Misunderstanding

Ever since day 1 of work, my impressions of my workmates were that they were scared of me. They treated me like a zoo animal, and wasn't too sure what to do with me or how to treat me. They won't make an eye contact, they will talk to eachother before they will talk to me, they won't talk to you about anything but will happily chit chat away, ignoring you.

I tried to communicate, I tried to engage, I tried to make myself accepted. But nothing worked.

First of all, for those of you who have never heard of Singlish before, Singlish is a very hard sounding language. It is not English, but it is Singlish. The basic rule is to drop every word except the main key word and use the most simplest words possible. And some words are used in the context that is never used in any English speaking country. For example, the word "NEVER" is often and too often used in the wrong context. My boss came up to me and said

"Himawari, why you never clean up"

but what this really means is

"Himawari, you still haven't cleaned up the element after you used it" (which I used to cook lunch and missed a spot".

The word NEVER according to Oxford English dictionary, it means

adverb

1at no time in the past or future; not ever:

2not at all:

Which is same as my understanding of the English word never. But over here, is used too frequently in forms of "not yet" or "still have not" or just plain "didn't ". Another example being "Why you never wash?" which means "Why didn't you clean?". Although I am slowly learning Singlish wether to my liking or not, I still do get annoyed if someone stomps up at me and tells me "why you never clean up". I do clean up, and I did clean up, I just missed a spot. But does the words need to be so sharp tongued?

So anyway, apparently my colleagues thought that "Accepting" the difference is a good way to to go. So they just "accepted" my behaviour which may be normal to me but offensive to them, an and "accepted" any use of language they don't understand, and expected me to do the same. Well now the problem with this "accepting" is that the core is not solved at all. Because they "accept", I don't know that they don't understand, and even if I did know, if they give me responses like

"oh ok"

And end of story, I don't bother interacting after a while, coz I don't see the point in the end. They say I am too straight forward, and I say they wind the road so much that I just wanna say

"So what's your point?"

And we did exactly that tonight.

No yelling, no shouting, but pure honesty. And she feels so relieved that that she finally got to say it out loud, and I finally feel relieved that they do have a mouth to say anything.

It makes me laugh in a way that they thought I would feel "accepted" if they don't talk to me or talk back to me or feel happy if they just talk together very very friendly to eachother and boring plain manners to me. I wanted to engage to my colleagues in the ways of "all excuses excused". I do have a snarky sense of humor, and I don't show it at work, that's coz I know that with their english skills, they will take it as an offense,  or too much slang. That is my way of "accepting" them. I don't try and make things awkward. I don't rub them in my face that my English is better, or the fact that there is a better world out there, or the fact about how crap he life style is over here.

I don't know how many times I've told them to say what they want to say, or try and communicate if you want to have another view, and it took them bloody 11 months and an late night OT to the point they don't give a crap, and myself having 2 weeks left so they really don't give a crap about how ugly things will turn out at the end, to finally get some honest opinion. And it's so god damn easier to work now that we got everything down on the table.

I only wish that this happened back in May, when I first came back from Jakarta. Then maybe I would have liked Singapore a little more. I still absolutely hate the English here, and it sounds rude, but I could have gotten over that only if I had a good company.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" (How can I help?)
"WHY YOU NEED?" (how quickly do you need them?)
"YOU WANT OR NOT?" (would you like some?)
"ARGH? WHY YOU TAKE?" (Sorry, but this is for something/someone else)
"aGL)?!ete´®®˚µœø√ˆ©¥ƒ∂πP('(+Oæπø¥¡©N(&R#)'$U&??" (What ever they are saying in Mandarin)
*The capital letters are used, as they like to emphasize and say these words in the bluntest way possible in life

Singlish, I will hate you for life, but finally, 8 days before my last day of work, day 329 Since I started work, I finally feel like I can like my work.