Malay customer scolds shop staff for complaining about her in Mandarin right in front of her

A Malay customer shocked a pair of Chinese shop attendants when she confronted them about how they complained about her in Mandarin in her presence. She told them off for being rude.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” she said, adding, “Next time, if you want to talk bad about someone, you must make sure no one understands what you’re saying.”

@farahnanad

korang pernah tak ada dlm situation camni? msti bengang gila cina yg serve aku tdi tu hahaha

♬ Drop It Like It’s Hot – Snoop Dogg

Ms Farah, who goes by @farahnanad on TikTok, recalled the encounter in a video on Mar 20, which has since been viewed by more than 1.5 million people.

In the TikTok video, she says she was looking for a charger cable for her iPhone at a shop one day, when it was near closing time. She did not say where the incident happened, nor name the shop, but she mentions “ringgit” in her exchange with the shop staff so it seems likely that this  happened in Malaysia.

By the time she was served, she said, it was just five minutes until closing time, and there were still others in line behind her.

But the staff were openly impatient  to go home. In front of Ms Farah, one of them said to another in Mandarin: “Walaoweh, this Malay woman, the shop is about to close and she still wants to buy something. Tell her we are closing. It’s not worth waiting for her to buy a S$6.50 item.”

The attendant then told her to come back the next day and clearly did not expect Ms Farah to retort in Mandarin: “What did your friend tell you just now? It’s not that I can’t speak Mandarin, I understood what you were saying.”

Taken aback, the staff asked her if she really spoke Mandarin. Ms Farah replied:  “Of course”. She even told them she had studied at a Chinese independent high school, a private high school in Malaysia where secondary-level students can continue their primary education in  Mandarin, using the simplified Chinese system of writing.

Embarrassed, the two staff then tried to give Ms Farah the iPhone cable for free. She  refused and told the two staff not to be so quick to judge people by their appearance.

Going by her TikTok posts, Ms Farah speaks Malay, Mandarin and English.

Commenters on TikTok praised her for not tolerating the rudeness of the shop staff.

One commenter even used the trending phrase “EMOTIONAL DAMAGE” to describe the incident.

/TISG

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