A Malay state Road Transport Department’s (RTD) staff became an overnight Internet sensation when a video of her speaking fluent Mandarin was widely shared and appreciated by social media users.
The 37-second-video shows Nur Syafiqah Azaman, 23, assisting two students from China who were not fluent in English and could not speak Malay.
Syafiqah was surprised that her colleague at the RTD office in Kangar had recorded the exchange between her and the students, with the video going viral on Facebook and WhatsApp yesterday.
“I learnt the language since I young as my mother is a Chinese and we converse in Mandarin at home. Apart from that, I was enrolled at a Chinese vernacular school, Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC) Yit Min in Changlun,” Syafiqah said.
Meanwhile, state RTD director Shahrul Azhar Md Dali said it is an advantage for the department to have someone like Syafiqah who is multilingual.
“I also encourage the staff, especially those at customer service division, to learn languages such as Mandarin or Tamil,” he said.
According to Syafiqah, the two Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) students, Sun Wen Xuan, 18, and Zhai Qin Xing, 19, just bought a car for their use while studying here and wished to transfer its ownership.
However, the students from Shandong, China, were having difficulty getting through the process with the difficulty in communication.
Seeing their difficulties, Syafiqah said he felt compelled to assist them and proceeded to explain the process to them in Mandarin.