Romanian Singaporeans? Da!

On Saturday, we made people stare. All without making excessive noise, doing anything unusual nor taking off our clothes.

Six people with strong (not to mention iffy) Romanian accents chatted freely around a table in Kopitiam while tucking into supper. In no time, it was not hard to notice anyone within earshot turn and stare and wonder where the heck we were from.

Jasmine and Candice in particular attracted the unabashed curiosity of a man who was queuing behind them at a stall while they were talking (yes, still sounding Romanian). Even more interesting was his expression when Jasmine proceeded to order her food in Mandarin.

You see, we've created this rule to help us get used to the accent. Where two or more Y&W people are gathered, only the Romanian accent is to be heard (my, doesn't that sound biblical?). No Singlish, and certainly no Indian or Filipino, which is what we tend to degenerate to when we're not watching our tongues.

This has made chatting and gossiping a great deal more tiring, but a whole lot more amusing. But more importantly, it has had an interesting effect on some of us, as Candice mentioned: because we are forced to rethink the pronunciation of each and every word, we are starting to see English as an almost foreign language, often forcing us to slow down and work harder to speak it.

Accent demonstration is available upon request. Sniggering also welcome. Just not during our show. Hopefully you won't have to snigger by the time our show runs.

* Da means yes in Romanian.