atuk & nenek

in my previous unit, i had a very good team of admin staff. they are all malays and thus we would converse using the malay language often. and affectionately, one of them would address me as atuk (grandfather). now, this staff is very young and chirpy and despite being new to the admin team, she assimilated very well and very fast. let call her nah.

my team of admin staff continued to keep in close contact with me even after i left my company. and recently, nah gave birth to a baby girl. we joked about calling her "hazie", after the thick haze that descended on us... heh heh. in the end, she did not and instead gave the baby a very nice and modern english (but malay-spelling) name.

yesterday, together with the admin team, we visited nah. and as it was along the way to my brother's place, i brought my mum along. happily, she opened the door and greeted us. and instinctively, she called out to me "atuk!" and as soon as she did that, she warmly called out to my mum, "nenek!" (grandmother) and immediately she squealed... alamak so salah lah! sorry sorry...

and for that afternoon, she reverted to addressing me as "sir".

haha!