1Malaysia

All around the city you can see posters with the slogan 1Malaysia written across them.  What do these posters mean?  What are they trying to teach us?

A poster at the LRT (Light Rail Transit) stop.

You see, just like Canada, Malaysia is a country of immigrants.  Over the centuries people from other countries have come to Malaysia (even before it was known as Malaysia) and they either colonized (took over part of the land), or decided to live and work with the locals in a more peaceful way.

When you look around the streets of Kuala Lumpur you can see many different faces.  You will find people from China, India, Turkey, Japan, Thailand and Burma (to just list a few) living together side by side.

The different faces that make up 1Malaysia.

The government is trying to remind Malaysians that no matter where they are from, no matter what language they speak, what religion they practice or what colour their skin is, they are all Malaysian, and all citizens of the country.  The hope is that things like racism (when people are treated badly or differently because of their race) won't be a problem in Malaysia if everyone remembers that together they all make up "one Malaysia".

A poster showing children dressed in different traditional clothing all holding the Malaysian flag.

It's All Greek to Me

The expression "It's all Greek to me" is an idiom.  When someone uses this phrase  they mean "I don't understand", not that what they are looking at is really Greek.  Do you know any other idioms?  Come on, has the cat got your tongue?  Now that I am in Paros, when I say "It's all Greek to me", I really mean "I don't understand because it is all in Greek".

The Greek language uses the Greek alphabet which is different from our Latin alphabet.  It only has 24 letters, and only some of these letters look similar to their Latin counterpart.  ABCD looks like ABCD, so you can see how that can get confusing for someone who doesn't know how to read Greek.

Here is a sign that I saw today while walking in Paros.

What do you think this sign says?

Well, lucky for me there was a picture next to the word, so I got to use my picture reading skills.  The picture looked like this.

So, after picture reading I went back to the word on the sign and I think it says something like "Fish Shop", or "Fresh fish here!"  I could be wrong (maybe one of my Greek friends can help me here), but at least I tried!

Picture reading sure comes in handy while you are travelling and learning how to read in a new language.