He Said ‘Run’, Not ‘Jump’
Moving to another city is not easy. It means that we have to leave our beloved friends, school, teachers, the foods, and the environment that we already know. It is hard, reaaally hard. I was experiencing that moment, too. However, not only those problems, for me, one of the hardest thing is: the language barrier.
It was all began when I was 7, my sister got sick. She got an asthma. Doctor said that Jakarta’s pollution would be bad for my sister’s healthiness. So, he recommended us to go somewhere else where the air situation is better.
My grandpa then asked us to move our home to Purwakarta, one regent in West Java. Three hours away from where I lived. He said that we can use his house there, in a little village outside the city. At first, my parents hesitated. My dad was working at an architect consultant company in Jakarta at that time, and if we moved away, then we would be separated. That means, I would see my dad only once a week.
However, my sister’s condition got worse and then my parents finally made a decision. We gotta move out to Purwakarta. I was saying goodbye to all of my friends.
Then the first day of school came. As a seven years old kiddo who used to live in Indonesian language speaking environment and never ever even speak sundanese, I was having a hard time to adapt with the new place. No one here seemed like speaking the same language with I am and it freaked me out.
At the first day of school, someone was approaching me. His name is Fajar. He was a fourth grader and I knew from my grandpa — who drove me to the school — that Fajar is my cousin.
“Well, okay,” I said. Let’s try to be friend with him.
He said something in local language. One sentence that I barely understand. I think he was introducing his name. I replied him, saying my name.
“Hayu urang balap lumpat,” then he said, another sentence that I only understand a little. That sentence means: let’s have a running race. But I did not know this that time. I just assume that ‘balap’ means racing and I thought he was asking me to compete with him.
However, ‘lumpat’ which means ‘run’ in Sundanese, is very similar with word ‘lompat’ in Indonesian language which means ‘jump’. So, initially, I thought that he was asking me to race with him by jumping from one place to another.
You can guess what happened next: he ran fast through the school field, left me who helplessly jumping and hoping around with a lot of confusion in my mind.
That’s only one funny fragment of how language differences could be a barrier for me as a kid. Some times later, language barrier would still be a problem for me. I was having a hard time to socialize with other kids. That made me some kind of anti-social and it affected my study too. I didn’t really enjoy being at school and in the result, I got several bad grades at the end of the semester.
I was feel like an alien. They often mocked me for my Indonesian language and inability of speaking sundanese. At first, it was dreadful. I was not feel like I was being accepted among my new friends. That made me sad.
However, I began to think that I only have one key to solve this problem: I need to learn sundanese. It is not that easy, though. Even if I have mastered some of the vocabularies, I need to work on the accent, too. That is because speaking sundanese is not enough, you need to speak it with unique dialect.
As a determinant kid, I was not going to surrender! I began to learn some basic sentences and try to speak sundanese with my fellow third grader. At first, it was reaaally awkward. They were just starring at me as if I was coming from another planet.
I was nervous.
But the second later, they began to laugh. Like, laughing out loud. Yes, they were laughing at my flat accent. They said that I sounded like a weirdo.
It was a mockery, of course, but at the same time they were changing themselves into a more friendly person. They started to ask me to say more sundanese, so they could laugh at it. Then out of nowhere I was invited to play football with them at school break. Then I was asked to come to one of my friend house to have Nasi Liwet together. Then suddenly everything was turned around, from an alien in a strange place into an (still) alien who just began to be accepted in the environment.
That miracle would not happened if I did not started to learn the new language. Even though that until now my accent is still weird, at least now I know when someone asked me to ‘balap lumpat’, they asked me to run, not jump.