Bribery, corruption and Limpeh's epic pasar Malay

Hello! Apa kahbar? Many of my regular readers will know that I am a keen learner of foreign languages and one of the languages that I do speak is Malay/Bahasa Indonesia. I don't think my Malay is that bad as I have made a genuine effort to learn it and on my travels around SE Asia, it has served me very well. Last week, I even got into a long conversation with a member of staff of Royal Brunei Airlines at Brunei Airport about how I can still speak Malay after spending half my life in the UK. Whilst my grammar is far from perfect, I have quite a wide range of vocabulary and my listening comprehension is pretty good. I always make a valiant effort to use it when given the chance. The only problem I have is that I lack practice (which is why I am always speaking to my sister's maid in Malay) - I do enjoy the Malay language very much and some linguists have argued that it is one of the easiest foreign languages to pick up.

The Tanjing Pinang ferry terminal on Bintan island

The form of Malay is speak isn't pure and far from perfect, it is a kind of 'trade Malay' spoken by non-native speakers of the language who have used it to facilitate trade with the locals in the region. Sometimes, this has also been referred to as 'pasar Malay' locally, as the 'pasar' (market) was where such trade Malay was spoken: it was a form of Creole Malay, infused with plenty of loanwords from Hokkien and English, arranged according to either English or Chinese grammar. So it would probably serve me well when I am trying to buy street food in Indonesia, but it usually frustrates the hell out of my Malay speaking friends  in Singapore and Malaysia who often tell me to just speak English with them. I do get frustrated at the way many Singaporean-Chinese people don't even know more than a few words of Malay - like come on, it is so important to be able to speak a bit of Malay if you live in south-east Asia, how can you not even pick up a bit when you are surrounded by it?

So how different is my form of 'pasar Malay' from standard Malay? For example, when trying to say "my book", I often say "saya punya buku" (which is modeled upon 我的书) instead of the standard way, "buku saya". Now I have been told again and again that I am misusing the word 'punya' that way by trying to find an equivalent word for 的 to indicate the possessive, that only Chinese learners of Malay make such a mistake. I am well aware of my common mistakes, but when I am struggling to get the sentences out in mid-conversation, old habits often come back to haunt me and I inevitably make some mistakes. I usually pride myself at making a real effort when trying to speak a foreign language and it is usually extremely useful when dealing with difficult locals (as I had found out in Rome earlier this year).

"Saya punya buku"

There was a time however, on this trip that my epic pidgin pasar Malay did serve me extremely well. I took the ferry over to Bintan, Indonesia for a short trip - I would have loved to have done a longer trip, but I had so much going on in Singapore: my Lasik surgery, the visit of my Finnish friend Kai and volunteering at the Singapore Open Gymnastics Championships, it narrowed it down to an overnight trip. Given that I was unable to get my first choice (Pulau Sibu), I settled for Bintan as the travel agent had offered a good deal. As I arrived at the ferry terminal, to my surprise, I was told that I didn't need a visa-on-arrival (VOA) despite that information contradicting what I had read on Indonesian embassy's website. So I thought, great, I have just saved myself S$23 (or US$15 if you had American dollars on you) - there were two other holders of British passports in the queue and they seemed to have gotten through without having to pay for a VOA. I had already two Indonesian VOAs in my current passport, from my two previous visits to Indonesia, so I was surprised to say the least - but I thought oh well, this may be my lucky day!

When I got to the front of the queue, I started the conversation in Bahasa Indonesia by greeting the customs officer selamat pagi. The conversation then continued in Indonesian, he asked me a lot of questions from what I was doing in Singapore, how long I had been in Singapore, where I was staying in Bintan, how long I was in Bintan for, how I managed to get a British passport, how long I had been a British citizen, what my occupation was, whether I had any children, how I intended to return to the UK and it was pretty clear that he was just going to keep me there, asking me random questions until I gave in and offered a bribe or lost my temper. That was when I remember how I drove my buddy Shaffiq crazy with my epic pasar Malay so I thought, okay, if you wanna play this game bitch, let's see who's going to drive who gila first. So what are you gonna do then, arrest me for my bad grammar or mispronunciations?

Whoopee. Rural Indonesia. Just what I came for. Not.

The quality of my Malay deteriorated quickly as I used more loanwords from Hokkien (and Singlish) and deliberately mispronounced a lot of words. So for example, when he asked to see my air ticket from Singapore to London, I replied, "Aku pergi degan Brunei Airlines punya pur-ki tetapi aku bo ada aku punya airline tiket dengan aku sini hari ini leh, because hah, aku kia skarli aku punya lau beg pijiak halfway den aku punya tiket hilang di jalan-jalan Bintan when aku buay de barang-barang Indonesia den liddat hor, ini maciam aku anchua boleh balik ke London? Sangat jialat leh. Aku tak perlu itu tiket untuk Bintan wat, itu tiket yang di Singapura lah. Tetapi hah, kenapa lu mau now lihat dat tiket for apa? If lu mau, aku ada aku punya feri tiket untuk lu boleh lihat-lihat bagus, aysai atau bueh sai liddat?" (Readers, I invite you to translate that in the comments section below.) I was switching so many times between Malay, Singlish and Hokkien within the same sentence that he had this look on this face which was, "what the fuck are you saying you stupid foreigner" - then he just said, "look, just speak English okay? I speak English. I'm afraid I cannot let you into Indonesia if I cannot see your return ticket to the UK - you will have to return to Singapore on the next ferry."

I then said, "Maafkan aku lah, aku tak faham, aku punya English very buruk one, lu boleh speak in Hokkien atau Mandarin?" Clearly, as an Indonesian, he didn't speak either Hokkien or Mandarin and I just plain refused to speak English with him. He then asked me, "but sir, how come you can hold a British passport but you don't speak English? Even people from Singapore speak English." And I said, "Oh aku only can sedikit lah, tetapi tak bagus lah, aku dari Singapura dan work dengan Chinese people so tak perlu bercakap English, so aku speak Chinese one.. Kami boleh becakap Bahasa Indonesia can?" He then switched to asking me questions in English but I continued to answer in my mish-mash of Malay, Hokkien and Singlish. I looked around me - everyone from my ferry had long gone and it was only me and the customs officer left, there were a few of his colleagues looking on in bemusement, they were probably trying to figure out what the hell I was trying to say in my epic pidgin Malay. I wasn't going to crack, I wasn't going to be flustered, I kept smiling and treated it like a game - I was determined to wear him down before he wore me down. Certainly after the number of bribes I had to pay the last time I was in Indonesia, I wasn't going to give in this time - the two other British passport holders got through without paying a bribe, so why should I pay a bribe? He should have picked on the older British lady - she definitely looks rather rich and would have given in a lot more easily than me.

I had to pay three bribes on my last trip to Indonesia.

I just kept talking even when I didn't fully comprehend his questions and he certainly had no clue what the fuck I was saying - these words just kept flowing from my mouth and never mind making any sense to him, half the time I didn't know what the hell I was saying either. I just kept talking and smiling, as if I was chatting to a very dear old friend in the most friendly manner. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, but I persisted. Suddenly, an older man emerged from around the corner and gave the customs officer dealing with me a stern look - without a word, it was like he had flicked a switch. The custom officer stopped mid-sentence, stamped my passport and gave it to me without a word. It happened so fast it surprised me, at that point, I thought I was going to be there all day! As I inspected the stamp on my passport - sure enough, he had granted me visa exemption and I was free to enter Indonesia without a VOA. I said to him in deliberately mispronounced Malay, "telima kasih abang! Jumpa lagi!" He had this look of disgust and contempt on his face, as if he was ready to punch me as I smiled at him, in victory, knowing that I had won and he had lost. 

As I left the ferry terminal at last and met my Chinese-Indonesian guide, he confirmed that the customs officer was clearly trying to extract a bribe from me by detaining me and interrogating me like this - that it was very common practice at the ferry terminal in Bintan, they would single out someone whom they think would pay a bribe and detain him/her. And I said to him, "what? Do I look as if I am rich and have money?" He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "you're Chinese and you have a British passport - in their eyes, that means you are very rich, rich enough to pay them a small bribe anyway. It is what they assume." For me, it wasn't even a question of money given that I had been spared the VOA and had already saved myself a little bit of money there - in fact I would have gladly paid for the VOA but I just hated the way corruption was so endemic in Indonesia, that nobody bats an eyelid about extracting or paying a bribe. Thus it was just a question of principle for me and I am glad I had won that little moral victory that day!

Indonesia is interesting but bloody corrupt.

So what have your experiences been with Indonesian corruption? Have you ever paid a bribe in Indonesia? Why the hell are these Indonesians so bloody corrupt and dishonest? And also, if you're Chinese-Singaporean, do you speak any Malay/Bahasa Indonesia? Please leave your comments below, many thanks for reading as always. Terima kasih!