excuse me, are we related? appeared first on The Malaysian Reserve.
