Being Asian
So I was asked to write an article about being Asian 2 months ago and have been struggling with the worst case of writer's block since. I think somewhere between the 8th and 9th draft I just said "fuck it" and gave it a rest. All my drafts end up sounding really angry near the middle of the paper because I vent out on everything I have to go through being Hakka and Chinese. It's not the tone I want to strike with people because it sounds as if I hate being Asian which couldn't be further from the truth. I love it! It's just...frustrating. Here is the draft I more or less sent in. It's rough. Really rough. I'm probably going to print this out and edit it soon, or maybe scrunch it up and throw it away. I know that the first two paragraphs need a lot of work to set it up, it seems really out of place. I'll revise this tomorrow if I have time.
Unless you're a member of my family then chances are I'll be speaking English to you. I cannot speak Cantonese, although I understand it, and Mandarin is an even bigger mystery to me. Instead, I speak Hakka, which is a dialect of Chinese that apparently no one uses. That's not true actually, I've met several Hakka-speaking people in Toronto, unfortunately for me, they speak Moyen Hakka, which is slightly different, but enough that I can’t understand it. So, unless you're in my immediate family the only way I can communicate with you is with English. I reiterate this point because I don't bring my family with me everywhere I go, so the first impression that people have is that I am "white-washed” since I’m never speaking Chinese. Not true, although I did go around telling people this when I was still in high school, but that was only because I grew tired of explaining to people that I was Hakka. There’s nothing wrong with embracing another culture, but to renounce your own in the process? That would make you a cultural sellout.
Then there are people who think I should just learn to speak Cantonese. As if it was one of the easier languages to learn. Well, I attended Chinese school for about six years growing up, but the problem with Chinese school is that it’s taught in Cantonese, and was intended to teach people how to read and write, not speak it. It was a complete waste of time for me. I wish I had learned Cantonese at some point in my life though because I went to Hong Kong earlier this year and although it was a very lively place to be, full of fun things to do, my limited understanding of the language marred my experience there. Before the trip my friends told me not to worry since many people in Hong Kong spoke English anyway. This was true, but, they couldn’t quite understand why I was speaking English to them and responded in Cantonese most of the time.
I feel defective. It’s as if I was intended to be Chinese, but didn’t quite meet the industry standards. I’m not good enough, but it’s not my fault because I was raised speaking a language that wasn’t spoken by 2 billion people. Imagine if this was an alternate universe, where Hakka was the main Chinese language and Cantonese and Mandarin have been pushed to the periphery. Not much about me would change, only: I'd be watching TVB shows and movies from Hong Kong without the aid of English subtitles, and I'd be fearlessly conversing with everyone in Hakka. Ordering food at Chinese restaurants would no longer require a menu for me to point at, and God only knows how much more fun I’d have in Hong Kong now that I won’t get dirty looks for not being able to speak the language. Maybe I’d run into some Chinese folk and start speaking to them in Hakka, but they’d sheepishly answer me in English “sorry sir, I don’t speak Hakka” and then it’d be my turn to look at them weird, and say, “oh, but I thought you were Chinese!”