South Africa 35

Listen to South Africa 35, a 73-year-old woman from Cape Town, South Africa. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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*This is the same subject as South Africa History 1. The recording found on this page is an abbreviated version of the much longer one found on that page.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 73

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/07/1944

PLACE OF BIRTH: Cape Town (District Six), South Africa

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: (Cape) Malay

OCCUPATION: retired

EDUCATION: tertiary education: National Diploma (Secretarial and Accounting)

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: N/A

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/11/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Ja, coming to South Africa, that was many generations before me. They all hail from, ah, Indo-, Malaysia, Indonesia. What part of, ah, Malaysia, Indonesia is ye-, still to be found out. I suppose we could really source that as well, but we do come from I think more, more Java, Malaysia, Indo-, you know, that little, those areas. My mom’s family stationed in Port Elizabeth; they came o-, came from the, the, the, um, Malay peninsula to, to Port Elizabeth, some in, in, in, in Paarl; and my family, my dad’s family came to Cape Town.

Growing up, we spoke an Afrikaans and a, ah, an Afrikaans, like ah, Malay. We used to use terms, and we didn’t even know that a banana, a “piesang,” is a Malay term. It’s only just when we, I went to the UK, I went to England, and then, um, I was talking to my — ag, I wonder how — ah, “Ek wonder hoeveel is die piesangs,” and then a Malay g-, ah, person was next to me and says, “Oh, you also know a piesang is a Malay term?” So I said, “Yes, it’s an Afrikaans term in South Africa.” So he says, “No, it’s a Malay — piesang is Malay.” …

I remember working there; there were pictures in his office with Buthelezi, the, a very young Buthelezi and a very young, you know, maybe Nelson Mandela, and, you know things like that in his office, pictures and things like that. The, the Apartheid regime then wouldn’t have really approved. …

Now I don’t want him to say my cooking is better than his wife’s, so I, I teach, ah, Shireen how to do my style of cooking. So she says now I’m also cooking like a “langhaar” Bushman, you know? And we laugh about it; we laugh of … because, she says ho-, it’s pointless making my style, when my husband likes a different style of cooking. That’s why I always give them a little something to take home, because he likes that kind of cooking. He likes the oven “frikkadel,” which is also, you know, put in the oven with a yellow rice and the — it’s like a “bobotie” but it’s, that is not as spicy, that is now — my mom used to make it. And he loves it, so I gave him some to take home, so you, so he’s now enjoyed it.

[Subject speaks Afrikaans]: O, dis so gevaarlik lekker! Dis regtig, regtig lekker.

[English translation: Oh, it’s so dangerously delicious! It’s really, really delicious.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/11/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

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