Broken Chi/Fre-nglish

In preparation for the Chinese New Year supper my parents hosted this past weekend, my folks and I planned a trip to Costco at the end of last week. They have this pre-marinated pork roast that my mom wanted to try. At this point of their lives (and ours, with all of the siblings now parents of young children), the less complicated the dinner, the better.

We thought we would go for some dim sum lunch before our trip to the warehouse. After G's preschool program in the morning, we went to a local Chinese restaurant, where my parents go at least once a week. We were greeted warmly by the manager and all the servers, as my parents are well known regulars. Of course, this was all in Cantonese.

As I'm not with them very often, my mother introduced me to everyone who came up, proudly showing off her little granddaughter. And a few of them would look at G and say "Mixed? Look at those big eyes!". My mother would respond, "Yes, but my daughter also has big eyes. Look at them." And others would be "Oh, but your daughter looks like she could be mixed too." My mother "Well, no, she's not." Dad's just sitting there, smiling, but not saying anything. And me, no I'm not saying anything either. Because I'm not that comfortable speaking Cantonese, even though I pretty much understand everything that's being said.

Which my mother apparently forgets. She continues her conversation, bragging about all of my accomplishments as if I'm not there. You know, that the eldest daughter is currently at home but started her own consulting business, oh and she did get a degree at U of T, and then got another three letters from business school, yes a very smart girl. Did you know that she also did very well at piano and she excelled in ballet (ok, last time I did any ballet was perhaps about 30 years ago!!) Eldest daughter's husband does a lot of travelling so it makes sense that she's home now with the kids... and the grandson is very smart and doing well now too.

And when people ask whether G speaks Chinese, Mom says that she doesn't. After all, her own kids don't even speak because their father has spoken to all his kids only in English while growing up. All Dad's fault.

During these episodes I've learned just to smile, and respond in English, whenever I can get a word in edgewise. I love my mother, she's one of the kindest-hearted, generous people I know. But this is one thing about her that I find annoying... she's likes to brag. About any little thing.

While this discussion is continuing about language skills, or lack thereof, my little girl decides to pipe up. She starts mumbling a little bit, and then saying quite loudly to our server ... "Bon Joo, Bon joo, BON JOO!!!".

I try to figure out what she's saying, and then it dawns on me. She's saying "Bonjour". Let's throw a little French into the conversation. I thought I was confused before, but I suppose this is what happens in Canada, where there are two official languages, and a multitude of cultures.

*******

When Ian and I decided to have children, we had an understanding that we would expose them to as much Chinese culture as we could. We think it's important that they know their heritage.

Although my father had come over quite young, I was part of the first generation of our family actually born here. And I grew up during a time when, while not really denying my heritage, we made more effort to embrace what was more of an anglo-Canadian way of life. My father was actually very much like that himself. I think I was just more a product of what was happening in the country at the time. I was usually the only, or one of two Chinese kids in my class while living in the burbs. It wasn't until high school that more kids were coming into our schools from Hong Kong.

Nowadays, you can live, work, get a driver's license, do pretty much anything without speaking a word of English.

With the language, we did attempt to keep L in the Cantonese weekend program a couple of years ago. But it was very difficult to cultivate that, as the way of teaching is very much rote, pure memorization (there's no alphabet), old school, dry and boring. And with me not very confident with the language myself, and L just becoming progressively more stressed and miserable about classes every week, we pulled him out. We have to give him kudos for getting through at least one year, his teacher said he really tried hard, but he was certainly at a disadvantage without having stronger backup at home. Having gone through several years of Chinese instruction myself as a kid, and miserably (how much do I remember now?!) I couldn't subject my son to that.

For now we're at least trying to keep up with as many of the traditions as a family, with my parents, siblings and relatives. Chinese New Year being one of the most important of them. The kids at least are quite responsive to that.

*****

While we were busy getting ready to go to the grandparents' for the big feast, to spend some fun time with uncles, aunts and the babies, G was excitedly chattering about the reason for the party.

"I'm Chinese, Goh goh (ie. big brother L) is Chinese, you're Chinese, Mommy" and looking at her father she continued ..."and Daddy's just plain!"

(By George, I think she's got it!)

Well, at least she didn't call him boring!