Source: Me.
I’m trying to hang on Cantonese and Mandarin as much as possible, but it’s so fucking hard because Cantonese is so triggering of my traumatic memories, and Mandarin just reminds of the CCP. Like… in my mind its so hard to separate langage from parents or a regime.
Oh yeah, this is super relatable.
I have a very complicated relationship with my heritage. (I come from a Middle Eastern country.)
As a teen I would stay up at night wishing I was white (because my white friends’ parents were OK with me being queer. They showed me a kind of love my life was so sorely lacking in.)
Whenever I’d come home I’d have to put the proverbial mask back on, but no matter what, I couldn’t work my way out of being a disappointment to the family. I felt like a prisoner in my own house and I knew other people had it different.
My mother also used to throw my medication (antidepressants) away because “chemicals bad” and it’ll “ruin [my] brain”, essentially. And so I’d deal with withdrawal too.
I was victimised by a combination of difficult life circumstances, and (really, mostly) a rigid, conservative, and intolerant culture.
As an adult now, my feelings about this are not so black and white; I am proud of where I’m from. But I do feel for younger me. And I’m still damaged from my childhood. Always will be.
If it makes you feel any better, there’s no shortage of Mandarin or Cantonese speakers in the world, so you shouldn’t feel guilty if you don’t want to speak them yourself.
Maybe figure out if any of your ancestors spoke any of these, and learn that instead?
It’s good you’re able to be open about it all a little there good buddy.
Stay strong♡
Probably not more than the society they are being assimilatrd into hating immigrants and their language and culture.
Ironically, it was actually the adversity I faced when I first arrived in the US that, at first, made me more attached to my language. I remember just writing down the Chinese characters of my name just to kinda “show off” a bit, that I’m unique. I even learned the traditional characters to make it look “cooler”. I wrote it on my notebook covers and on assignments, right next to the “Pinyin name”. Even though I kinda forgot like basically all other characters (can read, can’t write, characters are hard, no time to practice lol).
I remember like sometime I’d write stuff in Pinyin for fun. Nobody in school can read it. Like a secret code.
Then over time, as I moved up in school, after I finally learned English. And also as you get older, kids tend to mature and are less racist. Then the scale shifts, suddenly, the emotional trauma I faced at home is worse than what I faced on the outside world. So now, even if I just hear a Cantonese song, that I actually like, and it still, it keeps remind me of my parents.
Like, you see. 99% of interactions in Cantonese are with my parents and older brother. they suck. so that feeling naturally is associated with the language.
For English, its only 50% bad, 50% good or at least “fine”, so I feel more negativity about Chinese languages. Even with Mandarin, which I don’t speak at home. I hear all their WeChat shit on loudspeakers. It reminds me of CCP. One Child Policy, I’m the 2nd child. So that’s why. So the Chinese languages are just “tainted” in my mind, subconsciously.
It’s complicated, hard to explain.
This was the main reason my mom’s side didn’t pass language down. Not even food! Just assimilate 🤷♂️ But they were peasants in a new country so best to make it work in the easiest way possible. It sounds like OP has it pretty rough 🙁
This isn’t a shower thought.
I’m in a shower of my own tears
Edit: Lmfao, nice modlog.
Archived just in case: https://archive.ph/u8CMA
