Thou Soo and Aih Auan: Communicating Dissatisfaction in a Chinese Malaysian Community

Abstract

People experience dissatisfaction and need to express this dissatisfaction for a variety of reasons. Understanding the communication associated with these common expressions of complaint can illuminate the role of social interaction in maintaining a cultural community. We seek to increase our knowledge of culture, language, and social interaction by exploring folk concepts associated with expressions of dissatisfaction among Chinese Malaysians. We discovered two common folk concepts associated with this type of communication within this community: thou soo and aih auan. Thou soo is a solution-focused speech act, and aih auan, a lamentation about situations that are irreversible and beyond the speaker's control. Thou soo implies power in the speaker, but also carries with it risk and tension. Aih auan affords the speaker a less influential position, but has the potential of creating empathetic bonds with others and providing future wisdom. We explore in detail these folk concepts and their implications for cultural knowledge and community-connected communication in general.

Notes

¹In past studies, the languages spoken among Chinese Malaysians were labeled as dialects (e.g., see Lee-Wong, 2000; Platt, 1976; Waller & Fam, 2000). However, debate has recently arisen as to whether the Chinese dialects should be labeled as languages, since they are mutually unintelligible (Comrie, 1989; Goddard, 2005). In this study, we will talk about different languages instead of dialects because language plays an important role in the Chinese Malaysians' distinction of their different identities.

²There are clear distinctions of names by races among Malaysians, and the method of identifying people by ethnicity is commonly used in administrative systems in the country (e.g., education, employment, bank account applications, loan or scholarship applications, etc.). The first author is familiar with this race-based naming system. Chinese Malaysians follow a tripartite naming convention that uses three Chinese characters that can be spelled phonetically using alphabetical systems (e.g., Lee Ee Lin). Although certain Chinese Malaysians have adopted the British system of naming (i.e., an English first name) to signify their association with Westernization, they still use their own family names (e.g., Desmond Kwong). Chinese names are different from Malay names, which are characterized by the Muslim tradition and are closely associated with names of individuals in the Middle East (e.g., Ali, Mohamad, Ahmad, Omar, etc.). Malaysian Indians typically use ethnic Tamil names (e.g., Sami, Muthu, Loga, Susi, Ramasami, etc.).

³The term thou soo, as pointed out by an anonymous reviewer of the current study, is an intelligible term (spelled as tousu in Pinyin) used in Taiwan. According to the reviewer, tousu is not used in mundane conversation among Taiwanese, but more commonly in writing when a legal complaint or suit has been filed against a person or party. The reviewer has also spoken with his or her Chinese Malaysian friend. The friend immediately knew what thou soo meant and was able to give many examples that concur with the findings of this study. Thou soo as used by the Chinese Malaysian participants triggers different understanding than tousu as used by Taiwanese. On the other hand, the reviewer commented that aih auan in this study is very similar in meaning and performance to the terms of ai-you (in Mandarin) or ai-ya (in Hokkien) among Taiwanese speakers, although these terms were not used by the participants in the current study.

⁴The term thou soo is spelled phonetically as toō sōō, which is how it is pronounced by the community members. The pronunciation is the same as the Chinese characters . We are not able to report with certainty if the participants, including those who did not read in and write Chinese characters, referred to the same Chinese characters. Additionally, the first author did not solicit written forms from interlocutors. Three interviewees uttered the English word complain and used it interchangeably with thou soo when they narrated their past experiences in engaging in thou soo. The term, aih auan, is spelled phonetically as īō won and was pronounced by the rsearch participants in Hokkien. In two cases, interviewees uttered the Chinese words (pronounced phonetically as maI jen by the interviewees) when they talked about past instances in which they could only regret, but not change.