8days.sg<\/a>,\u00a0Juin explains that she’d been telling her manager for quite some time that, if there was a role that required a Chinese actress who can speak Malay, she would really love to go for it.<\/p>\n“When this opportunity came, she immediately thought of me and felt that the role is suitable so she proposed me for the role,” she recalls.<\/p>\n
That said, Juin still had to audition for the role, and the production team also assessed Juin’s language ability through the audition tape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“When I was preparing for the audition, I realised that memorising lines in Malay was more challenging than I expected. After recording the audition tape, I didn\u2019t even dare to watch it again,” she says.<\/p>\n
“I just sent it out with a ‘if I get it, I get it; if not, it\u2019s okay’ mindset. So when I eventually got the role, I was both happy and a little nervous at the same time.”<\/p>\n
For someone who volunteered herself for a role like that, you’d assume Juin would be confident of her Malay proficiency. But Juin rates her Malay language skills a three out of 10 when she first landed the role.<\/p>\n
“After completing the drama, I do feel that I\u2019ve improved. Now I would probably rate myself around a five,” she tells us.<\/p>\n
In an earlier interview with Zaobao.sg, Juin shared that she practised Malay by speaking it to others whenever she got the chance to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There was once I was speaking Malay with a Malay Grab driver. When I first got into the car [and started speaking Malay], he didn\u2019t see my face so he assumed I was Malay,” recounts Juin.<\/p>\n
When the driver finally saw her and realised she’s Chinese, he was quite surprised and praised that her “Malay was quite good”.<\/p>\n
“So I jokingly told him: ‘Oh, it\u2019s because I married a Malay man!’ He replied: ‘Oh I see’. Then I clarified that I was just joking, I meant my husband in the drama is Malay, not in real life,” she laughs.<\/p>\n
Regardless, Juin tells us that there was surprisingly not much language barrier while filming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think I already went through the language barrier phase back when I was in my first year of secondary school,” explains Juin.<\/p>\n
The actress was attending a Chinese primary school before enrolling into a Malaysian government secondary school, where Malay was the main language.<\/p>\n
“At that time, I really couldn\u2019t understand what the teachers were saying at all and I had to copy notes from my classmates. So having gone through that stage before, returning to a Malay-speaking environment now actually feels quite familiar to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, there were times when she would have little boo-boos too.<\/p>\n
“There were moments where I would get a bit mixed up between languages, suddenly thinking whether I should respond in Mandarin, Malay or English,” she shares.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lead actress Nurul Aini actually understands Mandarin. So sometimes on set, she would speak to me in Mandarin and I would reply in Malay.”<\/p>\n
Juin also added that there were quite a few “rojak” moments which could “feel a bit chaotic but also quite fun”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n