What we Mean

After almost two years, I have quite a handle on Indonesian, and recently have started taking Javanese lessons (which is a whole different ball game, oh my god). But sometimes I think that even if I were fluent, I would still have miscommunications and conversations where one party does not believe that we are actually speaking in Indonesian, like this one last night at the pharmacy between me and the pharmacist:

[in Indonesian] Hi sir, I am looking for allergy medicine. I have very bad allergies, so bad that I wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble breathing.

You have an allergy and can’t sleep?

Yes.

What allergy?

Everything, but mostly mold. Usually there is no reaction on my skin, just a respiratory problem. In the states, I used to take Claritin.

Oh yes a respiratory problem, I see. Well, we have Claritin. [starts to turn around, but then hesitates and then grins sheepishly] Can I try in English? Maybe I understand better in English.

[In English] Sure, ok.

You have an allergy?

Yes.

Hmm. Ok.

And usually in the states I take Claritin.

Oh, I see. We have Claritin.

That’s terrific [retrieves Claritin].

I understand that this man probably had to study English at the pharmaceutical school and just wants to practice; but isn’t it cruel to make a sick person stand around longer while you repeat the exact same information?

Actually I would have thought the above situation endearing had my head not been threatening implosion. Much worse is the situation where someone does not listen because they expect that a communication is not possible. So I don’t know the word for “to stall” in Indonesian, but if I tell you that when my bike stops moving, the engine dies, can you try and understand? No, I don’t know the word for pillow, but if you wait for 20 more seconds I can explain that it’s the thing upon which you rest your head when you are in your bed (NOW I know the word for pillow and I won’t forget it).

I try to look at it from the other person’s perspective. As a business owner, he/she probably wants each transaction to be clear and hassle-free. So in that sense I understand not wanting to bear with my foreigner’s accent and patchy vocabulary.

But please, oh shopkeepers of the world, think about it—you only have ONE difficult communication today: with me! But after I leave your shop, I still have a day’s worth of possible mishaps. If you put a little bit of effort into our three minutes together, you can help a fellow human being (and you can sell an item, something that you never seem very eager to do). Just pick up the toothpaste and ask me, Is this what you meant?

The glitch is obvious when there are two (or even three) languages to negotiate. But don’t we have to give a little bit of ourselves with every conversation, even in our native languages?

Recently, I read Chang Rae Lee’s Native Speaker, a truly terrific novel about a Korean-American whose line of work forces him to keep secrets about his identity. The novel talks a lot about the immigrant experience, but I felt that the larger message was about how we all struggle to describe ourselves to our loved ones.

Wondering what my strange Xmas present means

Language is inherently limiting; when we bottle our emotions into the small packages of words, something is always lost. And so we struggle to understand our friends, our loved ones… what are the nuances in a statement of forgiveness? What was the exact moment that frustration turned to anger? When we care about someone, we try to reach across the gap between spoken language and feeling and get closer to their inner pulse.

It is harder to make this same reach with a stranger, though it is usually on a much smaller scale and with much less emotional strain. Sometimes, of course, we do. The owner of the mechanic shop was happy to stand with me while I talked around and around the machine’s idiosyncrasies until he could propose a solution. And I did, eventually, get my pillow; I just had to ask a different employee.

The U.S. is not a monolingual country, though some people would like to believe it so. I expect that living in a city when I get back, not all of my interactions will be in my native language with another native English speaker. But there, mine will often be the default language. And that time, it will be me reaching across the gap, over the counter, and asking, Is this what you meant?