Thank you for sharing this personal essay. It's gorgeous! Have you read Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera? It's one of the most beautiful discussions of language, identity, and loss that I've read.
I see something similar happening with my daughter, who speaks English as her minority language (or second language or whatever you want to call it). She'll speak it with me but clams up whenever anyone else tries to speak it with her. She says that she doesn't want to make mistakes. Even when I reassure her that nobody who speaks English expects anyone else to speak it without making mistakes*, she says that she doesn't want to try it.
I'm hoping this feeling will change as she gets older but so far, it just seems to be getting stronger.
This is a powerful, moving post. Thank you for writing it. I hope you find your way to the relationship you want to have with Chinese.
I've spoken only one language, English, all my life. I've always felt limited by this. When I began to study Italian seriously, I felt more free in many unexpected ways. If language is a big part of who we are, might it also represent the parts of ourselves we discover?
I feel the same way about my heritage language. Learning about language death and revitalization over a year ago is what lead me to realize that my heritage language will most likely be lost and end with me (in my family) as I'm the only one in my generation that can understand it. Lack of resources make it difficult to learn and its even more of a challenge when family memebers get so used to speaking English to me that they switch back when I respond in English. Maybe things will change in the future.
Wow this is so amazing and touching to read. Thanks for sharing! 🌷🥰🌷
My grandfather is Chinese (not my genetic grandfather, long story but he’s Chinese from Taiwan and my dad and our family are super white 😅) and I’ve recently been learning Chinese and sharing bits of that with him.
It’s super exciting and fun to share - to send him a little email saying 你好爺爺 and getting a little message back. (Recently he showed me his Chinese/English dictionary he bought in high school to learn English - it must be like 70 years old!) But despite that exciting new connection I really feel the shyness about using the language that you’re talking about. I’m nervous to try to speak to him in my baby-level Chinese in-person, and I’ve never really tried with anyone else.
It feels obvious to say but language is so tied up with our identities and we don’t seem to wrestle with too often. I know it brings up a lot of imposter-syndrome feelings in me about being genetically white/European, etc. but having this big Chinese cultural influence on my family from my grandpa - its important to me but I always feel like I’m a fraud 😅 then I remember my last name (Peng / 彭) is sitting right there proving part of that identity I feel to be true. It’s weird! 😵💫
Thanks again for sharing this! I just found your newsletter but it made a big impact and I really appreciate your words. 🤗
I saw you liked a comment of mine and saw your 'stack was about language. On seeing this essay, I knew I had to subscribe.
Subscribing for two reasons: 1- I love language, and love studying language, love learning language. I have tried making a Conlang for my fiction endeavor, and the practice of trying to invent a language really helped unlock how to study languages at all.
2- My wife is from the Philippines, and we have a baby on the way. She still speaks fluently in her dialect with her family, and when her family came I started picking up some things too, but as I am an American, our child will have a foot in two worlds. I want them to feel equally connected to both. I hope that means fluency in both English and Bisaya. I don't know how that will work but my wife and I are talking about how we hope to accomplish it.
Language is beautiful and it tells us so much (pun unintended) about people, about history, about culture--your substack seems aimed at exactly that. Thank you for writing this essay! Looking forward to what you have to write in the future!
Thanks for sharing such vulnerability here Rebecca! Honestly, I am terrified to speak Chinese regularly because my Chinese level is so elementary and I've always struggled with getting tones right. I have a lot of past trauma and insecurity around being criticized for my poor Chinese or just generally being misunderstood. But OKAY LET'S DO IT; let's try having more conversations in Chinese in our every day interactions!! Not sure how far we'll get haha but I would love to make it a more normalized experience in our lives as I've also lamented the fact that I may never be able to pass on Chinese to my kids. So let's give it a shot!
Thank you for sharing something so personal, Rebecca. I think all the feelings and fears you have are totally normal. The Chinese language in you will always be there, and no one can take it from you. You get to decide when and how to use it. The power is in you!
Thank you for sharing this personal essay. It's gorgeous! Have you read Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera? It's one of the most beautiful discussions of language, identity, and loss that I've read.
Thank you for writing such a personal post.
I see something similar happening with my daughter, who speaks English as her minority language (or second language or whatever you want to call it). She'll speak it with me but clams up whenever anyone else tries to speak it with her. She says that she doesn't want to make mistakes. Even when I reassure her that nobody who speaks English expects anyone else to speak it without making mistakes*, she says that she doesn't want to try it.
I'm hoping this feeling will change as she gets older but so far, it just seems to be getting stronger.
*Nobody worth talking to, anyway.
This is a powerful, moving post. Thank you for writing it. I hope you find your way to the relationship you want to have with Chinese.
I've spoken only one language, English, all my life. I've always felt limited by this. When I began to study Italian seriously, I felt more free in many unexpected ways. If language is a big part of who we are, might it also represent the parts of ourselves we discover?
Such a fascinating post!
I feel the same way about my heritage language. Learning about language death and revitalization over a year ago is what lead me to realize that my heritage language will most likely be lost and end with me (in my family) as I'm the only one in my generation that can understand it. Lack of resources make it difficult to learn and its even more of a challenge when family memebers get so used to speaking English to me that they switch back when I respond in English. Maybe things will change in the future.
Thank you for writing this personal essay. 加油!
Wow this is so amazing and touching to read. Thanks for sharing! 🌷🥰🌷
My grandfather is Chinese (not my genetic grandfather, long story but he’s Chinese from Taiwan and my dad and our family are super white 😅) and I’ve recently been learning Chinese and sharing bits of that with him.
It’s super exciting and fun to share - to send him a little email saying 你好爺爺 and getting a little message back. (Recently he showed me his Chinese/English dictionary he bought in high school to learn English - it must be like 70 years old!) But despite that exciting new connection I really feel the shyness about using the language that you’re talking about. I’m nervous to try to speak to him in my baby-level Chinese in-person, and I’ve never really tried with anyone else.
It feels obvious to say but language is so tied up with our identities and we don’t seem to wrestle with too often. I know it brings up a lot of imposter-syndrome feelings in me about being genetically white/European, etc. but having this big Chinese cultural influence on my family from my grandpa - its important to me but I always feel like I’m a fraud 😅 then I remember my last name (Peng / 彭) is sitting right there proving part of that identity I feel to be true. It’s weird! 😵💫
Thanks again for sharing this! I just found your newsletter but it made a big impact and I really appreciate your words. 🤗
I saw you liked a comment of mine and saw your 'stack was about language. On seeing this essay, I knew I had to subscribe.
Subscribing for two reasons: 1- I love language, and love studying language, love learning language. I have tried making a Conlang for my fiction endeavor, and the practice of trying to invent a language really helped unlock how to study languages at all.
2- My wife is from the Philippines, and we have a baby on the way. She still speaks fluently in her dialect with her family, and when her family came I started picking up some things too, but as I am an American, our child will have a foot in two worlds. I want them to feel equally connected to both. I hope that means fluency in both English and Bisaya. I don't know how that will work but my wife and I are talking about how we hope to accomplish it.
Language is beautiful and it tells us so much (pun unintended) about people, about history, about culture--your substack seems aimed at exactly that. Thank you for writing this essay! Looking forward to what you have to write in the future!
Thanks for sharing such vulnerability here Rebecca! Honestly, I am terrified to speak Chinese regularly because my Chinese level is so elementary and I've always struggled with getting tones right. I have a lot of past trauma and insecurity around being criticized for my poor Chinese or just generally being misunderstood. But OKAY LET'S DO IT; let's try having more conversations in Chinese in our every day interactions!! Not sure how far we'll get haha but I would love to make it a more normalized experience in our lives as I've also lamented the fact that I may never be able to pass on Chinese to my kids. So let's give it a shot!
Thank you for sharing something so personal, Rebecca. I think all the feelings and fears you have are totally normal. The Chinese language in you will always be there, and no one can take it from you. You get to decide when and how to use it. The power is in you!