Whenever I meet someone new here in Washington, they’re always surprised that I am not from around here, as I speak ‘perfect English’, or rather, ‘perfect American’.

And then I tell them that where I come from, all of us speak ‘perfect English’ - or quite a number of us. As for the accent, it is for your benefit, my American friends, just so you can understand me better. I do not ’slang’ (Malaysian word for using an accent) with my husband or when I speak to my parents and friends. To help Raeven integrate more smoothly, I practise ‘the slang’ with her at home. It’s hard enough accidentally popping out words like ”torch light’ and ‘it’s drizzling’ and drawing long, puzzled stares from new friends or the neighbourhood supermarket cashier, without also complicating things with a slipped ‘lah’ or ‘what?!’, like in, “you’re thin as a lamp post, what?!”.

As a child, I never learned much Chinese. Most of the Cantonese I know is from my Koo Ma aka my dad’s older sis, and Chinese serials. For some reason - perhaps it has to do with both my parents being English teachers - Chinese was not allowed at home. In fact, I remember Dad fining my sis and I ten sen each time we uttered a word of Cantonese at home. At the time, everyone was very impressed with how much English we knew.

But my dad is not all to blame for the deplorable state of my sis’ and my Chinese. Despite it being counter-productive to my dad’s efforts to exorcise any and all Chinese from our systems, I was sent for after-school Chinese classes for four years during my adolescence, classes which I hated because they were as boring as my piano lessons. All those lines and lines of characters we had to write over and over and over again. The way Chinese, or rather Mandarin, was taught to me was through memorising, which was just as well, because all of it made no logical sense to my eight or nine-year old head. Some experts believe that kids after five or six begin to require logic in learning for it to stick, which is why younger children (as in toddlers, preschoolers) find it easier to learn languages than grown-ups. They don’t need to understand the inconsistent (and often nonsensical) patterns in grammar to remember it. My Chinese teacher seemed to understand this too well.

“MEMORISE IT!” she would say loudly each day. It was like telling us to SIT! or PAY ATTENTION! or KEEP QUIET! We were nine and the classes were at three in the afternoon. How I managed four years of it without being sent home once was a miracle. Fat lot of good it did me, looking at the sorry state of my Chinese today.

Today, the girls and I went visiting at Mia’s house, my Taiwanese friend. We hadn’t seen each other in a while after the move to Duvall, and since it was Chinese New Year, we decided to have a little pot luck and playdate. This was our, what I liked to call, ‘ethnic’ get-together, because all the ladies there except for me and another, were Taiwanese or China Chinese married to Americans. As such, all of them spoke Mandarin, whether China Mandarin (which would, logically, be called Chinese, right?) or Taiwanese. I and another Malaysian Chinese friend, Rachel, were the only ones who spoke mostly Cantonese, but understood a fair amount of Mandarin. I figured it was a good way to practise the language, and for the girls to pick it up, since they ARE Chinese.

Many times, the moms at the playdate would start to say something to me in Mandarin, and then they’d remember that I don’t speak it, and then struggle politely to translate in their heads to English quickly, their faces wrought with exasperation trying to locate English equivalents for when there are none. Midway, they would give up and revert to Mandarin. Sometimes I get it. Most of the time, I don’t.

During those times, embarassment engulfs me. What they must think of me, I would wonder, while cursing at the back of my mind at my old man for all those years of brainwashing Chinese out of our brains. What I wouldn’t give to go back in time and take all my ten sens back and telling my dad to just mind his own business.

To be honest, I’ve never wanted to be more Chinese until I came to America, if only to fit into the expectations that people have of me, and to ensure that my kids know who and what they are when they grow up. I know, I know, it sounds stupid, but really, wouldn’t I be denying my girls their heritage if I did not try, even if it’s a little too late?

However, the truth is that ethnically, I’ve always felt more Malaysian than I do Chinese. ‘The system’ worked. Well, sort of. I speak better Malay than I do Cantonese or Mandarin. I prefer Malaysian food to like Shanghainese food. I don’t even like Hakka food, which is what I’m supposed to be. And sure, I may love Chinese New Year, but I like Hari Raya and Deepavali just as much.

Is this bad? I don’t think so.

Maybe my kids will grow up more American than they are Malaysian or Chinese. A lot of people - and most will be Chinese, I wager - may look at this as a bad thing because we will be branded as ‘losing our roots’ and ‘forgetting our heritage’. But I believe that we can only make ourselves to be what we want to be in the end. As a parent, I can only do so much to make sure they’re exposed to their own culture and heritage, and that of others, for as long as they are willing to absorp it. 

After all, it’s just one more thing we need to add to the List of Lessons, being:

• teach children to be kind but firm
• compassionate but are able to see the BIG picture
• responsible but easy-going
• truthful but tactful
• useful but street-smart
• filial but independent
• hardworking but remain alert for opportunities
• ambitious but grounded
• in touch with their feelings but not act out
• loving but strong

Great. Guess I’d better get cracking.

But first, some coffee.