A moment where we stumble into an unexpected pop culture gap
The other day, I was at the nearby pasar Ramadhan ('Ramadhan market' i.e. food, food AND MORE FOOD) with 
chromie and bolstur, as we're buying food since they're joining my family for berbuka (i.e. iftar/breaking fast. Tangent: I'll never get used to the Arabic terms the Muslim-world-at-large-in-English uses now...). We were at one of the stalls, when I pointed a local kuih to her, and the following exchange occured (in the midst of the crushing weight of humanity):
Me: That's 'kuih Doraemon' (Doraemon's cake).
Her: ?
Me: It's shaped like a dorayaki because that's Doraemon's favourite snack.
Her: What's a dorayaki?
Me: That. It's Doraemon's favourite snack.
Her: Who's Doraemon?
Me: .... D:
I thought that's one of the essentials of Malaysian childhood pop culture!
Anyway, another thing I learnt from a Dutch boy I met the other day. Apparently in summer, they have this thing called a 'pasar malam' (night market). As in, that is what Amsterdam folks actually call it. Neat! If I understood his explanation correctly, that's where the Indonesian stalls would come up. Googling it up, seems true enough (I had to check - I mean, he is an acquaintance of my brother. XD) It was quite odd experiencing those moments - he had some tepung pelita and was like, hey, this is a bit like kuih lapis! (except I'm sure considering the Indonesian link, he'd probably spell it 'kueh lapis').
Somewhat related, you know it bugs me when I see the word 'amok' being spelled in English as 'amuck'. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??
And completely unrelated... the following DragonCon panel with Shatner and Nimoy is seriously cracking me up.
ETA: Chromie insists that she does in fact knows Doraemon, and it was the noise of the crowd that made her misheard me. XD
This entry was originally posted at http://horusporus.dreamwidth.org/18940.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
chromie and bolstur, as we're buying food since they're joining my family for berbuka (i.e. iftar/breaking fast. Tangent: I'll never get used to the Arabic terms the Muslim-world-at-large-in-English uses now...). We were at one of the stalls, when I pointed a local kuih to her, and the following exchange occured (in the midst of the crushing weight of humanity):
Me: That's 'kuih Doraemon' (Doraemon's cake).
Her: ?
Me: It's shaped like a dorayaki because that's Doraemon's favourite snack.
Her: What's a dorayaki?
Me: That. It's Doraemon's favourite snack.
Her: Who's Doraemon?
Me: .... D:
I thought that's one of the essentials of Malaysian childhood pop culture!
Anyway, another thing I learnt from a Dutch boy I met the other day. Apparently in summer, they have this thing called a 'pasar malam' (night market). As in, that is what Amsterdam folks actually call it. Neat! If I understood his explanation correctly, that's where the Indonesian stalls would come up. Googling it up, seems true enough (I had to check - I mean, he is an acquaintance of my brother. XD) It was quite odd experiencing those moments - he had some tepung pelita and was like, hey, this is a bit like kuih lapis! (except I'm sure considering the Indonesian link, he'd probably spell it 'kueh lapis').
Somewhat related, you know it bugs me when I see the word 'amok' being spelled in English as 'amuck'. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??
And completely unrelated... the following DragonCon panel with Shatner and Nimoy is seriously cracking me up.
ETA: Chromie insists that she does in fact knows Doraemon, and it was the noise of the crowd that made her misheard me. XD
This entry was originally posted at http://horusporus.dreamwidth.org/18940.html. Please comment there using OpenID.