Jacob Wang Week 11: Literally Language and Power
I used to hate having to learn Chinese (I still do). Ever since my childhood, I have talked to my parents in Mandarin, while also taking classes. Although I still do not like learning it, I have grown to appreciate being bilingual. The ability to use language itself is a type of power. My proficiency in it has given me a meaningful and stronger connection to my other Chinese peers. It also helps to be able to understand their conversations, almost like a "secret" (but not really) method of communication. I can listen to Chinese songs, understand goofy Chinese references, make silly Chinese jokes with friends; there is so much value to be found in a language.
I remember yesterday, during our awesome and totally very fun one hour forty minutes of note taking, I encountered a question that asked me if I would be able to leave the United States and live somewhere else. My initial reaction was a very vehement no, but as I thought about it, I realized that my parent's prescience in forcing me to learn a second language gives me the opportunity to possibly live in China if needs be, although I would not do very well. I see now that although I will always be more familiar with English, and getting here was painful, I am now truly grateful for having the opportunity to learn Chinese.
Also a somewhat relevant but also irrelevant thing is that a secondary language helps me in my blindfolded cube solving. For background, when memorizing the cube you convert part of your memorization into pairs of letters that you associate with words. For example, if I were to try to think of a word for CT it would obviously be CaT, but QN would be really difficult in English. However, if I mix in some Chinese words, QN would be laughably easy, becoming QiN, or piano.
Hi Jacob! As someone who also grew up in a house where English was not the primary spoken language, I truly relate to your feelings of power when you are bilingual and can connect with your culture through language. As I grew up in India for over 10 years, I have a strong command of Hindi, which gives me not only the power to communicate with my family and friends back in India, but also understand cultural references like the ones you mention in your blog. As an immigrant, I often felt that I was hindered by my accent and difference in cultural references, but your ideas on how such difference is powerful has made me rethink how I look at my cultural background. As you mentioned being able to live in another country, this is something I never really thought about, but if I were to live in another country, my native country would most definitely be my first choice due to my familiarity with both the culture and the language. I really appreciate your reflective blog on how your knowledge of your native language has shaped your perspective on yourself and your culture!
ReplyDeleteHi Jacob! I totally relate with your perspective on being a bilingual speaker in a secondary language-driven household. I feel like speaking to your parents in your native language an help connect you with your culture and that with your description of how it can be seen as a power makes it really interesting. I also found it cool that you can go live in another country, if needed to, because you can speak the native Language there. If I were to live in my native country, I think I would do pretty well considering I can speak m secondary lkanguage pretty well. The fact that it also helps you cube is also really cool. I appreciate how reflective you blog has been on me and my own culture and the power behind it!
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