Affectionate Word

Thanks to Bet (Ireland) and Sang C (Malaysia), friends of mine, who commented on my earlier posting in FB. Yeah...that's the term...'affectionate.' I was sharing my thoughts on different terms that people use to address another person which somehow are perceived differently by people from other cultures, myself as an example.

It's quite exciting to see how words are use to create bond. Bet gave an example of the use of HEN, which until now I still couldn't make sense of why they use the word HEN to indicate affection. Sang C also made an indication of the word HEN among the 'fag' or 'sissy' community - to indicate group belonging, I would say. Their examples have actually led me to another, often taken from granted, famously used by strangers within my culture to create bond. The word 'abang' and 'kakak/ kak' or 'kak long' as 'bro' and 'sister' in English, respectively.

If you are in Malaysia, you will often hear people use these words of 'abang' and 'kak long' which I personally feel inappropriate to be used although some may oppose by saying "well...that's part of the communication strategies.Yes, indeed, provided the terms are used in the right 'space.'

Let me give you an example of a real incident. The location was at the Petaling Jaya's famous A&W. I went there with my senior(in age)colleague back in 2006 and we were in the queue to place our order. The crew who was taking our order was wayyyyy younger than us yet she was saying :"Kak, nak order apa kak?...Ada apa-apa lagi kak? Kakak tak nak tambah ni...?" Worse case scenario was when she actually used the word 'Makcik', 'aunt' in English, to address the senior colleague of mine. I assumed that the crew was trying to be polite when she used the term 'makcik', but...to use it to a professional lady (you could certainly tell from the way she dressed herself up) was totally unacceptable - 'absurd' I would say.

"@?x?!*&?1xxxx%!@$^%&*" came out from my colleague's mouth. You could imagine how I reacted to the situation- I felt pity to both the crew and this colleague of mine. Of course, to save their faces, I giggled instead of laughing outloud. Tuhan aje yang tau my perasaan masa tu. We ended up 'to go' instead of 'eat in'