Mind your 'Ingriss'
Indonesians have a lovely and fascinating way of speaking 'Ingriss' and are unique in the tools they can employ to express themselves. Things are expressed more by the way they are perceived rather than by the use of words.
When a friend asked us to turn right at the “tishu tishu” building – what we soon realised – after driving around in circles and a couple of desperate phone calls - was that she meant the building with several protruding slanting roofs over the balconies.
Then again, a parking attendant stood bravely in our way – crossed his arms in front of his chest, pursed his lips and contorted his face to a very constipated grimace – all he wanted to communicate was that the basement was packed to capacity and there was no parking space.
Intensity of an emotion is denoted by the degree to which the word is stretched. “Why so angreeee?” asked a colleague to Pratap. And when he really did get very angreeeeeeeee (please note the number of e’s to realise how critical the situation was) – the next query was “Why so toucheeeeeeee?”
We have learnt to gauge the intensity a word denotes at different times. So when the gym instructor said “Pussssssssssssssssssssss!” we knew we had to use all our might, breathe out vociferously, flex our muscles and step up our heart rate all at the same time.
An Indonesian cop who pulled us over for crossing lanes – painstakingly drew an entire diagram to explain what our mistake was. Experience had made us wiser, any zebra knows that when a lion is pulling its leg, it’s no joke. All we could muster up was “We’re so sorreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” It’s another story that the apology landed far shy of its mark and he drew the picture of a rupiah note and handed over his chalan book to us. The penny dropped and a 50,000 rupiah note was slipped between the pages.
The Property Management of Casablanca ‘Apartmen’ comes up with these bewildering notices. Here’s one that was put up on our apartment notice board recently. And I quote verbatim:
Lost & Found PROGRAM
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Property Management is going to release some lost and found items; which we found them in the apartment areas since January – February 2005.
Please contact Housekeeping or Tenant Relation Department in 831-3984 ext:106 or 108 to collect your lost and found item (s).
Should there are nobody claims for their lost items during the above schedule; Property Management would release it to the item’s Founder.
Thank you for your attention.
When a friend asked us to turn right at the “tishu tishu” building – what we soon realised – after driving around in circles and a couple of desperate phone calls - was that she meant the building with several protruding slanting roofs over the balconies.
Then again, a parking attendant stood bravely in our way – crossed his arms in front of his chest, pursed his lips and contorted his face to a very constipated grimace – all he wanted to communicate was that the basement was packed to capacity and there was no parking space.
Intensity of an emotion is denoted by the degree to which the word is stretched. “Why so angreeee?” asked a colleague to Pratap. And when he really did get very angreeeeeeeee (please note the number of e’s to realise how critical the situation was) – the next query was “Why so toucheeeeeeee?”
We have learnt to gauge the intensity a word denotes at different times. So when the gym instructor said “Pussssssssssssssssssssss!” we knew we had to use all our might, breathe out vociferously, flex our muscles and step up our heart rate all at the same time.
An Indonesian cop who pulled us over for crossing lanes – painstakingly drew an entire diagram to explain what our mistake was. Experience had made us wiser, any zebra knows that when a lion is pulling its leg, it’s no joke. All we could muster up was “We’re so sorreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” It’s another story that the apology landed far shy of its mark and he drew the picture of a rupiah note and handed over his chalan book to us. The penny dropped and a 50,000 rupiah note was slipped between the pages.
The Property Management of Casablanca ‘Apartmen’ comes up with these bewildering notices. Here’s one that was put up on our apartment notice board recently. And I quote verbatim:
Lost & Found PROGRAM
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Property Management is going to release some lost and found items; which we found them in the apartment areas since January – February 2005.
Please contact Housekeeping or Tenant Relation Department in 831-3984 ext:106 or 108 to collect your lost and found item (s).
Should there are nobody claims for their lost items during the above schedule; Property Management would release it to the item’s Founder.
Thank you for your attention.
Property Management.
And to our Indonesian friends – “mind your 'ingriss' and stop being so toucheeeeeeeee!”
And to our Indonesian friends – “mind your 'ingriss' and stop being so toucheeeeeeeee!”
posted by Sangeeta Rana at 9:40 AM
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