Who Are You, Kiddos?

Few years ago, when I was in Bayswater, in the city of Westminster, it always felt like I was at home. Many people from home who’ve been there may know the reason why Bayswater feels like home. Bayswater is a town where many Malaysians, precisely, Malaysian students are familiar with. It’s where our Education Malaysia London, also popularly known as Malaysian Hall, located at.

Many Malaysian students reside in Bayswater too. There’s even a student accommodation under MARA nearby. There are lots of restaurants there, that offer Malaysian cuisines too, hence the reason why there are many Malaysians in Bayswater. There is a high possibility for you to find at least a Malaysian in that town, at any time of the year.

I don’t really remember exactly when this was, maybe during winter 2017 or maybe around spring 2018. We just got back from our trip, either from Germany-Austria trip or Paris trip. Me and my Malaysian friends went for a late night stroll around Bayswater for a breather while at the same time enjoying the view.

When we were casually walking around the street of Porchester Gardens, just by the corner of Queensborough Terrace, we encountered a group of elementary school kids walking onto our direction. We noted there were schools nearby in the area, and I noticed the school kids here got off from school a bit later than Malaysian schools. Or maybe I was wrong.

In our knowledge, judging by their appearance, we assumed that they were all British black kids. As we got nearer to them, when we were about to pass each other, all of them gave salaam to us, rather excitedly.

“Assalamualaikum!”

We didn’t answer the salaam directly as we thought that they were giving salaam to other people, maybe the ones behind us. We weren’t surprised to hear them giving salaam because many black people here were muslims. We answered the salaam in our hearts instead. Not hearing us answering their salaam aloud, one of them actually turned his body around just to say to us, loudly,

“Tak jawab dosa!”

We were very, very shocked to hear that! These kids knew Malay! What more, it’s a very common and typical line said by many Malaysians, especially among muslim kids in Malaysia! We never thought they knew Malay, or even thought that there was a slight possibility of them being a Malaysian.

Seeing us being shocked and confused, the kids then walked away, laughing rather waayyy too happily. We were still in shocked, exchanging looks with each other. After about a minute passed, after our thoughts done processing, only then we laughed our hearts out. It never occurred to us or had any slightest idea that the kids would say that.

I guess, there’s a lot of Malaysians or half-Malaysians in London. Or maybe they learned that phrase from their Malaysian friends. I don’t know.

What a night.