Mute

Can’t speak the language, have to rely on translators, smiling nicely and nodding, sheepish pointing and mumbling, speaking my own language to people who can only know in essence what I mean by the timing and tone, and on those people who speak both and can skip into a stilted conversation with me and then back again. I share this imperial and lazy notion of so many Australians that perhaps, hopefully, fingers crossed, that people will speak English wherever you need to go, and whenever you need to ask for something important. It is such a lazy notion, and I know I am missing out both on local knowledge and idiom and stories, but also it is very isolating. It makes your transactions with people tend to focus around commerce – people with limited English will know how to sell you something but are less likely to be able to make casual chit chat.

My work mate and I speak the same language, and also ‘speak the same language’ on many things, but it is like our shared vocabulary is work, and a few topics which radiate out from work – like study, like organizational structures, like funding arrangements for programs, like working in Asia, like where to go for food near the hotel.

Watch me typing, just to hear the sound of my own voice.