Julie Ostuka’s When the Emperor was Divine touches on the theme of language lost through generations. There are often contrasts between older Japanese generations speaking Japanese and the children in the book not understanding them. This is also a theme in my life right now.
This week, while on the job, I was able to talk with an enthusiastic parent of a prospective student about the reclamation of language. He identified himself as Chicano, having grown up in America all his life but still claiming Mexican culture and heritage. When I told him I was studying Mandarin to reconnect with my roots, he told me a story of his childhood, growing up not knowing one word of Spanish. It wasn’t until college, like me, that he began to take pride in his heritage more and became dedicated to learning Spanish. He encouraged me to pursue my family’s language, and we were able to connect despite coming from different backgrounds and generations. He told me that learning someone’s mother language is often the key to the heart, plus it opens the door to the culture because language and culture are inherently linked.
Learning Mandarin is a big step. I took it for one year in freshman year of high school, but I barely remember it. All I remember is how intimidating it was. But learning it now is different. Now that I have a culture to relate it back to, now that I’m more aware of who I am and where I want to go. For me, taking Chinese is not only a challenge I want to face, but also a pathway towards understanding where part of my family comes from. Because we’re not just learning the language, we’re also learning the culture and history of China. We’re learning about radicals and the origin of Chinese characters, the way stories bloom from their shapes and pairings. We’re learning that pinyin was invented so that the Russians could learn Mandarin more easily when the two countries were beginning to trade.
And despite taking Mandarin, I also learned that my native family tongue would not be Mandarin. It would be Cantonese. For the last few years, I’ve been trying to grasp onto anything that will help me understand my Asian ancestry better. Even in high school, I was beginning to understand how important it was. It wasn’t until I did a project on Ai Weiwei that I even knew what the Cultural Revolution was. And it was only in the last two years that my dad told me that our family was from Canton. Which then links to the gold rush, because the majority of Chinese during that time came from the Canton province.
It didn’t click that I wasn’t even learning my family’s tongue until the first day of class. How there are ethnicities within ethnicities within races. How there’s still a long ways to go before I understand where I come from. (I haven’t even put a dent into my white side). And even though Mandarin isn’t what I would’ve grown up with, it’s still helping me fill in the blanks of Chinese history I’ve lost through generations. And I want to continue on that course.