I don't know any Cantonese outside of counting to ten. This has always bothered me, since there are people in my family - people who *live* in the States - who I literally cannot talk to. I wish I could hold a conversation with my grandmother without a translator, for example... I love her, and I love spending time with her, but we can never talk.
I've tried to learn Cantonese, and I've tried to learn Mandarin, and both have fallen short. I'm just horrible with languages. Does this make me less Chinese-American? Possibly. A lot of people are stunned when I say that I'm half Chinese. (It must be the pasty white skin and freckles. ;P) And I feel guilty about all of it at times, like I somehow, inexplicably, let an entire people down.
So, I understand where you're coming from. I've done my best to come to terms with it, though. I've gone to China and Hong Kong, and I want to go again. It feels very vaguely like home while still being totally foreign. I listen to Cantonese music. I watch Cantonese movies with my mother, and I crack her up with my assumptions as to what *must* be going on when I honestly have no clue what anyone's saying.
It's just that there's only so much I can do without learning the language, and at this point, the possibility of learning it (particularly with my difficulty with foreign languages) is pretty slim.
If someone asks me where I'm from and what I am, I end up saying, "American." The United States has always been described as a melting pot... in reality, it's also part tossed salad: bits of culture remaining distinct from each other. But some of us do end up melting. And it's not any more right or wrong than the other way. I wouldn't be me, and you probably wouldn't be you, otherwise.
In short, I guess, I sympathize. And the guy who accused you of abandoning your culture? He probably didn't mean to be, but what an ass.
no subject
I've tried to learn Cantonese, and I've tried to learn Mandarin, and both have fallen short. I'm just horrible with languages. Does this make me less Chinese-American? Possibly. A lot of people are stunned when I say that I'm half Chinese. (It must be the pasty white skin and freckles. ;P) And I feel guilty about all of it at times, like I somehow, inexplicably, let an entire people down.
So, I understand where you're coming from. I've done my best to come to terms with it, though. I've gone to China and Hong Kong, and I want to go again. It feels very vaguely like home while still being totally foreign. I listen to Cantonese music. I watch Cantonese movies with my mother, and I crack her up with my assumptions as to what *must* be going on when I honestly have no clue what anyone's saying.
It's just that there's only so much I can do without learning the language, and at this point, the possibility of learning it (particularly with my difficulty with foreign languages) is pretty slim.
If someone asks me where I'm from and what I am, I end up saying, "American." The United States has always been described as a melting pot... in reality, it's also part tossed salad: bits of culture remaining distinct from each other. But some of us do end up melting. And it's not any more right or wrong than the other way. I wouldn't be me, and you probably wouldn't be you, otherwise.
In short, I guess, I sympathize. And the guy who accused you of abandoning your culture? He probably didn't mean to be, but what an ass.