Stupid Tits and Other Cruel Childhood Memories

24 May 2017 Leave a comment

by Suelinhess in Childhood Memories, Communication, humor, Languages, Mother, teenagers, Uncategorized

Here is another pain in the ass assignment I had to write for my intercultural communications class.  I’m not sure I count this as writing, because after panicking about doing this last-minute, I decided to follow my son’s sage advice, “Relax Mama, don’t stress.  You don’t have to work so hard on it like usual.  It’s ok to do some half-assed work once in a while.”  I don’t know what dark place this memory barf came from, but it turns out I was a giant asshole when I was a kid…

English was my first language.  I grew up surrounded by many foreign languages, however, listening to my Chinese mother exclaim, “PAH-suh-woah!” when I would jump out and surprise her.  Literally, it means “scare-death-me.” The equivalent of “You scared me to death.” Or she would rub her tummy before a meal, roll her eyes and say, “Woah UH suh la!”  Again, the words literally meaning, “I hungry died.” The equivalent of “I’m starving to death.”  Because I was raised hearing the language formed in that way, I didn’t find it confusing. I just had to dial back my thinking to very simplified word combinations. The thing you say when you see a person after a long period of time – “Long time no see!”  That is a literal Chinese translation, “How jo bu-jen!”  We regularly spoke a hybridized version of English and Chinese in our home.  In Chinese, the Chinese language is called, “Jung-wen.”  We called our special language “Jung-glish.”    When I began to learn Chinese formally in school (unfortunately with my own mother as the teacher), I rebelled in teenage fashion and used my English to twist the Chinese.  Many Chinese words are homonyms; they are pronounced identically, but with a different tone to indicate the different meaning.  The casual word for Father (the equivalent of “Dad” in English) is “Baba”; with the emphasis on the first syllable. And the word for the way children say “poop” is also “baba” but the tone drops down and up on the first syllable and then the emphasis is on the last syllable.  Speaking Chinese is like singing a language. Unfortunately, meanings can be easily changed with different tones, and the “Ma” for mother can turn into “Ma” for horse or “Ma” to mean scolding. So as a teenager with an American attitude, being forced to suddenly transform into a proper Chinese daughter, complete with filial piety, I made horrible jokes like, “Dad was in a race and he stepped in dog poo as we are cheering him on. ‘Go Baba Go!  OH NO, Go-baba!  Go-baba!’” My parents were not amused. When we were young, we were cruel. My mother would lose her temper and start yelling at my sisters and me; and while she spoke fluent English, she never could say one word properly.  She never could say “stupid.”  It was always “stupid-tit.”  She would yell that we were acting “stupid-tit!” and my sisters and I would drolly reply, “Mom. We aren’t tits.”  I kick myself every time I remember those times.  Her accent (pg. 273) was strong in my early childhood, and we looked down on it, thinking the reason must have been because she didn’t learn her English well enough.  Later on, she would look me straight in the eye and say, “Considering I was born Chinese, I would say my English is pretty damn good. English is actually the most difficult language to learn in the world.  And it’s not just the words – sometimes I just don’t get you Americans. Be careful before you judge.”

 

Now the tables have been turned.  It is 40 years later, my mother is no longer living, and I am married to German man who spoke no English when we first met. He and our oldest daughter actually learned their English together when she first started speaking.  He is fluent now, and my German has not progressed past the level I learned in boarding school 35 years ago.  When I write letters to my mother-in-law, I pass them to my husband to proofread, and I always see in the corner of my eye, his shoulders begin shaking as he tries to suppress his laughter.  “WHAT!” I huff. He wipes tears from his eyes and giggles, “Honey, your letter is so cute…like it was written by a kindergartener!”  I felt just like my mom must have felt.  German has words like “Wintersturmwonnemondwende”.  It means “Delight at the changing of the seasons.”  They crammed all the individual words together; it literally means, “Winter-Storm-Bliss-Moon-Turning.”  Languages are complicated!  And as the NPR broadcast Shakespeare Had Roses All Wrong pointed out; when learning a language, we are not just learning the words, we are “learning whole cultural systems.” My stupid teenage antics were perfect examples of what not to do with my newly learned Chinese language; as I matured, I learned to be more mindful (pg. 289).  I learned to treat the language with the dignity that the Chinese people have for thousands of years.  I grew to appreciate the synergism between Chinese and the culture that my mother was attempting to share with me. I was the younger generation that was disappearing into the American culture, and she wanted to use her native language to pass down her culture to my generation (pg. 266) before we lost our ties with our heritage. The information learned in this chapter, teaching us about mindfulness (pg. 293) with learning new languages, explaining how words can be misinterpreted for many reasons, and how to be aware of conversation taboos (pg. 293) would have been quite useful in teaching the teenage version of me how to use my second language competently in an intercultural context (pg. 293)

A Little Snippet of Family History and My Culture

02 May 2017 Leave a comment

by Suelinhess in Uncategorized

I had to write a few paragraphs in my Intercultural Communication class, today.  The question was assigned by my teacher, a unicultural white woman, who, surprisingly, continues to mistakenly believe that all of her students come from families of one race, one religion, one culture, and who remain in the same town they were born in.  This is not the first time I have had to step away from the herd and be the odd man out. Would the real 3rd Culture Kids please stand up, please stand up, please stand up…

“Question: Identify two elements of your culture’s history,  Think of: the geography of the locale you were enculturated, historical events within your culture, myths, heroes (not marvel/comic), or stories that have impacted how you think and you see the world today.  Analyze the impact of these two elements on your psyche today.”

This is what I wrote (pg references were just to terms in the textbook):

Elements in my personal culture’s history exist due to a blend of cultures: Chinese and American (Midwestern United States). Although raised in different countries, in entirely different circumstances, both of my parents shared the values they placed on strength in the face of adversity and family as the center of all in the face of change; these are the values I have continued with my own children.

Both of my parents’ constructions of worldviews (pg 195) could trace their origins to their individual cultures’ histories (pg 195) and the emphasis they placed on behaving to make our ancestors proud.  Although raised as an American living overseas most of my life, and possessing a culturally differing perspective of historical events than my mother and father had, I share these values due to the independent, protected environment we built around our family as we travelled.

From my mother’s perspective, she was born while the Nationalist Party was in control of the government in China.  When the Communists rose up in revolution, both of her parents (my Nai-Nai and Yeh-Yeh) dedicated that part of their lives to serving as spies for the Nationalist government.  My mother spent the first 10 years of her life on the run with her parents, or hiding with her sisters and brother; sheltered by relatives or friends of the family while my grandparents were undercover.  When the Communists took over, my mother, her parents, one sister, and her brother were able to escape to Taiwan. Her oldest sister chose to stay behind with her husband and was subsequently tortured, which haunted my mother until the day she died.  My mother was only 10 years old at that time, but she vividly remembered her parents’ passion to fight against a government that would choose to imprison the academics, the artists, and anyone who did not follow Chairman Mao. Coming from a family of nobility, they all had to start from scratch in Taiwan; my mother publishing news articles and selling her paintings to pay her way through university.  Through it all, as many Chinese did and do, she was fully supported by her family; they were her world. On the other side of the world, my father was raised in the Midwest; Davenport Iowa.  His family, like many Americans, had ancestors who were part of the early settlement of America; his great great aunt was one of the first women to take advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862.  She staked a homestead in Wyoming, persevered, and against all odds successfully gained ownership of the land.  That land has been passed down to each generation on my grandmother’s side since then; shared equally by siblings. Today, shared by my father, aunt, and uncle, the former homestead is uninhabitable marshland; its monetary value only existing in mineral rights. However, its historical and cultural significance in our family is invaluable.  When I cried as a child, tired of moving to different countries for my father’s job, I was admonished and told, “We are a family of nomads and pioneers; your ancestors survived being uprooted; they grew stronger with each experience. You have brave blood!  And anywhere you move, you are home.  Your family makes it so.” I never truly understood until I grew older.  Only as an adult could I fully appreciate the past and how it helped me to establish my own identity.  It was one thing that I could draw strength from in a world full of uncertainty and change. It was unique and nobody else could lay claim to it; it made me feel special.

Today, I am continuing the legacy; the history and my family’s unique culture that I share with my children.  We also travel the world for my husband’s job.  And each time we move, when one (or more) of my children is sad or rebellious, I tell them, “Be strong.  Your family is made of nomads; strong pioneers who might be frightened of change, but still they fight to survive. You are never alone; we are each other’s best friends until you make more friends in our new home.  Home is not a geographical place; home is where your family is.”