I’ve come up with a trick to be really zen in a foreign country that’s highly tolerant of foreigners.

Every time someone gets on my nerves, I just switch to a language they struggle with and continue our conversation. Oddly enough, they will feel flustered that they don’t speak the new language rather than offended that I’m not trying to use their own. This causes them to instantly drop all attempts at ‘attitude’ and focus on the exact message they’re trying to communicate, or in the case of minimum-wage-clocking and therefore linguistically underexposed telemarketers, hang up.

Sales girls peddling face whiteners will quickly shy away, incompetent waiters will rush to summon a problem-solver, and habitual yellers will suddenly lower their voice a few notches. But in case the local language is needed to negotiate a lower price or call someone on their bullshit, I can still bring it out in a flash. This is working so well, I’ve decided it’s imperative that I learn a non-Malaysian language in order to use the same tactic back home.

Japanese is not an option, as an alarming percentage of the people who tick me off are Otakus.