For the first nine years of my life, I grew up in Shenzhen, China, learning Mandarin and speaking it in my daily life with both my family and my friends. After moving to Vancouver, Canada, in the third grade, I began speaking English on a daily basis in school, but continued to speak Mandarin with my parents. Despite living in Canada for the past ten years, my parents continue to express indifference towards picking up English. Although they have made several efforts to acquire the language, they gave up after short bursts of intense interest and learning. What resulted was a dramatically worsening Mandarin of mine, and a significantly improving English. I would speak very poor Mandarin to my parents, often stopping in the middle of the sentence to figure out how to say the word in Chinese so my parents would understand. Then every time when we reach that junction, my parents urge me to say that missing word in English, then finish the rest in Mandarin. As soon as I do that, they give me a dazed look, asking me what that meant. How ironic…
I could sense that the conversations I’ve been having with my parents as in recent years, as I have slowly neared mastery of the English language, have been very shallow. I could only use simple phrases, and simple words to communicate with them. In addition, I have acquired such a strong sense of Canada and Western culture that make our conversations even more diluted, to a point where the common denominator has reached a point of baby talk. It’s definitely sad to realize that I cannot communicate abstract or tough ideas with the people closest to me, but at the same time, it’s a special connection that others don’t have with their parents because very rarely do the child speak and live in a entirely different dimension, figuratively not literally, compared to their parents.