My daughters call me Bapak. They call Yan, Mak. Simple. Very basic.
Both Yan and I call our fathers and mothers, bapak and mak jugak. When I was younger, I remember that many others - friends and cousins - call their fathers, abah. At one point, my brothers and I pun musykil jugak. Why bapak?
Anyway I just remembered that my Mak Temoh called her father (my Tok Temoh) ayah while almarhum bapak called his father, abah. Macamana boleh jadik bapak ni? And get this, both my parents called their mothers, Encik. Funny, is it not? Well, in the good old days ramai my sedara mara call their mother, Encik. Why? Don't ask me. It's a Perak thing, I guess.
Apapun, there's one time when I was in secondary school and somehow I managed to incur almarhum Bapak's wrath (can't remember why though, must be something about my report card, oh well!). Bapak simply went berserk and boomed at me:
"Kepala bapak kamu!!!!"
And I just stood there trying to restrain myself from bursting out laughing. Gila nak gelak, but I was very kecut then.
8 comments:
Ah...gelak besar dibuatnya..Don't you some time get caught in that situation?
BTW I call my parents Mak and Abah
Haq,
I try not to go that way when I'm mad with my girls. Heh heh.
Mior,
as you know I call my dad, Bapak. He called his late dad Bapak too. But his late dad called his dad.. something else..some strange Farsi word.
my late mum called her dad Bapak too. I'm not sure what he called his dad but I think it was something else also (a mendahiling word).
Only my youngest sister called Bapak "papa" and my late mum "mummy". And you how come? Because I taught her to do that. Why? I don't know.... i think it was like an experiment.
My kids call their father Bapak (because he called his late father Bapak too).
My kids call me "mummy". I wanted them to call me "mak" but i don't know what happened along the way. So, I got stuck with "mummy".
Mior,
sorry.. but i terpakai past tense... my sister CALLS my Bapak "papa".
thank you..
Kak Ena,
Same thing happened to my sis-in law. She wanted her kids called her mak but along the way her eldest started calling her mama and it got stuck till today.
And I just realised that it was just my arwah bapak who called his mum, Encik. The rest of my uncles and aunts called my late Opah, mak. I noticed your almarhum mum was called Andung. Was that mendahiling?
Salam Bapak
this reminds me of similar incident i could remember when all 6 of us siblings (iyerrr... berderet2 cam mangkuk tingkat!) got extra mischievous and a bit out of hand, bapak would shake his head and said, "heeeiiii... budak2 ni macam anak2 monyet". that of course sent us giggling non-stop!
Oh ! I love those days....
mior,
yes..."andung" is mendahiling. some people of mendahiling descent call their grandmother "Uci" too. both also can.
anyway, speaking of "encik" as a term for "mak", i know that there are some families who use that.
My (first) cousins (my mum's sister's children) have got their cousins (their father's sister's children) calling their mum "Encik".
Everybody called her Encik. She passed away a few years ago,
When I was small, I did wonder why we were calling her Encik.
I was told that it was "mother".
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