Language—it’s a personal thing
Rather than attend a traditional Chinese school, I opted for Sunday morning dim sum, an informal and delicious way to connect with my heritage. Although dim sum certainly has its merits, few would argue that dumplings have had a transformative cultural effect on their lives. While my grandma would rattle off her order in rapid Cantonese, I picked up on the words that truly mattered. Char siu bao: white fluffy domes stuffed with barbeque pork. Cheong fun: slippery rice noodles masking exposed shrimp in a bath of Kikkoman’s finest. Xiao long bao: the most delicate of soup dumplings and quite possibly the gateway drug of the East. Wu gok: a combination of fried taro, mushroom, shrimp, and pork that sounds weird, but works. A few more dishes here and there are the extent of my Chinese fluency.
When waiters attempt to engage me in Chinese, I smile sheepishly until they realize the futility of their actions. My uncomfortable smile isn’t an apology for my inability to understand Chinese, but rather a reaction to their mistaken assumptions. Even at a place like Washington University, some cannot fathom that one can be Chinese, albeit Chinese-American, and not speak the dialect.
Other than my physical appearance, there is little to suggest that I speak Chinese. I was born in California where I have lived my entire life. My dad knows French, but not Chinese. My mom knows Spanish, but not Chinese. My grandparents only speak Chinese between themselves and with friends. While some connect to their heritage through language, I have never used language to define myself. My rejection of the Cantonese versions of grandma and grandpa – Yea-Yea and Ngin-Ngin – didn’t represent a blatant denunciation of my heritage. Rather, it embodied an eagerness to connect to my American identity – third generation strong and three generations removed from China.
Although some ask about my linguistic shortcomings with the intention to better understand, others stubbornly refuse to accept what they perceive as a contradiction. One of my professors firmly believes that all Asian students must speak the language of their ancestors. If he comes across a foreign term, he will attempt to identify his students’ races based on their last names and proceed to interrogate them about the word and their ethnicity. I think there is a comical quality to the situation. In the moment, nervous laughter seems to be the best way to handle the circumstances. One could come up with a number of excuses for this professor:
He genuinely wants to determine the correct pronunciation of the word.
He genuinely aspires to know the background of his students.
He genuinely cares about his students and their ties to their ancestry.
Regardless, these points remain excuses – excuses for the unnecessary discomfort that I, or any student, should not have experienced.
In these situations, I am no longer concerned with the quality of my comments or the discussion at hand. Now, it is my outward appearance, an arbitrary characteristic that I cannot control, that becomes the forefront of the class. Through these actions, the professor simultaneously singles out and generalizes all Asian and Asian-American students. Language is one way for people to connect to their culture; his distorted sense of “who should speak what” taints the intimate power of language to bridge the individual to culture, family, and history. His superficial assumptions cheapen the evolution of language and the idea of globalization in a world in which isolation is becoming obsolete. The belief that I speak the language of my ancestors is self-serving; it provides a convenient vehicle for people to think they know my background and an easy way to neglect the rich processes by which I came to be Chinese-American.
Our backgrounds are multidimensional and complex. Our identities cannot be reduced to outward appearances and the languages that our ancestors spoke hundreds of years ago. While I acknowledge the value in learning the language of one’s ethnicity, there are other ways to identify with heritage. We lament the loss of language with each coming generation, and yet, it’s easy for us to forget that our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents taught themselves English to assimilate and succeed in America. For them, to learn language was to survive. For me, to learn language is to relearn what my grandparents had to repress.
Language can be both a necessity and a privilege. It can strengthen our relationship with our heritage, but the lack of language doesn’t cheapen our identities. When reality conflicts with a professor’s preconceived notions, he remarks that “we should be more in touch with our ethnicity.” This simple suggestion points to his greater failing in understanding that our unique identities are shaped by different processes, variables, and backgrounds.
Dim sum translates to “touch the heart.” The little Chinese that I learned through dim sum is not insignificant or trivial. It is the byproduct of valuable Sunday mornings in which I discovered what it means to be both Chinese and American, surrounded by family, pork buns, and sesame balls.