The class I enjoy the most is my language course: Bahasa Malaysia. While I enjoy learning a new, and unknown to many, language, I can’t help but be amazed by the classroom environment. In a classroom where English is the language of instruction, I am the only native English speaker. Watching a non-native English speaker teach a group of 25 non-native English-speaking students, one is able to witness human communication at its most basic level. While I’m in no way trying to deride my professor or my peers, everyone is constantly trying to come to terms with each other as quite a bit is lost in translation. Off the top of my head, the languages spoken by other students are: Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and Farsi. To be honest, my list wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would be. By country there are:
16 students from Mainland China
Three students from Indonesia
One student from Saudi Arabia
One student from Yemen
One student from Iraq
One student from Iran
One student from Singapore
One student from the United States (me)
A few weeks back when we were learning colors, we all had to draw our respective country’s flag on the board and explain what colors our flag was comprised of. When it was my turn to draw the good ol stars and stripes, my professor told me to make sure that I include every star. A student asked how many stars there were and I replied, “Fifty.” It got a good laugh. At the end of class, there were eight flags drawn on the board. My professor drew the Malaysian flag, so in total there are eight countries represented in the classroom. I was humbled looking at the board. Out of the eight flags up there, I had only been to three places that the flags represented. I’m not so sure I should even count Singapore since I was just in the airport, but I did clear customs and got the stamp so I’ll consider it a “to be continued” visit. It’s amazing, how vast and diverse the world and its inhabitants are, that a small sliver can come together in a 25’ x 30’ classroom in hopes of learning something new.
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